Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  “I know you. If you killed someone it’s because they made you.”

  He says that as if it was a conviction so unshakeable that in his mind it’s a fact, not an opinion.

  “You really think that. You really do.”

  “Yeah. Obviously.”

  “What if I told you I killed two people?”

  “Then I’d think you need to make some lifestyle changes, but it still wouldn’t be your fault.”

  “You’re talking as if I could do no wrong.”

  “I don’t think you could. You’d feel too bad about it.”

  “So according to your theory every bad thing I do can’t be actually bad, because I’m doing it, but you’re a bad person all the time, even if you’re not doing anything at all?”

  He nods. “Pretty much. Only the way you say it makes me sound like a dick, while actually it makes perfect sense.”

  “And you don’t see a problem with that?”

  “I see nothing but problems with that. But I know it’s true.”

  “You’re so full of shit it’s a wonder your eyes aren’t brown too.”

  “What?”

  “You think you’re a class apart from everyone else because you’ve had a shitty upbringing, as if that turned you into someone so fucking special that no mere human can begin to comprehend your inner workings.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “You said it, and more importantly you showed it. That’s how you live. You’re so wrapped up in your own shit that you systematically discount everyone’s attempts at befriending you. Presumably it doesn’t matter, because nobody’s good enough, or bad enough. Nobody is enough for you. Nobody could possibly understand your troubled soul. So you cut yourself apart, and that keeps you so busy alternatively enforcing and brooding over your not-so-splendid isolation that you don’t even bother to find out about anyone else’s background.”

  “I haven’t stopped anyone talking about their shit.”

  “No. You’ve just made yourself so damn impregnable that nobody dares to open up to you, and it apparently never occurred to you that acting like that could push away people who could understand you only too well.”

  He punches his knees. “Look, it’s not about anyone else. It’s about me. I don’t get things. There are parts of me that are broken, or missing, or something. I didn’t grow up with good stuff. I don’t know how to get it and when I do I can’t keep it.”

  “And everyone else did. Obviously. We’re all healthy, happy, well-adjusted people with no skeletons in our closets. You know this, because you’ve spent so much time finding out, haven’t you?”

  “You are happy and healthy and well-adjusted.”

  “Yes. Now. Because we fucking worked at it, together. Because we talked about our problems and our lacks and helped each other, and we help each other still.”

  “What are you on about?”

  He looks so fucking incredulous and so fucking beautiful that something inside me snaps. All I want to do is slap him repeatedly, which wouldn’t be appropriate. I do the next worse thing: I throw our lives at him instead.

  “Oh, where to start. Gwen. Her mother hasn’t spoken to her since Gwen abandoned her to join the Academy. Apparently that’s not what a dutiful daughter would do. It didn’t matter a fig how badly Gwen was doing at home, how she lacked any kind of prospect, how well she did at the Academy, how happy she was, even how much credit she sent home. Her mother cut her off, and that was that. Though she somehow found it in her heart to keep the credit, oddly enough. As for her dad, she met him once, after she graduated. She was starting to feel weird about having turned twenty not even knowing what he looked like. Asher encouraged her to dig out the records and track him down. She went to see him during the summer break. It totally cleaned up her savings, but it was important to her. Her dad took her out to dinner, introduced her to his wife, and then was too busy to see her again during her stay. When she got home, she found he’d sent her a gift: a gold necklace, garish as hell and not to her taste, but expensive. With the necklace was a letter in which he listed what he considered the minimum requirements for a real woman. It was quite a detailed list. The only criteria she met was having big tits.”

  “Her dad said that?”

  “Yeah. Maybe he thought it’d be funny. We don’t know and we probably never will, because that was the last Gwen heard of him. I wasn’t there – it all happened before I met them – but Asher reckons that she took it hard. He couldn’t help her because he was just too angry. That’s what he thinks, anyway. He was all for going over and telling her dad what he thought. Gwen pointed out to him that it was her own fault, because her expectations had been ridiculous. Her father had rejected her all her life, after all. She had no reason to expect that things had changed. So she burnt the letter, sold the necklace, and got on with it. She hasn’t spoken about it since. Either she got over it or she buried it all somewhere deep and she’s going to have to deal with it one day.”

  “What the fuck kind of parent does that?”

