Silent Flyght – Chapter 21

I lock the door to my room, and I don’t come out. I don’t come out for breakfast or lunch. The door rings, and I ignore it and tell Ai to silence the doorbell. I slip into my pajamas, pull the covers over my head, and pretend the world doesn’t exist. There’s no one out there who can hurt me if I stay in my room and never leave.

I cry myself to sleep and startle awake. Now my nightmares have morphed into terrifying scenarios — my parents disowning me, Cenobia Senna Snow laughing as she watches me have sex with Mat, living out the rest of my life alone because I’m tainted goods.

Blink.

How many hours have gone by?

My eyes are dry, and my eyelids are swollen from crying. My eyelashes stick together, and when I try to wipe them clean, my fingers shake enough for me to worry I’ll poke my eyes out. I let my hand rest on the bed next to me.

I close my eyes and fall into a sickening sleep before waking again with a gasp.

Maybe it’s time to admit defeat. I’ve lost Mat. He was the only suitor that could get me the missing money I need to buy back the farm. And with an impending sex tape about to hit the duonet, I’ll never be able to snag anyone else. Marcelo’s calls will go unanswered, and I will be ostracized from society. I’m sure that asshole Gabriel Almas and his wife will take me, but I’d rather live alone than deal with them and their manipulative schemes.

I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when the lights brighten by ten percent.

“Captain, I’m sorry to bother you,” Ai’s voice breaks into my blank thoughts. “Gus is at the door, and he would like me to warn you he’ll use the medical override on your room if you don’t open up.”

“Medical override?” I can’t raise my voice above a whisper. I lick my lips to moisten them. It’s been ages since I ate or drank anything.

“Yes, Captain. As the ship’s medic, he has direct override on any door in the ship. And he’s not happy being locked out of your room.”

I roll over and curl up into a ball, pulling my covers with me. “Fine. Let him in.”

The door opens with a swish, and I don’t move. “Leave me alone, Gus. I don’t want to see anyone.”

Just leave me be. Forever. I give up.

“I know,” he says, and the bed dips as he sits down. “But I need you to eat and drink because we’re leaving in five hours, and you need to be in charge of this ship when we go.”

“I quit.”

“You can’t quit. We have more to do, and then we can go over our next steps.”

“There are no next steps.” I try to clear my voice, but it’s frozen in my throat. “I’ve exhausted all my possibilities. With Mat gone, we can’t move forward.” The tears start again. Once I allowed them to begin, that was it. I’ll never stop crying now.

“Jinzo and Ken are talking with Mat. I’m sure they’re persuasive enough to reassure him that you’re the one. See? There are always next steps, Vivi.”

I tighten my body into a smaller ball. “Go away, Gus. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.”

His hand rests on my hip. “There are backup plans Ken’s been working on. We knew there was a chance of failure with Mat, though we thought it would be you who would reject him.”

I laugh. “Why would I do a thing like that? Even if he was the ugliest man with three heads, I would have considered him. It’s my job to save the farm, not to be picky.”

“You brought me into your network, and I had no money to give you,” he says, his voice quiet. “Your priorities are in the right place, Vivian. You’ve just had a lot of bad luck. I don’t blame you for being upset or depressed or angry. You don’t deserve the way all of these assholes have treated you.”

The bed shifts as he stands up. “Now it’s time for tough love. Get up and eat. No more crying. No more despair. We have work to do. We’re going to leave soon and turn in your lying, stealing brother. Ken wants to talk about how we do that.”

I wait until the door closes behind Gus before poking my head out from my blanket fort. The tangy scent of tomatoes wafts through the room, riding on the back of roasted garlic. My stomach grumbles, and I sigh. Damn it, Gus. You always know what to do. This is why you’re in my network. Because I love you, and I can’t take care of myself.

Inching from the bed to my shaky legs, I cross to the desk and check out the meal he brought me — creamy tomato soup with short pasta, a generous piece of garlic bread, a fresh green salad, and a slice of chocolate cake. I have no idea where this came from. Probably from the local town? Anyway, I should eat it, just for Gus.

I rest my head on my left hand as I spoon the soup into my mouth bit by bit. My throat hurts from crying, and the warm soup soothes everything on the way down to my empty stomach.

