by Robin Martin
I raised my hand and knocked on the front door and waited. I knocked again. Finally, I heard steps and what sounded like muffled voices. Who would be visiting Rion at this hour? None of our friends even knew where he lived. It was probably the TV.
The door opened and Rion stared at me, surprised. His grey tee shirt was rumpled, and he had on his daggy track pants. His face was pale and tired looking, like he hadn’t slept in ages. I wanted to ask what was wrong. I wanted to say it didn’t matter what it was, we could fix it. For long seconds we looked at each other, making the connection that had seemed missing over the weekend. I thought he was going to reach out, pull me into his arms, and say everything was okay. I was wrong.
He stepped back a little, almost as if he was going to close the door. Our moment was over.
‘Zoe, what are you doing here?’
‘What’s going on, Rion? You haven’t texted or called. You don’t even want to see me.’
‘I… I was going to explain.’
‘Well, I’m here now. Explain. And, for goodness sake, let me in. It’s cold out here.’ I started to move forward, but he blocked my way. I bumped into him, and his arms went around me automatically. It felt so good to feel the comforting strength of his arms holding me close that I put my arms around his waist and rested my head against his chest. I nearly lost it then. ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ I said in a voice that was close to tears. His arms tightened, and he breathed a heavy sigh as he bent his head to rest it on top of mine.
‘Orion, who is it?’ a familiar voice said, and I froze. I looked up as the door opened wider, and I saw Pandora behind him. I felt rather than saw Rion move away from me.
I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.
‘Zoe,’ she said. It was only one word, but there seemed to be a lot of meaning in it. I was obviously the last person Pandora expected to see. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, standing to one side.
Somehow my legs moved me forward, but I was still too stunned to speak. Even my mind seemed to have stopped working. All I could think of was one thing. Pandora was here with Rion.
I heard the door close behind me as I walked into the uncharacteristically cluttered lounge room. There were cushions on the floor and a pizza in a takeaway box. There was a bottle of red and two half full glasses next to it. Another thought pushed its way into my mind. Rion didn’t drink. He wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in it. Obviously, that had changed too. I collapsed into one of the lounge chairs, too shocked to stand any longer. Then I looked up at Rion, who was, if possible, paler than before. Pandora walked in and stood next to him, hand on her hip, her leather jacket open, revealing a tight black top. She wore jeans and knee-high black boots with heels that made her look at least six foot. Her jet-black hair hung in a straight curtain over her shoulders. Make-up enlarged her already large, dark eyes, and red lipstick made her lips seem even fuller. She was alpha and beautiful. No wonder guys fell at her feet. And I knew she was an alien too, with an intellect and a power that dwarfed everyone around her, except Rion. What chance did I have? None, it seemed.
His eyes on mine, Rion said, ‘Pandora, I think you’d better leave now.’
But she shook her head. ‘No, that wouldn’t be wise.’
‘I want to talk to Zoe alone.’
Anyone else would have done what he said, but Pandora wasn’t anyone else. ‘You need to talk to Zoe and tell her the truth. So no, I won’t leave. She needs to hear this from us both. If I go, you won’t tell her everything, and you’ll make her think there’s still a chance. You’ll give her false hope. She deserves more than that. She deserves a clean break, so she can move on.’
Pandora’s words chilled me to the bone. I didn’t want to move on. I never wanted to move on.
The sadness in his eyes was replaced by anger. ‘This isn’t your concern. This is between Zoe and me. Go now before I’m forced to make you.’
She gave a mocking laugh. ‘You’ll make me? Maybe once you might have been able to do that, but not anymore. Since your foolish attempt to pretend to be human, you’ve lost some of your strength and your powers. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You’ve suddenly realised everything you’ve given up to be with this fragile human. And finally, on Friday night, you understood who you really are. You’re an alien, Orion, and nothing will ever change that, and you could take back your powers if you really wanted to. You could be who you really are, but you suppress everything so you’ll seem human.’
