by Magan Vernon
We stepped off the elevator in silence. There was no need to let everyone else hear our discussion about memory-wiped lesbians. Quickly, we walked out the revolving front doors and into the night.
"She doesn't act like she remembered us at all," Ace said as soon as we were out of earshot of anyone near the dorm.
I blew a raspberry through my lips and took Ace's hand, leading him toward the Union. "Still, how am I supposed to pretend like I've never seen her before? I did live with her for a summer that she tried to make a living hell."
Ace shrugged. "I don't know how either. Maybe you can just pretend she isn't the same person?"
"Ace, that sounds crazy. I just can't pretend I never met her. Can someone from Circe just wipe away my memory of her?"
Ace swung our intertwined hands back and forth. The sun had barely started to set, an orange glow dangling over the mountaintops in the distance. I used to think all of Arizona was just a barren dessert, and then I realized that Flagstaff actually had pine trees and grass. I wasn't really in the middle of the desert. The temperature even dropped a few degrees at night so I wasn't terribly uncomfortable in jeans and Ace didn't look out of place in long sleeves.
Even so, I actually missed the cornfields of Illinois, but I couldn't deny how good it felt to walk freely through campus with Ace by my side. We would have never been able to do that at Columbia. He would have still needed to be hidden and now we were out for the world to see...just like I guess Riley was.
"It doesn't work like that, Alex."
I turned my attention back to Ace, who was shaking his head. "If we erased your memory of Riley, it would erase your entire internship, your memories of me."
I stopped and turned toward Ace. A gleam of sweat splayed across his forehead, shining against his pale face. I could never give up my memories of him. The good or the bad, we were in it for the long run.
"I would never erase my time with you," I murmured. I grabbed his other hand, the warmth slowly spreading through his fingers and up through my hands.
"Neither would I." Ace took a step closer, minimizing the space between us. "Not for all the diamonds in Calta would I erase my memory of you. You are still the only one in all of the galaxies that makes my heart beat faster."
I smiled, leaning in for a kiss. But before my lips could even touch his, my phone rang between us. Ace jumped back at the sound, releasing our hands and staring down at my pocket.
"Sorry!" I pulled the singing phone out my pocket. The words to She Blinded Me With Science sang through the speakers, and Jen's big lips grinned at me from the screen.
I slid the phone up to my ear. "Couldn't call at a worse time, could you?"
Ace smiled, probably remembering our first almost kiss. The one that Jen interrupted by walking in on us. I think she enjoyed constantly interrupting us.
"What's up, girly? Just checking to see how school is going. Hopefully you weren't doing anything too important." Her all too perky voice chirped over the phone.
"If you call finding out that my roommate is dating Riley and then freaking out to Ace something important, then yes it is."
"Hold up." Jen's high voice lowered a bit. "Your roommate is dating Riley? Circe Riley?"
"Uh, yeah. I don't really know any other Rileys. How come no one told me that she was going to grad school here? Or the fact that she was a lesbian who was dating my roommate?"
"The grad school thing I didn't know about. As for the lesbian thing, I thought that was obvious. Obviously, not obvious that she would date your roommate, but I really thought you knew she liked girls," Jen said without missing a beat.
"Well, what am I supposed to do?"
I looked up at Ace. He just stood there, watching me intently. He never forced me to get off the phone, yet I always felt bad when I ignored him for a phone conversation. Ever since earlier in the year when Simone controlled me and tried to keep me from Ace, I always felt the need to spend more time with him instead of the phone when he was around.
Jen let out a big sigh on the other end of the phone. "You know, just because I am a scientist doesn't mean I'm going to have all the answers."
"Well, is there anything that you can do?" I asked.
"If you want to talk about it, why don't you and Ace come back to Circe?"
"Uh." I quickly glanced up at Ace and then looked back down. "Yeah, I guess we can. Want to come pick us up?"
Chapter 12
After cramming Ace into the back of Jen's little red convertible we were back to the familiar realms of Circe, where we could freely talk about all the alien weirdness.
Since Jen was officially a Circe employee, she no longer had to live in the intern's quarters or even in a dorm-style room like Ace. She led us down the scientist corridor and into her plush suite.
"A prince gets to stay in a closet and you get this place?" I looked over Jen's apartment while she hung her keys up on a hook by the door. The room was as stark white as the rest of Circe, with a large living room opening up to a stainless steel kitchen. A door lay just beyond the living room, partially opened to reveal the tile of a bathroom floor, and another door swung to the left of it, which must have been the bedroom.
"It's alright, I guess." Jen shrugged. "Once you and Ace move in together you will probably have a place at least twice this size."
Moving in together at Circe? I hadn't thought about that one. For some reason I always thought that we would be able to have our own house, away from base, and not in the same building as my dad.
"There are a lot of pictures of you and the brown one around," Ace commented, holding up a framed picture of Jen and Malcolm on one of the many end tables.
"Well, yeah, they are best friends." I looked over at the picture. They were sitting on a beach somewhere with their arms wrapped around each other. I guess it could be a friendly pose.
"Best friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, partners, whatever you want to call it." Jen smiled, plopping down on a white chaise.