Scenes from my last dinner with Mat pop into my head as I try to get the food down. He told stories of his childhood, both funny and sweet, and we bonded over shared memories of farming. After dinner, we retired to the outside deck again to drink port and bourbon, and that was when I stole his glass and ran for it.

The happiness I felt rots in my chest. He recoiled from me, and my heart broke in two.

Fresh tears leak from my eyes at the memories, and my throat closes up. I set my head down on my arm next to the tray of food, close my eyes, and fall asleep again.

—-

“Come on, Vivi.”

“What?” I mumble.

Hands grab me from under my arms and lift. My neck aches, and my face hurts, and I take a full ten seconds to realize that I’m still at the desk where I passed out while trying to eat.

“She barely ate anything. I told Gus to stay and make sure she ate.” Jinzo’s voice is full of disappointment.

“I’m sorry I’m such a failure.” Fail, fail, fail. That’s all I do lately.

“Vivian,” Jinzo says, taking my face in both of his hands, “the only way you’re going to fail is if you don’t pull yourself together, right the fuck now.” He drags his thumbs over my cheeks. “Her face is swollen.”

“That’s what she looks like after a good crying session.” Ken continues to force me to my feet. “It’ll get better. We’ll put some ice on her face.”

“We don’t have that much time,” Jinzo says to Ken. “Come on, Vivi. Into a nice, hot shower, and then you’re going to get dressed.”

I don’t protest as Jinzo strips off my clothes and hauls me into the shower. I lean against the wall and let the hot mist and sonic bursts massage me from head to toe. When I open my eyes, Jinzo is gone, and Gus is there instead. He reaches in and pulls strands of hair from my shoulders. He holds them up and sighs.

“We’ll fix this. I promise.”

Does it matter? I’m not sure. They’ll leave me once they understand I won’t be able to provide for them like I had intended. All of my anger and rage at being betrayed, all of my determination to make wrongs right, it’s gone. Now I’m just… sad. Sad and depressed. Because no matter what I do, I can’t fix anything. When it comes down to it, I can’t fix myself. And I’m the constant thing that’s wrong in every situation.

I know what I need to do. I need to lose this idea that I matter and go back to being that person everyone talked to, and no one listened to. That was when good things happened to me like summa cum laude, fancy shoes, and smiles from my parents.

“Is she clean yet?” Ken calls into the bathroom. I open my eyes and find Ken handing clothes to Gus. “Get her dressed and out to the common area. We’ve got fifteen minutes, tops.”

Gus turns off the shower and grabs a towel. “Let’s get you dried off, dressed, and presentable.”

“Why?”

I let him wrap me up in the towel.

“You’re about to have a visitor.”

“I don’t want to see anyone.”

“Sure, you do. You’ll feel better if you get out of this depression you’ve spiraled into.”

Gus takes great care getting me into my underwear, a pair of soft, black pants, and a wrap-around sweater. He brushes out my hair, not commenting about the clumps in my brush, and expertly pulls it into a ponytail.

He sighs. “There’s nothing I can do about your puffy face. Just, um… Just try not to cry anymore.”

Out in my room, Ken has stripped my bed and remade it.

“Jinzo’s gone to the airlock,” Ken says, chucking my sheets into the pulse washer. “I got the juice.” He grabs a small vial of yellow liquid off the desk, and I recognize it immediately. It’s the juice extraction we use in the Happiest of Hot Sauces, the one I make from the happy flower.

“Add four drops to that cup of water.” Gus points to a cup half-filled with water on the desk. “It’s time to cheer up, Vivian. You have work to do, and we can’t let stuff like this get in our way.”

Ken adds four drops of juice to the water and hands the cup to me. “Bottoms up,” he says, tilting his own imaginary cup.

I feel detached, like I’m not really here. I have no opinions, no goals, no aspirations. Everything in my head is lost, silent. There is no future, nothing to look forward to.

I stare at the cup and think, “What’s the point?”

“This will bring your serotonin levels back to normal until we can figure out what else to do,” Gus says, waving at the cup. “Drink.”

Okay, fine. It’s not like I enjoy being depressed and unhappy.

I sip while Ken roots around in my closet and picks out a pair of flats for me to wear. I slip them on, finish the water, and follow them out of my room.