I couldn’t take this anymore. I found my own strength, human and weaker perhaps, but it was still there. I stood up, put my hand on Rion’s arm, and turned him to face me. ‘Talk to me. Forget she’s there. She isn’t important. Tell me yourself. What’s wrong, Rion?’
‘Zoe,’ he said softly, his eyes sad again, ‘I can’t be with you anymore. I realised that on Friday night. We are too different. Pandora is right about one thing. I will always be an alien, and nothing can ever change that.’
‘We’ve been down that road before, Rion. You don’t get to choose for me. And I choose you, alien or not. I want to be with you. I don’t care what you call yourself. Have your little identity crisis if you must, but in the end, I know who you are. You are the person I love.’ Finally, I’d said it. Put it out there in the universe. But it was the truth. I needed the truth back. ‘You said you can’t be with me. That’s nonsense. Of course you can. What is more important is, do you want to be with me? Do you, Rion?’
He looked away. Finally, he said so quietly I might have missed it if I hadn’t been so focussed on him, ‘No. I’m sorry, Zoe.’
His words struck me like a blow to the chest. I’d told him I loved him, put it out there, making myself vulnerable. Not only did he not say it back, he said he didn’t want to be with me anymore.
‘It’s because of Pandora, isn’t it?’ I said.
Pandora moved closer. ‘Yes, that’s right. You’ve got it. We’re together now. It happened on Friday night. After all, we’re the same kind. We’re suited, and you know it.’
I looked at him. ‘Rion?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Yes.’
There was nothing more to say. But there was one thing I could do. I reached up and took the small silver chain off my neck and handed it to him.
He opened his eyes and pushed my hand away. ‘No, Zoe. Please, don’t give it back.’
‘There isn’t any reason to keep it anymore.’ Since he wouldn’t take it, I dropped it on the coffee table next to the wine glasses. I pushed past him, and this time he did nothing to stop me. Pandora followed me to the door. She put a hand on my arm as I went to open it. ‘I’m sorry, Zoe, really I am. But it’s for the best, and in your heart, you know I’m right.’
I couldn’t let that one slide. ‘No, it isn’t. Not for me. The only person this is the best for is you. You want everything, don’t you Pandora? Boys, popularity, fun times and, now, Rion. Who’s the next conquest after you’re tired of him? Because I have a feeling nothing lasts for you. You’re playing with us all like we’re puppets or something. Who will you hurt next? Because, Pandora, whoever is with you will always pay a price. But it won’t be you.’
For once Pandora had nothing to say. Her expression went blank, and her lips tightened. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted out of there. I went out and closed the door behind me. Grabbing my bike, I headed home. How I got there, I couldn’t remember, but finally I was in my bed. I was cold and wrapped the blankets around me tightly. But there were no tears. Only a hard little pebble inside me that had once been my heart.
Chapter Eighteen
Surprisingly, I slept. Maybe it was sheer exhaustion or maybe my body just shut down in protest. But when I woke up and touched my neck, finding it bare, it all came flooding back. I still couldn’t cry. I felt numb. Everything seemed unreal. It was like I was looking at life, but not really part of it. I got ready for school automatically and even caught the bus on time. I didn’t think of anything, but stared out th
e window, ignoring the noise all around me. When I got off at the school, I put one foot in front of the other. I kept breathing. I kept living. I just stopped thinking.
Rion was at school, but we might have been strangers. When I passed him in the hall, I looked over at him, but he avoided my eyes, and neither or us spoke. What was the point? There was nothing else to say. He didn’t sit with us at lunch time. In fact, he never came out to lunch at all, so perhaps he was hiding from me in the library or the science lab where he had a job cleaning up and helping out. But Pandora was there, sitting with Jas’s group, who were gathered around her hanging on to her every word. I wondered if it could even be called Jas’s group anymore. The queen bee seemed to have been replaced. I almost felt sympathy for Jas.
