It Gets Even Better

by Isabela Oliveira

  Ren keeps a careful hold on the guardrails until they get to the next compartment door, and knocks with an elbow. Levi answers after only a bare second, raising his head until he spots Ren half-pressed to the ceiling. His face is shiny like he’s just put moisturizer on, like he’s already showered and ready for bed. “Oh,” he says, and smiles. “Come on in.”

  Ren lets him take one of their hands and tug them into the compartment, holding on until Ren lowers themselves back to the floor. The door closes.

  Levi squints at Ren. “You look pale. What’s wrong? Why are you here so late?”

  “I have an ear infection,” Ren tells him. “I think. Asa said you’d have something for it.”

  Levi makes a considering noise in his throat and tugs at Ren’s elbow, pulling them to sit on the bunk pressed against one of the compartment walls. “Let me go look. Lie down.”

  So Ren lies all the way down on the soft bunk and tilts their head up so that they can watch Levi walk to the very back of the compartment, where a hydraulic door hisses open to reveal a tiny private bathroom. Levi kneels and rummages in the cupboard squeezed beneath the sink.

  “Ah,” he says, after a moment. He looks back at Ren. “I think the antibiotics must be with Elliot. Remember, because —”

  “I remember,” Ren says, and sighs. Elliot and Song Jian’s compartment, all the way up front because of Elliot’s parents, is a long way away. They aren’t looking forward to trying to get all the way there without the gravity shields.

  “Sorry,” Levi says, frowning in sympathy.

  “It’s not your fault,” Ren says. “Do you have something for the pain, at least? It feels like one side of my head’s been blown out.”

  Levi clucks disapprovingly, frowning deeper, and begins rummaging once more. Ren lets their eyes slip shut to wait. The sheets of the bunk are familiar with the scent of Levi’s raspberry-and-peach shampoo. They breathe in, breathe out, and let it calm them.

  “Did you eat dinner, Ren?” Levi’s voice echoes as if coming from very far away.

  “Mm,” Ren says vaguely, knowing Levi will understand. The pillow is very soft beneath their head; lying down helps regulate some of the pressure in their infected ear, and now that the pain has abated slightly they can feel exhaustion from the day tugging them gently under.

  “Okay, then I think you can take this one … hold on, let me get you a cup of water. I’m going to put a sachet of vitamins in for you too, is that all right?”

  “Mm,” Ren says again, too comfortable for words.

  “Sit up for a second, then.”

  There’s a moment of quiet, and then the mattress dips. Ren opens their eyes with effort and finds Levi’s face hovering closely in front of theirs. Levi slides an arm around Ren’s shoulders to help them sit up, and then Ren obediently lets Levi slide a pill into their mouth, obediently swallows it with the water, obediently drinks it all. They lick sugar-sweet vitamin residue off their lips when they’re done while Levi sets the cup aside. When Levi makes to get in with them, they shove over on the bunk to press against the wall.

  The bunk’s really only supposed to hold one. Space is a commodity in space, and all of the train’s measurements are nearly too exact. Two is a tight fit, but not impossible. Ren finds themselves immediately comforted by Levi’s proximity.

  “This is nice,” Levi sighs, and throws a leg over Ren’s hip so that they might fit together better. He pulls the duvet up over them. With the both of them still for more than a few moments, the lights in the compartment click off automatically.

  The dark feels almost as impenetrable as space. Ren’s positive that if they put a hand in front of their face right now, they would be able to see nothing, nothing at all.

  Levi’s hand slides into Ren’s hair, scratching gently at their scalp, smoothing through tangles. “Your hair’s growing out,” he murmurs softly, into the curve of Ren’s ear.

  “I know,” Ren says. “I want it to, though. I’ve wanted it to for a while.”

  There’s a short silence as both of them consider how much harder Ren’s life on Earth would be with long hair.

  “Well,” Levi says bracingly, leg tightening around Ren’s waist, “we’re all here now. In a few Earth days, we’ll be on the new colonies. There’s no more point thinking about that sort of stuff.”