“You’re not going to ask any questions?” Ken asks, tagging along at my side. He keeps one hand on my lower back, and his other hovers in front of us, making sure I don’t trip and fall. I’m not exactly stable on my feet right now.

“No.” Because I don’t care.

Yet…

As I stand in the common room with Gus and Ken by my side, I start to feel better. The happy flower is working its magic, filling up my chest with warmth, from my abdomen to my shoulders, and finally, hitting my head in a buzz. I’m not high like the first time I had the Happiest of Hot Sauces. I’m… normal again. Tired, but normal.

“Hmm.” I press my hands to my face. “This stuff actually works.”

I crack a small smile at Gus, and he closes his eyes in relief.

“Thank God,” he whispers. He reaches out to take my hand.

“Just in here.” Jinzo’s voice precedes him into the room, and I hold my breath when I see who’s following him.

Mat steps through the doorway, looking left and right before seeing me. When his eyes meet mine, sadness floods his face.

“You’ve been crying,” he signs. A statement, not a question. I can’t hide it. It’s written in my reddened cheeks and eyes, my swollen eyelids.

Despite the happy-water I drank, I’m still not at my best, and I need to breathe in and out several times before I’m able to speak.

“I have a lot to cry over.” I try to raise my head, try to find some semblance of myself, my fractured personalities. “Why are you here? You made it clear that we, a relationship, wouldn’t work out.”

Mat crosses the room and sinks to his knees at my feet. Jinzo backs away, his eyes wide with fear.

Is this the first prescient dream that’s come true for him? Does his world tilt?

“I am the sorriest I’ve ever been,” Mat begins.

“Vivi, I need you to translate,” Gus whispers, so I repeat it.

“You came to me without prejudice,” Mat continues. “You gave me precious time you didn’t have. You listened. You gave me your heart. And when my friend betrayed us, I threw it away because I was angry and embarrassed.”

My throat is dry; all the moisture I have left in me has traveled to my eyes. But I hold back the tears for once.

“Peter is done. I sent him with the cryocontainers to finish his business and find a new life. And I saw the footage he recorded, and I deleted it myself.”

I force my breath out of my constricted throat. “Mat, I —”

He reaches up and places his hands over mine, like I did the other night. Once he’s sure I’m not going to speak, he signs, “I don’t know if you can forgive me, but I’m here to ask for your forgiveness, anyway. We work well together, equally matched. I would be an idiot to let you go.” He stands up. “I have a gift for you. No strings attached. But if you take me back, you can consider it a down payment on the rest.”

He pulls a data chip from his pocket, takes my hand, places the chip in my fingers, and folds my hand closed with his. “This is half a million credits. I know you need a lot more, and I want to provide that for you too.”

I… I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect this. I figured we were done, over, finished. And the fact that he sent Peter on his way with the cryocontainers tells me Peter sold the idea to Mat, and Mat understands what’s at stake here. He’s smart. He could be a formidable partner.

We’re stronger together than apart.

“Your network here,” Mat says, turning to look at Gus, Ken, and Jinzo, “they are all good men who care for you. They’ve spoken with me, and I was warmed by their love for you. It reminded me of what I’ve been feeling the last few days of being with you. Let’s continue on. Please, Vivian.”

I wait and think it over. Was it rash of him to break things off with me? Yes. Would I have done the same thing in his shoes? Yes. I can’t blame him for his panic.

Finding my voice, I make a decision.

“We’re leaving for Palo Alto in…?” I look over at Jinzo.

“Three hours.”

“In three hours. I’d like to return here when we’re done with business there. Maybe then, we can pick up where we left off.”

“We only have another week before the auction,” Ken reminds me. “A trip back to Sonoma would have to be… brief.”

Mat smiles, relieved. “If you return to Sonoma, to continue on, I will come with you to Ossun for the auction with a contribution, enough to win back your farm.”

I raise my eyebrows to the guys, and they nod.

Lifting my arms, I draw Mat in for a hug. His arms wrap around my chest and squeeze, transferring that sense of home and comfort I’ve felt from him, right back into me.

“When we return,” I whisper into his neck, “we’ll fix this.”

He pulls away and lifts his hands. “When you return,” he repeats, “we’ll make things better than they were before this.”

“Sounds like a plan.”