  “One who doesn’t want to have kids, and doesn’t change his mind even after he’s made some. Unlike Asher’s parents. They liked their kids so much that they decided to have them even though they were third-classers on a tube, they weren’t licensed to have kids at all, and they couldn’t keep them in food.”

  He flinches. “That’s not fair on them. That kind of thing happens.”

  “Unplanned pregnancies? Sure. But eight of them?”

  “Asher’s got eight siblings?”

  “No. He’s got two. The other five didn’t make it.”

  “What?”

  “Turns out kids don’t thrive if you don’t feed them enough. Add no access to medical care and you have a winning combination. Who could possibly have seen that coming, hey? But they were some odd Old Terran sect and didn’t believe in contraception.”

  “What do you mean, they didn’t believe in it? I mean, it’s there. People use it. It works most of the time.”

  “They thought it was evil, because only their god had the right to decide who got to live and die. They’d rather churn out kids they knew they couldn’t look after than break their god’s diktats. But still, they did love their kids in their own fucked-up way, or so it seemed, until Asher went and crashed his damn ship, got burnt up, and couldn’t fly.”

  “He what?”

  “He couldn’t get near a ship without sedation for years, not even as a passenger. Post-traumatic stress. He was injured, he was fucked up, and he couldn’t do the one thing he thought he was good at, which was also the thing that kept him in air. So he got in touch with his folk back home, and they sent back a lovely message stating that his fall from the sky was obviously the outward manifestation of his fall from the grace of god. They believed that he needed to think long and hard about what he might have done to deserve that, but that even if he worked it out, he couldn’t put it right. If god had thought that he could be redeemed, he wouldn’t be punishing him like that. So they cut him off for being a sinner.”

  I’m trying really hard not to shout, but I’m failing. My voice has been getting louder and I don’t know what I’m shouting for or at anymore, just that I can’t stop.

  “And then you’ve got me. My family was wonderful. I was loved. And then I tested positive for a rare psi-bility that made me valuable as a commodity and worthless as a person, so they sold me to the Fed in exchange for whatever they could get. And get this: I was ok with that. I didn’t like it, and I was deeply unhappy, but for years I was ok with them doing that. I was raised to believe that everyone must contribute, and if the best way I could do that was to leave home and go and live with strangers who didn’t give a fuck about me and only saw me as a tool or a weapon, so be it. I thought it was ok, and when I started working with Gwen I spent fucking hours researching that kind of behavior and I found out that yes, it happens. When families are starving, they’ll sell one child to support the rest, and not always to cushy situations like
mine. It’s what you do when there are no other options. Only my family wasn’t starving. They could have said no to the Fed. But they didn’t.”

  I’m crying now, and I can’t stop that either. That only makes me angrier and louder.

  “But I was ok with it. I’d write home, and sometimes I’d get answers and sometimes I didn’t, but I was ok with it until I had Mattie, and then I realized how not ok it all was, because if anyone tried to take my kid away from me I’d kill them or die trying. Because there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Because my folk weren’t fucking desperate, life was hard but we were doing alright, and they fucking sold me. I was eight!”

  He looks right at me then, stricken, his blue eyes encompassing an enormity of anguish, and that only feeds my anger and my hurt until they are bigger than me and there is nothing I can do to corral them.

  “And you, you have the godsdamned gall to sit there and tell me that you’re not good enough for anything and anyone because of what? Because you weren’t good enough to pick the right family? Because nobody could possibly understand how bad it was for you and how much it hurt? Of course we fucking can’t! You won’t talk about it! We don’t have the least fucking idea what the hell is up with you, because you cut us out, and somehow in that head of yours that turns into proof that there’s no fucking hope for you or for us. Get over yourself! You’re not fucking special! You’re precisely as fucked up as everyone else I know who’s worth a damn, everyone else I love! So don’t you dare tell me again that I can’t fucking get you when you’ve done your level best to keep me out. Don’t you fucking dare!”

  I look at the tears spilling out of his eyes and I can’t bear any of this anymore. I turn my back on it all and run away.

  21. Luke

  I feel like I’ve got whacked in the head again, or like the world broke and rearranged itself around me into a different shape, so I just sit there, not thinking and not moving. If I don’t do anything, I won’t have to deal with what just happened.

  I’m still there, staring into space, when Asher knocks on the doorframe.

  “Are you ok?”

  I just look at him. Saying ‘no’ wouldn't begin to cut it.