  Ren thinks about space, instead. They say, “I think it would be nice if the compartments all came with windows of their own, like Elliot and Song Jian’s compartment.”

  Levi sighs, keeps petting Ren’s hair. “You and Asa both,” he says, a little ruefully. “I really don’t understand the appeal. There’s nothing to even look at out there, doesn’t that terrify you?”

  “It’s like staring into nothing, because space is the absence of things,” Ren says. They rearrange their head and open their eyes to stare at the bottom of Levi’s bunk, above their heads. “It’s calming in that way, I think. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “No,” Levi says immediately. “I could do the same thing on Earth. Why would I come to space for that?”

  Ren frowns. “I don’t get it,” they confess, and then turn onto their side to look at Levi. “Where on Earth can you look at space?”

  Levi sighs, but he leans in, presses the curve of his smile against Ren’s forehead before leaning away again. He tucks a piece of Ren’s overgrown hair behind their ear and keeps his hand there. “On Earth, I never had the time to look out the windows the way we can here,” he says. “So whenever I did, it felt pointless, looking for something I was never going to have.”

  “But I don’t think this is the same,” Ren says. “You’re in space now. You can look out the windows now.”

  “I can look out, and still see nothing,” Levi says wryly. “When I stare into space and see nothing, it reminds me of that feeling. So that terrifies me, that I’ve come so far and risked so much and still nothing has changed.”

  On Earth, Ren never saw Levi outside of school. He was always at school or work or leaving to go to school or work after his dad had left, because his mother had no inclination to take care of five kids by herself. He was always doing things for someone else and never for himself. Ren thinks that getting on this train was the first selfish thing Levi ever allowed himself.

  “But if there’s nothing when you look outside,” Ren says quietly, “then, Levi, all the bad things are nothing, too.”

  Levi pauses. “I guess — if nothing matters, then nothing bad matters.”

  “So you do get it.”

  Levi laughs quietly.

  Ren says, “I do still miss Earth, I think. A little.”

  “Already?” Levi teases, but his voice comes out just this side of wistful.

  “I know it’s pointless. We’ll be on the new colonies soon, like you said.”

  “Ren,” Levi says, then hesitates.

  Ren closes their eyes again. Quickly, they add, “Do you think we’ll have more to eat than meal flakes when we get there?”

  “Elliot and Song Jian will, and they’ll share,” Levi says, with conviction. He pauses. “Ren — it’s going to be good, all of us there together. It’s going to be better than what we had.”

  Ren breathes. They feel the steady rise and fall of their chest prompting the steady rise and fall of Levi’s. They miss Earth, but this, at least, they don’t have to miss. Even if there’s nothing out there, they’ll still have this.

  “I should get those antibiotics,” they say, into Levi’s hair. “I love you.”

  Levi presses a kiss to the side of Ren’s head. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  * * *

  Ren spends a few minutes in Levi’s bathroom throwing up, helps themselves to his mouthwash tablets, and then continues on down the hallway towards the front compartments.

  It’s late enough now that even the floodlights have shut off. The way is illuminated first by emergency strip lights on either side of the hallway, and then a strange glowing several meters down. When they draw in clos
er, they realize that it’s coming from one of the viewing pavilions. The hydraulic door is shut but there’s a crack left for safety purposes, enough to tell Ren there’s light inside, there’s someone inside.

  They peek in before they make the conscious decision to. They say, “Asa?” in mostly a whisper.

  Mostly a whisper, but in the emptiness, it carries. The door senses them and slides the rest of the way open. Asa had been pressed up against the glass at the far end of the viewing pavilion, but now he looks around, looks pleased. “Ren!” he exclaims.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I was going to Levi’s compartment to look for you since you took so long, but I got distracted,” Asa says, a little ruefully. “Did you find Levi?”

  “Yeah, but he said the antibiotics are all with Elliot, because —”

  “Oh, yeah,” Asa says, nodding. “You want me to go with you? How badly does it hurt?”

  “Not too bad,” Ren lies.