"Boyfriend?" I asked. Crickey, were all my friends dating each other now?
"Yeah, I figured you would have guessed that one." She shrugged. "It didn't really work out with me and Oliver. My dreams were to move to Circe and work here, and his was an attempt at the draft."
Ugh, my head was spinning. I plopped down on the plush, white sofa opposite Jen, and Ace took the seat next to me.
"So now you're with Malcolm? When did you plan on telling me this?" I asked.
"I thought it would have been obvious that we had some major chemistry outside of the lab, but I figured I would tell you sooner or later." Jen shrugged and pulled her long legs up, hugging her knees to her chest.
"Okay, now that we have figured out Jen's love life, can we figure out this homosexual debacle?" Ace piped up.
Jen and I both turned toward Ace. His limited knowledge of human relationships was getting on my nerves. I couldn't understand how he just didn't understand homosexuality. Jen told him at one point to just look it up on the internet and all he could find was really disturbing pictures.
"I really don't think it's that big of a deal," Jen said. "Yeah, she was a witch with a capital B here at Circe, but now she is a completely different person. They wiped her memory of all things alien. She knows nothing about what happened last summer."
"Yeah, but they didn't erase my memory or Ace's!" I turned back to Jen, pointing my thumb in Ace's direction.
Jen put her feet back down on the ground. "People can change, Alex, especially people who have had their memory erased. Maybe you should try to get to know her as your roommate's girlfriend and not Riley, the former evil intern."
"Jen is right," Ace spoke up. "I may still resent Riley for all of the things she did to you, and to us, while she was here, but in the end everything turned out for the best. And she doesn't remember any of what happened, so we should try and put that behind us as well."
I turned toward Ace, slowly blinking. "You're serious? You want me to just forget that the girl put a gun to my head or
turned us in to the Circe guys so you ended up locked in a cell?" I threw my hands up in the air. "Maybe while we are at it I should go and forgive Magpie for trying to kill me for doing the thumbs up sign. Oh! Or how about I write a friendly letter to Simone?"
"Alex," Ace said, pulling my hands down. "You are being unreasonable."
"Yeah," Jen added. "We aren't saying that you have to completely forget about all of those things, but do remember that Riley doesn't have any recollection that she ever met either of you, or interned at Circe."
I hated to admit it, but they were both right. I hated when they were right. Even worse I hated that I would still have to face Riley no matter how much I complained or tried to fight it.
***
After we left Jen's room, I figured I should visit my dad. Not only had I not seen him since I'd been in town, but I figured he should be made aware of the Riley situation as well.
There was quite a bit of distance between Jen's suite and the officer's quarters, where my dad lived. All the hallways looked the same with the plain white walls, white tile floor, and blinding fluorescent lights. It really couldn't have killed Circe to spring for a coat of new paint or even to put some pictures on the wall.
"The future royal prince and princess of Calta, right here in my hallway!"
Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn't run into Monte. Circe was a huge place, and we really shouldn't have, but I guess we just had to go through his wing to get to the officer's quarters.
"Hey, Monte." Ace smiled and stopped near the door that Monte was propped up against.
Once upon a time, Ace and I would have never been able to roam the halls freely and holding hands. Some of the older aliens that we passed still gave us dirty looks, but once it was out in the open that we were engaged, people were a little bit more accepting.
"I expected you and the princess to still be in one of your bedrooms, commencing in activities that require a bed." Monte smiled an all-too-smug smile.
If Monte wasn't such an arrogant a-hole he would actually be attractive. The curse of the Caltian men; they were all super attractive with their high cheekbones and builds of Greek gods. Too bad a lot of them were just as much of jerks as Monte. I still shuddered when I thought about the queen's right-hand man, Marsilo, who still treated me like I was just Ace's pet.
"We just came to talk to my dad and Jen. No bedroom commencing needed." I smirked, gripping Ace's hand tighter. They may be best friends, but that didn't mean I had to like the guy.
"Hey, maybe he can help with our problem." Ace motioned his free hand in Monte's direction.
"Really, how?" I looked from Monte and back to Ace. I knew Monte was pretty good with Circe intelligence, so he would possibly have a way to figure out how I could erase my Riley memory, or even just give her some weird alien disease so she would go away.
"We can set your roommate up with Monte and then she will forget all about her homosexual tendencies and no more Riley!" Ace smiled, obviously proud of himself and his stupid idea.
"Seriously? That is your big plan? Set up my lesbian roommate with an alien dude?" I rolled my eyes. Why did I even think that Ace would have a better idea?
Monte stepped away from the doorway. "I read about this lesbian thing you speak of." He put his fingers up for air quotes when he said lesbian.
"It isn't a thing," I said.
"Whatever," Monte replied quickly. "I still don't understand the mechanics of how two human girls would be together, but maybe this roommate of yours could teach me a thing or two."
Gag. I didn't know what he meant by that, but it sounded sexual.
Ace tapped my hip with our intertwined hands. "What do you say, Alex? That sounds like it could solve our problems. Just get rid of Riley as Lucy's lover, and we won't have to worry about seeing her."
I sighed, defeated. If these two were stupid enough to think that Lucy was just going to magically stop liking girls because of a beautiful alien, then I would let them try. After all, stranger things have happened.
