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It’s been a while since my biodome was completed. The majority of the project is done, and a massive success at that—all that’s left is to report the minor issues I have to the scientists managing it, if any even arise, and none have in weeks. Otherwise, I have no responsibilities for the foreseeable future. I have all the time in the world simply to live.
Which, I’m finding, is increasingly difficult for one small reason.
Rocky has been with me throughout everything. Waiting for my living quarters on Erid to be situated, struggling with the issues like temperature and humidity and technical problems, every little hiccup. I’ve tried to detach from him as much as I can—he has a life outside of me! He has Adrian, his family and friends, work to do as an engineer, everything. I shouldn’t be his main priority, especially now.
But he insisted on that being the case. That I need company, that I can’t be alone for too long at a time, that I need to take things in slowly with help. It was as frustrating as I can convince myself it was, which wasn’t much. Even if I pretended to hate it for his sake, I honestly didn’t mind the attention.
Attention that is waning. Just as I’ve pushed for, he’s been learning to manage his time better. Regular visits, but not for too long, and no longer daily. Less time spent by my side, less time spent stuck to his. I like independence—is what I try to tell myself. I like being unneeded, a cog in the machine, on the sidelines. I wanted a life inconsequential and routine with no external factors.
I can’t do it. None of it has been true in years. I haven’t been the cog, the well-liked but ultimately unremarkable science teacher in some middle school in San Francisco, in almost a decade of my time. Trying to force myself back into some semblance of normalcy will never work. I live on an alien planet for Pete's sake!
It’s all noise. Stress for stress’s sake, distracting me from the main issue but ultimately making it worse in the long run. I ruminate on how much I “like” being in the background of Rocky’s eventful life that I miss the part where I believe I’m there at all. It’s a sort of coping mechanism, to ignore and deny the fact that I can’t live without Rocky and he can live without me. My normal has become Rocky, but I suppose I was only temporary.
…Jeez, can my inner monologue be a little more coherent? I suppose it’s normal not to be particularly stable after years alone, and years after that depending on one single person [sic] for your emotional and mental wellbeing. Surely that gave me some sort of disorder. The medical thrum will be overjoyed to hear.
Ugh, whatever. I can find a way to get over it. If he learned how to ease off of me, I should, too. And so I have… tried. I’ve done everything to reassure myself to the point I’m genuinely reading self-help books about it. I always thought those things were stupid, and I still do! Where I end up is researching some junk called borderline personality disorder on a PDF on my laptop. The session isn’t very productive, and gives me a lot of unhelpful answers which only generate far more upsetting questions. (What do I do if he’s not human? Does it still work? Can I not develop it as an adult? What does it mean if I didn’t??)
It does manage to help in the end, in that I have better ideas for coping mechanisms now. There’s plenty of healthier distractions in the form of hobbies, like exercise or art. But I’m not particularly good at art in any capacity, and hobbling around on my cane is the best I can do for exercise. No matter! I have other hobbies!
Like, uh… talking to Rocky. Or walking on the beach—more fun with Rocky. Or writing things up for Eridian scientific journals… which Rocky typically helps with. Or maybe discussing terrestrial and Eridian cultural discrepancies with an Eridian scientist. Or with Rocky.
Nevermind. I can’t distract myself from the pain if I have no way to do so. I need a better plan. Maybe instead of covering the hole, I can try to fill it?
This is how I end up hugging a pillow to sleep every night.
It’s embarrassing. It’s unbelievably childish. It’s pathetic, to encompass all the words I want to say about it. But what’s more pathetic than finding company, for the first time in your life, in first contact with an alien species? I’m a unique specimen who deserves unique exceptions. Maybe I don’t deserve them, but…
The pillow is one of those chunky, sort of squarish things, stitched in a way to hold a somewhat rectangular shape. It’s worn and doesn’t hold that shape much anymore, as with everything I’ve kept from the Hail Mary, but it does its job fine. That job is now “resemble Rocky enough that I don’t miss him anymore”.
