Free Nova by Margaret Fortune Page B

hub.
    I finger the items one by one. This boxful is a king’s ransom for someone like me, who can carry everything she owns tucked into one small sleeping roll. I wonder: does it make me a thief, to accept things under false pretenses? Would Taylor take it all back if she knew I wasn’t Lia? I don’t think she would, and it’s that understanding, more than anything, that pricks my dormant conscience.
    I think back to the evening with Michael’s family. I didn’t go out of any expectation or desire, but because it was easier to say yes to Michael than no. At times, I felt awkward and out of place, like an extra piece trying to fit into a puzzle that’s already been completed. And yet . . . Taylor’s hand on my shoulder, the easy way she and Michael came to my rescue when I didn’t know the answer to a question, Michael’s and Teal’s fingers in mine during grace. For a few short moments, there was a place for me in that puzzle, too.
    No, I remind myself after a moment. Not for me. For Lia.
    Still, as I curl up in the white blanket and lay my head down on the pillow, I can’t help wondering for the first time since waking up in the hygiene unit if maybe being alive isn’t the worst thing in the world after all.

11 THOSE LONG HOURS OF LYING on my cot doing nothing are over. I know it as soon as I wake the next day. Instead of that dull heaviness pressing me down into my bed, I feel a new energy pushing me up into the day. Michael’s coming, his searching me out after all I did to evade him, his folding me into his family for those few short hours—they’ve changed me somehow. Not in any way I can pinpoint or explain, but they’ve changed me all the same. The heaviness has been replaced by a restlessness; the will to die by, perhaps, not a true desire to live, but at least by an acceptance that I have.
    I see Michael off and on over the next week. School is less formal on the station than it was on Aurora, with students having the option to attend in person or link in either live or after the fact. It explains how Michael was able to come look for me those first few afternoons on the station. However, he still has to attend his classes sometimes—Taylor is too responsible a guardian to let him get behind—and though he doesn’t say it, I know Michael must have a life beyond me. Friends, activities, maybe even a girlfriend for all I know.
    Still, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed the first day he links me to say he won’t be coming by. The feeling surprises me. Before, I would have been perfectly content if I never saw him again. Relieved, even. Not anymore. Somehow between our first meeting on Level Seven and that evening in his home on the Upper Habitat Ring, I’ve gotten used to Michael. Started to like him, even, rather than simply tolerating his presence because he was Lia’s friend. Perhaps it’s because, even though I’m not
his
friend, he’s still mine.
    Then again, maybe it’s simple boredom that draws me to him, I muse as I step off the lift onto Level Eight. It’s my tenth day on the station and already boredom has become second nature to me. As a returned POW, I’m not required to attend classes, nor do I have a job or any assigned chores. Aside from sleeping and eating, there isn’t much to do besides walk around the hub—an activity I’ve done a hundred times now. Too bad Michael’s not around. He linked me earlier to say he would be attending classes, so I’m on my own today. As I head for my sleeping quarters, I try to think of something to do. There’s always Taylor’s reader, I remind myself. Though I’ve never been much of one for reading, it’s better than nothing.
    I blink as I walk into the bay. Never much of one for reading? Now was that Lia’s preference or my own? Between her hidden memories and my forgotten ones, sometimes it’s hard to tell where I begin and she ends.
    Pushing past a group of milling refugees, I make my way to my corner only to stop