  Asa frowns at them and moves towards the door. “Come in here and let me take a look.”

  Ren scrunches up their face. “What can you even see?” they ask, but they slide along the guardrails until they’re right outside the viewing pavilion entrance. They reach down for Asa and let him pull them through the gravity shields. Asa catches them and heaves them upright before they can crumple to the ground, and then tugs them in gently. Ren obediently turns their head so that Asa can press a hand against their bad ear.

  “The pain’s not bad, you said? It hasn’t gotten any worse?”

  “It’s only been a few minutes,” Ren says, a little exasperated. “Besides, Levi gave me something for that already.”

  Asa hums a little, still holding onto them. Ren leans themselves very carefully against Asa’s shoulder. Having something to press against like this does help relieve the pressure a little, and they want Asa to keep holding onto them.

  “You want to stay awhile and look at the stars with me, or do you just want to get the antibiotics?”

  Ren feels too comfortable to move. They say, “Let’s look at the stars.”

  Asa presses the crease of his smile against the top of Ren’s head. Then he turns them both around, steering them towards the end of the pavilion where triple sheets of reinforced, pressure-regulating glass are all that’s between them and the rest of the universe.

  The rest of the universe consists of nothing, nothing at all. Ren peers at the darkness for a moment, Asa’s hands steady on their elbows. Looking out like this, like nothing has changed. Like they’re still staring at the view from their apartment rooftop, from all the nights they’ve spent camped up there because they didn’t want to sleep at home. The machinery of the train rumbles on beneath their feet. It looks like they’re drifting aimlessly in space, not quite moving, but Ren knows that’s not true. They know that it only looks like this because space is so vast, because everything else is moving so much faster than they are. They know that they’ll be on the new colonies in three Earth days, far too fast for regret.

  Asa says, “Can you believe, just a few hours ago, the Earth was our whole world? And now we’re here, looking at all of this?”

  Ren can believe it. It was in the documents they signed before getting on the train. But now that they’re here, the universe spread before them, it feels different. They say, “Asa, what do you think would have happened if Elliot hadn’t managed to get us all tickets?”

  There’s a brief pause. Asa’s hand slides into Ren’s, as though scared that if he doesn’t hold on properly, Ren might drift right off. “I think,” he says, his voice very careful, “that we’d have continued being unhappy on Earth.”

  Ren thinks about being unhappy on Earth. They think about feeling small and overwhelmed and constantly exhausted at the thought that no one wanted them the way they were. They think about all the separate reasons why they’re all here now, each other their only familiar things left, why Song Jian had asked Elliot to get them all tickets onto this train, why they’d all agreed to leave an entire planet behind. They say, “You don’t think things would’ve changed eventually?”

  Asa asks, uncharacteristically subdued, “Do you?”

  Do they? They’ve all made a decision. It was the right decision. What they don’t know is if it’s going to continue being the right decision, or what may happen after the dust settles and the urgency of this decision has run its course. But there’s no point thinking about those things now, when it’s already far too late.

  So Ren says instead, “What do you miss most about Earth?”

  Asa hums, considering. His hand grips Ren’s, steady as ground. Ren knows Asa has never been great at staying still, but he tries hard for Ren. Asa says, “It changes a lot. But right now, looking at all of this — I think it must be the certainty of things. You know, routine. Something to depend upon, something to look forward to, things that you’re used to. You get up in the morning, you have a coffee, you try and make do the best you can, you go to sleep, then you do it all again. The things you do every day don’t change, really. There are always things that are for certain, down on Earth. You can be sure of things, on Earth.”

  Ren thinks they might miss that, too. They say, “But you hate doing the same things every day. You hate routine.”

  Asa laughs. “Ren, I have just gotten on a train in space.”

  Ren shrugs, a little embarrassed. “Well — you said —”

  “I do like change,” Asa agrees. “I think change can be good, or that most things can be good if you want them to work out badly enough, if you try hard enough. It’s only that I liked knowing who I was and the things I had to do, and I no longer have that here — which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just that it’s going to have to be different now, and I have to try again, and that’s never easy in the beginning. But trying is the best any of us can do.”