At first I tried laying it on top of me and sleeping on my back. To go with the whole “sleeping on my chest” thing and to mesh with my natural sleeping position. Eventually, though, I caved and began sleeping with it scrunched between my arms and legs, almost in the fetal position. I could care less at this point how pathetic I was, or how much my back and neck hurt when I woke up.
To say it helps would be a lie. It barely does the thing I dug it out for. In fact, I think it makes it worse; the blank off-white surface only makes it easier to imagine something else there, something rough and twice my size and weight and uncomfortably warm even through the suit.
The pillow is room temperature, not even cold, and not big nor heavy nor textured enough to emulate my friend. All in all, the attempt is a failure and an uncomfortable reminder. Something keeps me from scrapping the idea altogether, though. As if it’ll work eventually if I get over it.
My hand runs against the fabric. Maybe it’s fine. The xenonite suit Rocky wears in the biodome might not be as smooth as the pillow, but it doesn’t perfectly conform to his exoskeleton either. But it’s missing the texture unique to xenonite, the microscopic gaps between semi-flexible panels where they connect. I never even thought about stuff like that before now.
Well, lingering on the imperfections in my plan are just going to keep me up. I’m particularly restless tonight, and I don’t want to kick up a bad sleep schedule. I roll over and shut my eyes once I’ve gotten settled.
A few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door.
On Erid, I rarely have worries about who could be knocking at my door. Whereas on Earth there’d be literally billions of possibilities, in the biodome, I can count the reasons for a visit on one hand. Sometimes the scientists come to tell me things in person, but they know my schedule, and I’m supposed to be sleeping right now. Clearly it’s not them. In case of an emergency, maybe they would come to my door, but I doubt it. No alarm?
Occasionally, a group of young researchers, Eridian equivalent to grad students, will come interview me. But the same issue arises—it’s late. They wouldn’t dare let someone in here at this time.
I’m out of options that make sense. Except for…one. Because it doesn’t make sense. Why would he be here?
I’m up and out of bed faster than I can walk, clutching my cane in one hand and my laptop in the other. I can normally understand Eridian just fine, especially Rocky’s dialect, but I prefer the translator for now until I’m fully fluent. It’s not easy to carry all that way, though.
I’m staring down at something in the dark and I don’t need my glasses to see what—who. He seems shocked, maybe that I have the laptop or that I’m awake at all.
Why is Rocky at my door?
“Hello, Grace.”
My chest is tight, but I speak just fine. “Hi. Why are you here so late? Is something wrong?”
“No! Nothing wrong. Thrum would tell Grace, not me, statement.” As I adjust the computer in my arm, its light just barely reflects against Rocky’s xenonite suit. “Wanted to visit.”
That admission puzzles me just long enough for him to awkwardly squeeze past my legs and through the doorway. Hearing the dull tap of his feet against the floor gets me to snap out of it, and immediately I’m rushing again, trying to close the door and set the laptop down and follow him all at once. Since when did he walk so fast?!
He’s heading towards my bedroom—odd to do without asking, but he’s allowed in there—so I bring the computer with me. All this back and forth has me wide awake. So much for sleeping…
The first thing I see when I catch up is Rocky hoisting himself onto my bed. It’s been reinforced in the past with stronger materials due to the gravity on Erid, but because of that, it can hold an Eridian’s weight fairly well. At least, it can hold Rocky’s; from personal experience, he seems to be on the smaller side for adults of his species. My luck. Doesn’t mean I can lift him, though.
He settles himself on the corner of the mattress, pressing it down a good several inches. “Grace sit. We catch up.”
I pause and check the translator program. I’m still so blindsided. “Catch up? What do you mean?”
“I want to talk to you! Been too long since I see you. Bad, bad, bad.” I can’t even answer—the second I open my mouth, he sounds out a terribly frustrated riff that the computer interprets as, “I said sit!”
