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[Approximately halfway between Tau Ceti and 40 Eridani A]
I wasn’t having the best day, if I was being totally honest. Some days, the monotony of our journey and the anxiety of not knowing what lies ahead just get to me more than others, and today was apparently one of those days. I felt restless, bored, and flighty, and I worried that I was annoying Rocky with my constant fidgeting and prowling around the ship accomplishing nothing. He obviously knew something was up, but it wasn’t anything I could put into words and explain; it was just a weird feeling in my bones.
Eventually, as Mary began cycling from daytime mode into nighttime, Rocky suggested that we spend the evening having a proper, deep conversation. Sharing things about our respective home worlds and cultures was one of the few things I could really get absorbed in, and more often than not, it helped when I felt like this. I settled into my bed on the floor of the dormitory so Rocky, in his shiny new xenonite suit, could be close by.
I’m not sure what we started out talking about; no doubt Rocky had something interesting to ask me, and it spiralled from there. Whatever it was, somehow we ended up on the topic of body modifications. Piercings, tattoos, that kind of thing. Rocky gave me a guided tour of his own markings and stones once again. He’d already covered the topic with me before, but with his new suit, I could get a much closer look and appreciate them much better. I especially loved the stone he had set into his leg that represented Adrian. I wondered if the colour somehow matched them. Rocky had no way to know, so that would be a discovery I would have to make for myself on Erid.
”Grace have modifications too but not show Rocky. Why, question?” He asked.
I frowned.
”I don’t have any modifications like yours,” I said, my right hand moving up to my left ear subconsciously. “I mean, I got my ear pierced when I was in college because I thought it might make me look cool, but all that happened was that I cried in a piercing studio and then people called me Magic Earring Ken for six months before I let it heal over.”
Rocky gave me the look he always does when I’m obviously making more stupid Earth culture references than he cares to understand.
“Rocky can see cartilage in one ear thicker than other. Not what Rocky means. Rocky mean designs on Grace arm.”
”What?” I ask, twisting myself around to try and examine every part of my arms. Surely I’d have noticed if I had a tattoo somewhere? I could very easily have forgotten getting it, but I would have at least noticed it by now, right?
Rocky reached out and took my left hand in his, twisting it over gently so the underside of my left arm was exposed.
”Here,” he said, drawing one finger gently along the skin. I squinted to see what he was pointing out, then suddenly had a sickening flash of understanding and wrenched my arm away from him, wrapping both arms around myself protectively. Dammit, I was crying again. Why was I always crying?
”Grace?” Rocky asked gently, "Is bad? You think Rocky not notice?” He was worried that he’d upset me.
"Sorry, bud,” I replied quietly, trying to wipe away my tears on my sleeve. “Bad memories. Bad bad bad.”
”Someone hurt Grace, question?” He asked, now sounding both upset and angry.
”Something like that,” I agreed, hoping he wouldn’t push it but knowing he would. I already knew from experience that he wanted to get angry at whoever had hurt me, but that instinct was going to backfire badly.
”Grace not know question?”
I couldn’t bear to look at him.
”Grace hurt Grace," I almost whispered, wondering idly why I was talking about myself in the third person. I think maybe it helped me distance myself. I didn’t do that to myself; another version of me, someone else, did.
”Grace… do harm to self on purpose, question?” Rocky asked in the quietest voice I had ever heard him use. I nodded mutely, unable to make myself say it.
Rocky reached out and put his hand on my arm, silently asking for permission. I granted it, allowing him to take my arm again and look closely. The inside of my forearm was crisscrossed with numerous ghostly white lines, and if you looked closely just above my elbow and squinted, some of those lines vaguely resembled the word ‘love’.
“Rocky not understand,” he said, bringing me back to myself. “Grace very fragile, very precious. Why damage self on purpose, question?”