  Ren thinks Asa is as scared of what they might find on the new colonies as the rest of them. “Is that — are you talking about your father?”

  “I knew the things that were expected of me,” Asa agrees. “My father wanted a lot of things for me — a college education, a steady career, all the things he cared about. I went along with it all, because I didn’t mind. But I suppose that’s why Levi asked me to come along. He thinks I should have a choice in my life. He’s looking out for me. He thinks the things he wants are the things everyone wants.”

  “Do you?”

  “What?”

  “Want to be here,” Ren clarifies. “Want the things that Levi wants.”

  Asa smiles and swings their joined hands between them. “I do want different things from him. Maybe it’s because I always had time for myself but Levi’s time was only ever for his family. But I also don’t think Levi’s wrong or selfish for leaving and wanting me to leave with him, even if I know he’s thinking it. Everyone is entitled to ask for things that make them happy. You know, towards the end, I only ever saw him outside of class when I was sneaking into his room to sleep with him?”

  “I know.”

  “So Levi wants things to be better, so much that it makes me wonder if things could be better for me, too. Levi makes me want more than what I had. And if Levi wanted me to come along with him, then of course I was going to come. I’ve never thought to ask myself what I wanted before, but now I guess I’ll need to try.”

  Ren thinks about looking at nothing and feeling like nothing, right here on this train. Maybe for now there is nothing, but things change. Space is vast, after all. Change is scary, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be good. Things are usually what you make of them. That’s why they’re here.

  Ren raises a hand absently, to press around their bad ear. Asa shifts to look at them. “Is the pain getting worse?” he asks again, concerned.

  “It’ll pass.”

  Asa looks at them. He smiles. “Yes,” he agrees, “it will.”

  * * *

  Ren spends five minutes convincing Asa they’ll be fine going by themselves before leaving to con
tinue down the hallway to the first-class compartments. The night appears to have grown darker while they were talking to Asa, although they know logically that’s not possible. Space is also the absence of light.

  A curtain dividing the VIPs from the rest of the train lights up and asks their purpose for coming since they don’t have the right identification chip to get in. They tell it Elliot’s name, and they assume Elliot must be alerted somehow because they’re guided down the hallway with rapidly flickering lights, and plopped down in front of a wide-eyed, sleep-rumpled Elliot holding open his door.

  “Elliot,” Ren says. The gravity shields in Elliot’s suite of rooms kick in too suddenly for them to balance, and they find themselves sprawling to the floor.

  Elliot hooks his arms beneath Ren’s armpits and drags them upright. “Shhh, Song Jian’s already asleep,” he says, voice hushed. “What are you doing here so late?”

  Elliot’s pajamas are very soft. Ren fists his dangling sleeves in their hands for something to hold onto, the nausea suddenly making them breathless. “I have an ear infection,” they say, swaying a little. Their ear is ringing. Where there had been nothing before, it is now full of white sound.

  Elliot tugs them in to press into his side. “Steady, Ren,” he says softly, sounding worried, and then, “Guess we’ll have to wake Song Jian up after all. Come sit down.”

  Instead of a bunk bed pushed against a wall to make way for a narrow walkway between the compartment door and a cramped, utilitarian bathroom, Elliot helps Ren down a foyer with a mirror along the length of one wall, into a living room with a dining table, couch, a large black screen, and a wall of glass windows like in the viewing pavilion with a bar counter running the length before it. There’s a sliding door at the back of the room, which presumably opens up into the master bedroom and ensuite. It’s not that luxurious for Earth, but it’s luxurious in space, where everything is in sharp demand.

  Elliot maneuvers them both onto the couch, where Ren sinks gratefully into the cushions and lets Elliot gently push them to lie down and stick a pillow beneath their head. Ren’s eyes have slid half-closed by the time Elliot’s arranged a throw blanket over them, but they’re shaken awake what feels like bare seconds later by Song Jian’s warm hand on their shoulder.