He lets up on me when I give in. I don’t sit too close, something heavy in my chest forcing me to keep my distance, and he doesn’t move closer. Somehow I’m hurt that my own rejection ends up reciprocated.
My breathing is shallow, and the room is slightly humid. It’s a rock on my chest, weighing my organs down, compressing my lungs and stopping my heart. The worst part is that I can’t explain it as a bad feeling. Of course, it’s bad—so why doesn’t it feel that way?
I can tell I’ve let the silence go on too long by the sound of Rocky fidgeting. Even when I clear my throat, it takes a newfound effort to speak. “Why are you here right now? I thought you hated keeping me up.”
He struggles to voice an answer. “I… will not have time to see you after this. Busy next few Grace days. Apologies for waking you up and visiting late.”
I’m still mulling over a potential reply in the time it takes him to think my lack of one is pointed. “…I am sorry, Grace.”
“You don’t have to apologise. It’s nothing, I swear.”
“Grace…” He knows my tone well by now. He’s caught onto a lot of English phrases that are “just something you say.”
“You’ve got a job, you’ve got family and responsibilities. You have a mate. It doesn’t matter if you’re gone for a while. I’m happy for you.”
Nothing. Not even the courtesy of my name. I guess it was that bad.
We’re quiet for a long while, both lost in thought. I’m practically stone as I stare at the floor, unmoving as if I can cease all the noise in my body and become invisible. Rocky is unmoving, too, to the point I consider he might be asleep. It would be sweet, but unusual, and not right now.
I hear a barely-audible little trill I’ve understood as an Eridian equivalent to a sigh. He starts over, the computer spitting out a disjointed “I—“ or “Um—“ before going silent. Start, stop, start, stop, like a car that just wouldn’t go. Is he ever going to say something?
Unfortunately, he is. “Grace. I know you are upset. I am sorry. I am upset, too. Thought… um…” He sounds choked up, even though Eridians can’t cry. Must be a learned habit from a certain leaky blob. “Thought you did not want to see me anymore. Struggle to balance time for Grace but Grace not happy when Rocky visit anyway. Grace never h-happy.”
I focus on anything but his words. They ring hollow in my chest and make my head hurt. How does he stutter? I didn’t know the TTS could portray that. Is stuttering something all Eridians do, or is it yet another humanisation?
“Apologies. Apologies. No understand. Grace nnnot… like me anymore, q-question? Rocky try so hard.”
His vocabulary isn’t the best right now. Why is he speaking so simply? I can’t really decipher the tones under the choppy, spliced voice. It's even harder when I’m faced away, covering my mouth with both hands to stave off stress-induced nausea.
“Grace… not happy, question? Please tell me.”
My stomach is in my mouth.
“I—uh…” I don’t know how to answer. It’s true that I’m unhappy, but saying yes certainly won’t help, will it? My hands clasp together and fall into my lap. I still feel like I’m going to be sick no matter what I do.
“I am happy, Rocky. I love it here. How could I not, I—I have everything I could ever want here! I’m… sorry I made you think otherwise.” He hasn’t moved once, not since he finished speaking. “I… thought that you were getting tired of me. I thought… you weren’t happy. That’s why I wasn’t.”
Now he moves. He’s visibly startled, and my face is already burning with embarrassment. “What? But I told Grace—“
“I know you’ve said you were busy, Rock, I knew that the whole time. I just… I couldn’t accept it. I thought you were making excuses. And that since we got to Erid, you… you were so happy with Adrian that y-you didn’t—”
For some reason, the mention of Adrian is what makes me break. I cough and choke and can’t hold back the tears I wasn’t sure were left. I’ve cried over this exact made-up scenario so many times—Rocky reuniting with Adrian, remembering why he missed Erid so much, replacing me—it’s still visceral and unwelcoming. I don’t finish my sentence. I can’t make it real.
Something warm and heavy shoves against my waist and melts into me. “Not true. Not true. You mean everything to me. Adrian, too. Can’t have one and not the other.”