I sat down next to Lou and Mike, who had joined our group now. He was actually okay, even if he was a computer and game nerd. Harry and Kerri were also there. Kerri had slipped back into her default mode of eating her ham and salad wrap and reading a book. It was good to know something was normal again.
‘Where’s Rion?’ Lou asked.
I took a deep breath, knowing I had to tell them sooner or later. ‘Rion and I have broken up.’
Lou looked at me with a shocked face. ‘What? You can’t be serious.’
‘I am. It happened last night.’ I slowly unwrapped the rye crispbreads and cheese that I’d grabbed for lunch this morning.
‘That sucks,’ Mike said. Understatement if ever there was.
Even Kerri looked up.
Harry said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Zoe.’ His eyes were sympathetic.
‘But why?’ Lou asked. ‘You two were always so perfect together. Rion loved you so much.’
I almost cracked a smile at that remark. Lou said what Rion never had.
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’d just rather forget and get on with things.’ I couldn’t tell them about Pandora yet, but they’d find out soon enough, and maybe it wouldn’t be a total surprise. After all, who could compete with Pandora? Not any human, that’s for sure.
‘That’s okay,’ Lou said, placing a hand on mine. ‘But we’re here for you if you need us.’
The rest of the group nodded, and then no one said another word about it. It was as simple as that. One day we were Zoe and Rion, the couple everyone thought would last, including me. And the next day it was over, just like that.
But I had other things on my mind too. Tomorrow Mum was having her procedure, and so we were all carefully cheerful and upbeat at dinner. ‘Everything will be fine. It’s only day surgery,’ Mum said brightly as she put the salad on the table.
‘Yes,’ Dad said, pouring some water into his glass. ‘It’ll be fine.’
I nodded. Concern for Mum overshadowed my unhappiness about Rion for the moment.
After dinner, Dad said, ‘Why don’t you go and do your homework, Zoe, and I’ll clean up. And you have a rest,’ he added, turning to Mum.
But she shook her head. ‘I have a few things to sort out for school. I’ll be away tomorrow, so I need to plan some work for the supply teacher.’
I looked at her incredulously. ‘Really, Mum? You’re going in for an operation tomorrow and you’re going to do school work?’
‘The world doesn’t stop just because of that. Besides, it’s only a day procedure.’ She got up and bent down to kiss my head. ‘Now scoot and get some of that homework done that you’re always complaining about.’
I slowly climbed the stairs and went to my room, sitting on the bed. My first impulse was to call Rion and talk to him. I actually had the phone in my hand before I remembered. I hadn’t thought about him in the last half hour or so. I’d pushed my breakup with Rion to the back of my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about what the results would be tomorrow.
The next day was long. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Lou, that Mum was going in for a procedure and we would find out whether she had cancer or not. I was quiet, but I knew all my friends thought that was because of Rion. It was and it wasn’t. It was everything. And talking wouldn’t help.
Dad texted me later in the day to say the procedure was over and he was on his way to pick her up from the hospital.
When will she know the results? I texted back.
Not till tomorrow at the earliest. He replied.
When they got home in the evening, Mum was looking tired.
‘Probably just the effects of the aesthetic,’ she said, giving me a hug. Dad went out to get us some takeaway, and after dinner we all watched back episodes of Star Trek Voyager on Netflix. It was one of our favourite series and brought back memories, both good ones and painful ones. I remembered when Rion had been staying with us last year and we all watched it together. We’d had popcorn, or sometimes pizza or even some of those awful brownies Mum used to make. Now I sat next to Mum, leaning my head against her shoulder. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything being wrong with her. In fact, I refused to believe it. She was just tired from teaching all those bratty little kids, and that lump was just a cyst. I’d lost Rion, but there was no way I was going to lose Mum. Everything was going to be all right.
The image of Zoe’s face when I lied and told her I didn’t want to be with her anymore was one I wouldn’t forget. And what was worse, I told her I was with Pandora. That was the biggest lie of all.