”I was…” I stammered, not sure how to explain it to myself, let alone to Rocky. “I was in a bad place. A really bad place inside my head for a long time. It hurt so bad inside my head, and I couldn’t get the pain out. It was kind of, if I had physical pain on the outside, then my body had to focus on that so the pain on the inside wouldn’t feel quite as bad for a little while. I’d get a really thin blade and make these little cuts until it got too much. It doesn’t really make sense, but I guess it did to me at the time. The inside pain always came back worse, though. I don’t know why I kept doing it for so long. I think maybe I hoped someone would notice and realise how much pain I was in, and then maybe they’d help me without me having to ask for help. I couldn’t bring myself to ask; I didn’t think I was worth helping. No one ever did notice, though. Not back then.”
Rocky is silent for a moment, still tracing the marks on my arm with one claw extremely gently. He moves up to the marks above my elbow.
”This say ‘love’, statement.”
His ability to read English so well already still amazes me.
”Yeah. When I did that, I thought I’d never be loved by anyone again, so the only way I would get to feel love was by literally carving it into myself and letting it hurt.”
Rocky makes a sound the translator can’t parse. I don’t think it’s a word; I think it’s something more animalistic than that.
”What happen make Grace feel so bad question?”
I sigh. Everyone always says that talking about these things with someone who cares can really help. I know Rocky cares about me a lot, so it's better to just rip the band-aid off, I guess.
“You remember I told you about that conference, where I insulted the man who was at the top of my field?”
”Yes, Grace tell Rocky about this.”
”It was after that. I lost everything. My job, most of my friends, the career I had been building my whole life in a field I loved. It was all just gone, ripped out from under me in a matter of days. I had no money, no idea what my future would look like, no way to pay rent or buy food. I had to leave my apartment and crash on the couch of the one friend who stuck by me.” I swallow hard.
“What I didn’t tell you before was that the conference happened a few weeks after my mom died. I was in a really bad place and I shouldn’t have gone, but I knew there was someone else attending who would have used me not showing up as a reason to make me seem unreliable and undeserving of future opportunities. I was grieving hard and I was incredibly angry with the world, and I did something incredibly stupid and ruined my life. I hated myself. Really truly hated myself. I felt like I deserved that pain.”
”Grace never deserve pain,” Rocky says emphatically, and it actually makes me smile a little. “Grace not hurt self on purpose now, question?”
”No, no”, I assure him. “Not for a long time. Not since I started training to become a teacher. I had to have my sleeves rolled up quite a lot doing experiments in class, and I didn’t want the kids to ever see anything like that on me, so I forced myself to stop. It was hard but I got there eventually."
“Rocky happy Grace no hurt self now. But Rocky sad Rocky first person to notice Grace scars,” he says, “Rocky sad Grace not have other humans pay close attention to see.”
“Actually, you’re wrong,” I tell him. “I said nobody noticed at the time. Somebody did, years later.”
Rocky cocks his carapace to one side adorably.
“Stratt saw the scars when I was having a medical exam she insisted on sitting in on; she knew I was terrified of needles, and I think she knew her being there to hold my hand was the only way to stop me bolting when they needed to check my blood. She didn’t say anything during the exam, but when it was done, she took me back to her office and asked. She wanted to make sure they were old, that I wasn’t hurting myself due to stress from the Project. I promised I wasn't, and that was that, but I’m pretty sure I noticed her glancing at my arms now and then if my sleeves were up as if she were checking. It made me feel seen in a weird way. I think she cared about me much more than she let on.”
Rocky huffs. I might have forgiven Stratt but I suspect he never will, and I’m weirdly grateful for that. It’s comforting to have someone who cares so much that they carry your resentments for you even after you’re done with them.
I make the mistake of yawning, which immediately sets off Rocky’s mother hen mode and has him chasing me into the bathroom to get ready for sleep. The bathroom has the only mirror on board Mary and I stare into it while I clean my teeth. When I was hurting myself all those years and millions of miles ago, I couldn’t imagine having any kind of future, certainly not one where I got to be a scientist again and make discoveries that will change history for multiple solar systems. I wish I could go back and tell that version of myself that it would all work out OK in the end. Instead I let my fingers trace over the word love and bask in the knowledge that now, I get to feel love every day from the very best friend a guy could ever wish for.