He nudges against me a little more. The heat, just like usual, is a little overwhelming, but I’d rather it hurt. I want to think about anything else. “…Could never get over you, Grace. Promise. Grace is loud and Grace is too selfless and stupid. But Grace make me happy.”
I have just enough left in me to sob one more time. A pair of arms wrap around me, grip just loose enough to gasp for air as I weep. It’s short-lived, thankfully, but even when I’m done I can’t think of what to say.
As I’m wiping my cheeks dry, Rocky’s quiet voice vibrates against my abdomen. “Can I stay with Grace tonight, question?”
What? I’ve barely processed any of this, why is he— “Yeah. Yeah, please. I mean—not please, you don’t have to.“
“Grace. I will. Want to stay, statement. You need someone to watch you sleep. I watch. Please.”
I missed the warm tone of his melodic voice, the gentle speech from the computer. He sounds so sure. There’s no more tears left, so I sigh instead.
“Okay, okay. You watch.”
Once we’re both settled and I’m ready to sleep, it doesn’t take long for Rocky to notice one of my pillows in an unusual spot. He stares at it before I’m able to move it out of his way, and he’s quiet for just a moment too long.
“Grace, why is a pillow here, question? Pillow is for head. But pillow down here?”
“Uhh—that’s, um… none of your business.” I try to grab it, but he yanks the thing out from under me and I nearly faceplant into the mattress. The succeeding musical giggle is short, but unmistakable.
“Wrong. Is my business. Always my business! I build house for Grace, entire biodome, and what is inside is not my business?”
“Well, I don’t have to be an open book, you know—“
“Tell me!”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. So nosy. He hasn’t changed a bit from the week I met him; bossy, pushy, no boundaries whatsoever. For just right now, though, it’s comforting to see him annoyed with me. It feels so normal.
I set my glasses on closest nightstand and lay down partially. My head is propped up on my arm—not too comfortable anymore, but not yet actively painful.
Eridians don’t have any facial features, but this one specifically really knows how to act like he does. It’s a little jarring to face him, and a bit paralysing. “Well… um. It’s going to sound dumb, but… whenever you’d be gone for a while, I’d get really lonely. So I’d… err, sleep with the pillow instead.”
I brace myself for a laugh, for teasing or something I expect from him. I’m not that shy about it; it’s embarrassing, sure, but not enough to care. Not now that I know he doesn’t hate me. But he doesn’t—not any of that, doesn’t even react. He stares at me a while longer, claws tightening against the pillow in hand. Gosh, how I wish to know what goes on in his mind.
“Are you okay?” I hear a choked honk, like a clarinet played wrong, and it clues me in a little but not enough. I sit up and lean forward just as he turns away. “Hey. You’re not telling me something. What is it?”
“Nothing. Grace dumb.”
“No I’m not! I know you, what was that about?”
He squeaks again, clearly tired of me already. It takes very little for him to give in, though. “Stupid. Annoying. I… oh. I had same problem.”
An equal noise escapes me, manifesting itself in a voice crack as I try to ask, “What?”
There’s a waver in his voice, and it picks up on the translator. "Do not ask like that…” Despite his embarrassment, he continues. “Grace very loud. You know this. Not… not a bad thing anymore. But now I realise how quiet it is. Adrian is so quiet.”
His next admission stumbles into weird territory. “Loudest noise you make is heartbeat. Always can hear heartbeat on Hail Mary. But nothing sound like that on Erid! Sooo… I may have…”
I lean in, and as soon as I do, he gets cagey. “What’d you do?”
“…Not entirely Rocky. Grace thrum has… records. For good reasons! But thrum keeps recordings of everything. Including… Grace’s heartbeat.”
He assumes he doesn’t have to elaborate further, and no, he doesn’t. I’m not sure whether to be disgusted or flattered. Who am I kidding—of course I’m flattered. I’m jealous. It was so easy for him to find a piece of me to stave off the ache.