Pandora had come over to my house uninvited that night. She’d brought pizza and wine and told me we had unfinished business. I told her we didn’t. That I had already made up my mind to break up with Zoe, for her own sake. But that hadn’t been enough for Pandora.
‘We’re both aliens in human bodies. We should stick together, Orion. As a team, we’d be unstoppable. Just think of what we could do, of where we could go, of the fun we could have. We could leave this boring place and travel the world. Why stay here in this small, limited town with these small, limited people? There is so much we could do and see. We shouldn’t waste this opportunity.’
I wasn’t tempted at all. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted. I had planned to see the world all right, but I had planned to see it with Zoe. I resented Pandora for opening my eyes and making me realise who I was. If she hadn’t materialised in human form, Zoe and I would still be together. And maybe it wouldn’t have been fair to Zoe, but I was selfish enough to want things back to the way they were. I had to keep reminding myself why I broke up with her.
‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Pandora,’ I’d said. ‘If I can’t be with Zoe, I don’t want to be with anyone. In fact, I’m going to try to get back to the mothercloud.’
Pandora had shrugged as she’d poured the wine. She handed me a glass. ‘That’s one of the most sensible things you’ve said. But you can have some fun here first, and then we’ll both go back. You’ll get over that little human in time. Here, have some of this. Wine is one of the better human inventions. This will help you forget for a while.’
I’d taken the glass and put it down. ‘I don’t want to forget, and I certainly don’t want this. I think you’d better leave now.’
But then there’d been a knock on the door, and it was Zoe. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Pandora was right about one thing. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to leave Zoe, especially after she’d stumbled into my arms and I’d held her closely. But fate, or destiny or maybe just luck, bad luck, had taken it out of my hands. Pandora was there, a physical reminder of my alien identity. So, I’d lied and said I didn’t want to be with her. And when she’d jumped to the conclusion Pandora and I were together, I’d realised that was probably the only way Zoe would accept our breakup. But one look at her face told me that not only had I broken up with her, I had broken her heart too. I would never forgive myself for that.
As to being with Pandora, that was never going to happen. She’d tried to persuade me to go along with the deception. ‘She’ll only try to get back with you if we aren’t together,’ Pandora had said after Zoe left.
‘No, she won’t. She’s not like you. She doe
sn’t try to get what she wants no matter what the cost,’ I’d snapped. ‘But you have what you want now. My life, my human life, is ruined. So now you can leave.’ And finally, she did.
But now, facing long days at school and even longer nights at home, I wondered how I could get in touch with my people. Pandora had said it was possible, but I soon realised, too late, it was just talk. Despite all my efforts to communicate with my people, all I got back was silence. Perhaps I would go away by myself and leave Zoe to get on with her life. And this time I would stay away.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day, the only thing I wanted was to find out the results of Mum’s procedure. I wasn’t going to think about Rion at all. Easier said than done.
I was sitting between Lou and Kerri at lunch time, eating my sandwich, when I saw him come out of the library and head towards us. It was the year twelve area, and the groups were scattered under trees or out in the sun because it was getting cooler. Rion hadn’t sat with us yesterday or even with Pandora. He hadn’t come outside at all. If he and Pandora were together, they certainly didn’t hang out much. But even if they weren’t a couple, Rion had made it clear he didn’t want to be with me. So, I was mega surprised when he came over to our group. He nodded to everyone. Harry said, ‘Hey, man, how are you?’
Rion sat down next to me. I moved closer to Lou to give him room, and concentrated on eating my sandwich. There was an awkward silence for a few moments as everyone searched for something to say. Rion spoke first. ‘So, um, Zoe, how are you?’
‘Fine.’ I wondered what he wanted. Did he suddenly have a change of heart?
‘That’s good. I’m fine too.’
Scintillating conversation—not.
Then he said, ‘Mrs Stewart asked me to babysit Emerson tonight. I just thought, you usually do it. Do you want the job instead?’