Chapter 13
After we were finally able to escape Monte, we went to my dad's suite. Luckily, Ace knew where we were going because I didn't think I would have found it on my own. The officer's quarters looked no different than Jen's area, and the only difference from where Ace's hall was and my dad's was that Ace and Monte's area was only about thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, the normal temperature on Calta.
I tapped two quick knocks on dad's door before he answered. I guess I forgot what time it was since dad was in an old Air Force t-shirt and plaid pajama pants.
"Alex?" he questioned, his voice rising slightly. "Is everything alright?"
"Oh, yeah, it's fine. Sorry did we wake you?" I asked.
"No, no." He shook his head before opening the door the rest of the way. "I was just watching some television."
He moved to the side so that Ace and I could walk past him.
Dad's apartment was basically the same layout as Jen's except for a little bigger and even though dad had lived there for over ten years there was barely a trace of anything personal. He only had one framed picture of me when I was a baby that stood next to a Circe-issued lamp on an end table.
"So what can I help you two with?" Dad shut the door and walked toward us, picking up the remote and turning off whatever sport he was watching on TV.
"Well, mister security alien somehow didn't find in his research that my roommate is dating Riley." I motioned my head in Ace's direction.
"Riley?" dad asked. "As in the Riley that interned here with you last summer?"
I nodded. "The same."
"She surely had her memory erased before we released her, right? There is no way that she would remember you or Ace or anything about Circe." Dad stood stiffly in front of the TV.
"Yeah, she had her memory erased, but that doesn't erase my memory of her! How can this be possible? Now she is dating my roommate and I'm going to have to deal with seeing a girl that pointed a gun to my head," I whined plopping down on the sofa.
"Wait a second." Dad held up his hand. "Did you just say that your roommate is dating her? I thought you were assigned to an all-girl's floor?"
Oh great. Not him too.
"It is an all-girl's dorm, sir," Ace piped in. "Alex tells me that these two girls are actually each other's mates. I told her it was preposterous, but she seems pretty adamant about it."
I rolled my eyes. How many times was I going to have to go through this with Ace?
"Okay." Dad nodded his head slowly, taking the seat next to me on the couch and Ace took the chaise next to us. "Why don't you go to the resident assistant and see if you can move rooms?"
"Ugh, I wish it were that simple." I leaned back on the couch, resting my head against the overly stuffed, white cushions. "My dorm is one of the only ones opened for the summer, and we are housing all the kids for band camp."
Dad rubbed his chin. "I'm all out of other ideas. I really don't think it will be that big of a deal. She doesn't remember you, so you won't have to worry about her bothering you. Besides you might not see her that much anyway."
I looked from Ace to my dad. Neither of them were much help, nor was Jen. I guess I would just have to figure out what to do on my own.
I sighed. "Okay, I guess I can try to live with it for now."
I sat back up and then pulled myself up to my feet. Ace followed suit and stood next to me.
"Is that all you needed?" dad asked.
All I needed? He really didn't actually help with anything. "Yeah, I guess."
"You sure?" He pulled himself up from the couch. "You don't need anything else? Your classes are going okay?"
"It's only been a day, Dad. There really isn't much to talk about."
"Oh." He nodded. The awkwardness was so thick it would have to be cut with a knife. We both had nothing else to say, and I think both of us knew that the problem had not been solved.
"Well, I think we ought to get going. Ace should take me back to my dorm before it gets to
o late. I have early classes tomorrow." Ace and I headed for the door with dad following close behind.
"Okay, Alex, if you are sure. Call me if you need anything." He opened the door, and I stepped out into the hallway, taking Ace's hand while we made our way back the way we came, with nothing still answered.
"Do you want me to see if I can get a Circe vehicle to take you back to the dorms?" Ace asked once we left the officer's quarters.
I let out a long breath. "Not really."
I didn't want to have to go back to my room. It had been a long day and since nothing had been solved with Riley, I didn't want to have to walk back in there, alone, to stare at the girl that pointed a gun to my head.
"Does this mean you want to stay here?" He arched a brow, looking down at me.
"Only if you want me too…" I looked down and back up at him, blinking slowly while letting out a hint of a smile.
"Princess, the joys of having you in the same bed as me are comparable only to a Caltian sunrise," Ace said, squeezing my hand.
I laughed. "I have no idea what you just said."
Ace steered me down a hallway. The temperature dropped another few degrees. Caltian quarters. "It means that I would love to have you spend the night."
As much as I wanted him earlier that day, with visions of Riley and guns running through my head, the last thing on my mind was getting busy. But I'd take any chance I had not to go back to my dorm room.
Chapter 14
Ace was able to get a Circe Jeep early that morning to drive me back to my dorm. I got a better feeling of the term 'walk of shame' when I walked in the lobby with my bed head and clothes from the night before. I was greeted by the same pink-haired girl at the counter and a crowd of eager band kids gathered near the elevator.
Ugh. I stepped in behind a guy with a giant tuba wrapped around him, looking up at the floor numbers. At that rate, I wouldn't even have time for a shower before classes—way to make an impression on the professors.