“But it only made it worse, didn’t it?” It takes Rocky a moment to register that. After a few more, his carapace lowers in shame. “It’s okay. The pillow didn’t help either.”
“No understand.”
“What is it?”
“No. Not specific. Confusing situation. Why not less complicated? Humans make things so complicated…”
He trails off to settle beside me properly. The laptop is moved far enough that I won’t accidentally kick it, and he slumps against a pillow I don’t use. While he does that, I make myself comfortable and finally lay down. The makeshift Rocky pillow stays in my arms just for the comfort of holding something. I don’t have to pretend it’s him when he’s right in front of me.
He continues right where he left off. He must have been ruminating on it. This time, he trills at a volume I equate to a whisper. It’s still audible over the translator. “But Grace is special. Would not ask for anything less. Complicated good, good, good thing.”
I want to tear up all over again. Is he serious? A shaky inhale seems to alert him. “Grace, please do not leak again! Never sleep at this rate…”
“I-I’m not going to, Rocky, please… I just…” I do sniffle, just slightly. To keep my promise and not cry, I nuzzle my face into the pillow. “You’re so sweet. I don’t deserve you. I’m so much work.”
Stiff claws find their way into my hair. He’s so warm. “Grace deserve so much. You deserve all of Erid. Entire Tau Ceti system. You deserve Sol. I will do anything necessary to make you happy.”
I don’t. I don’t deserve it. He’s wrong and I know it. I’m nothing but a side character in his life that he’s betting everything on. But I’m so tired and he’s so kind that maybe, just for a little, I can let him convince me otherwise. I blot my tears on the white fabric in my face and look up at him again.
I swear I hear something. It’s a sort of cooing, and I recognise that the notes are happy and the middling pitch denotes a feeling of safety. I just can’t place it. Has he used this tone with me before…?
As the sound trails off into a low hum, Rocky drags his paw down my face. He doesn’t hold it—he never does conventional displays of intimacy, despite studying such behaviour—but even the weird palming he does on my cheek makes me happy.
“You need sleep.”
“Mmh,” I groan plainly, trying to deny it but only making it more evident. He sputters back. Mimicking. Very funny.
“Can Rocky tell something…?” I nod as much as I’m able. “I… lie about busy next few days.”
“You… you what??”
There’s some sheepish warbles of laughter, as if he expects me to get mad in this state. “Adrian got three Grace days of free time! Only lie to avoid true reason for visit…” I do want to be mad. I can’t muster it if it’s there.
“So… can you stay tomorrow? You can, right? That’s what you’re saying?” Please say yes. Please say yes.
“Yes! I stay whole time! Adrian staying with family. Grace Rocky alone together, just like before.”
My stomach does a flip. Alone. Just like before. Yeah, I’d like that.
Sometime in the middle of the night, well after I’ve fallen asleep, something makes me stir. I’m not wide awake whatsoever, so I can’t see much, and I doubt I’ll remember it by morning.
The computer is somewhere I can’t see, and Rocky is in front of me. I hear him curse as lightly as possible when he notices my eyes flutter; pretending to be asleep makes him continue as hoped.
My pillow slips out of my arms. For a moment, I’m somewhat uncomfortable and not quite sure what he’s doing. I’m just a little tempted to ask until I sneak a glance and watch him burrow into me.
He coos again, the same one I heard earlier, as two arms wrap against my exposed side. Trying to play it off as a movement done in my sleep, I curl my arms around him, too. It appears to startle him, but there’s nothing he can do now if he changes his mind.
All I remember as I fall back asleep is pressing my face into the warm xenonite. Come morning, I can hardly recall the interaction and Rocky’s no longer there—but a lingering heat in my chest reminds me that something was. Rocky doesn’t talk about it, and neither do I. He’s awfully bouncy that morning, though.
I guess it was stupid to think he was abandoning me. I just don’t know if him being just as attached will make things worse.