  He sighs and walks in.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear the dulcet tones of Quinn’s voice.”

  “You heard all that?”

  “I missed the start, but I caught the finale. I couldn’t really avoid it. Her voice carries when she’s roused.”

  “She just laid into me. I swear, I didn’t…” I run out of words. I let things get too far because it felt so good, and then I turned her down. I have done my best to keep her out, to keep everyone out. I do think I’m special. Not a good kind of special, not at all, but that’s not what she said. Everything she said, I did it.

  “If it’s any consolation, it never lasts long. In about a half hour she’s going to have calmed down and be very sorry for shouting. But she won’t be sorry for anything she said while she was shouting. She always tells the truth as she sees it. I hate to tell you, but she’s generally right.”

  “This happens a lot?”

  “No, thankfully. I only got it four times in seven years of being with her, and it’s not as if I don’t fuck up on a regular basis. She doesn’t blow up unless she has just cause, and it’s always for the same reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone is hurting someone she loves. She won’t stand for that.”

  “I didn’t! I said something about myself, is all, and she didn’t like it, and she flipped out.”

  “Was it a mean thing, that thing you said?”

  I think back at the whole thing. “No. Well, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. She won’t stand for that kind of thing, no matter who does it or why. It does matter afterwards, when it comes to her deciding whether to forgive or forget you.”

  “Isn’t it forgive and forget?”

  “She’s an empath, not a fool. If she can’t find good reasons to forgive you, she’ll forget you, by and by. Even if it costs her.”

  “Gods. What the fuck do I do?”

  “If you deserved it, take it. And don’t fuck up again. You really don’t want to, if you can at all avoid it, unless you enjoy getting yelled at. And look at the bright side.”

  “There’s a bright side?”

  He crosses his arms over his chest. “Maybe not. Not if you didn’t even notice it. Oh, fuck it. Forget it.”

  “I don’t think I can. What did I miss?”

  He bites his lip. “She did tell you that she loved you.”

  My brain freezes for a moment, then rewinds the entire conversation up. Then it does it again. And again.

  “She didn’t. She didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’ve never seen Quinn use a word she didn’t mean, particularly an important one. She may struggle to find the way to say something exactly as she wants, or use five words when one would do, but she doesn’t shoot off at the mouth.” His eyes narrow. “Is it that bad?”

  I guess my face answers for me, because he cringes.

  “Look, it doesn’t have to be… Quinn loves Sasha and Aiden, and it’s not sexual. She loves a lot of people in a lot of different ways.”

  “That’s not it. I just don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Getting hurt is not an inevitable consequence of loving someone.”

  I want to say that it is, if they’re so fucked up they’re toxic, but that would bring me right back to the start of my conversation with Quinn and this time I’d have the joy of replaying her words in response.

  “I can’t…” I trail off, because I don’t know where to start with that. “I never meant for this to happen. I really didn’t.”

  “I know. You’ve been on your worst behavior all the while, and still she likes you enough to care about you. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Why? How?”

  He grins with half his mouth. “You’ve done your level best to not get on with her. You’ve been pretty hard work with all of us, in all honesty. I don’t know what your deal is because you’ve not made us privy to that, but if I had to hang out with you long-term I’d hope that you got over it. In your own time, because that’s how it works, but I’d like things to be less… scratchy between us. But even as things are now, I like you well enough to put up with a large proportion of the crap you’re throwing around and to give you hell for the rest of it. Quinn likes you even better. And if we can put up with you when you’re fucked up and acting out, chances are we’ll like you a lot more when you don’t. The only way is up.”

  “Because I’m such a piece of shit?”

  He winces. “Say something like that in front of Quinn and you’re gonna set her off again. But yeah, kinda. I don’t know. I just wish you didn’t treat my partner telling you that she loves you as a death sentence, I guess.”

  “How is that not a problem for you?”

  “Because there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop her loving me, or me loving her.”

  I’m trying to unscramble my thoughts and getting nowhere. There’s only one thing I know for sure.

  “I want her to get home. I want her to go back to her life and to be safe and happy.”

  “That’s all you want?”

  “No. That’s what I want more than anything, though.”

  “See, I call that love.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you call it, just don’t do it in front of her. Alright?”

  He looks stricken. I could have been nicer about it, I guess, but it’s too big a deal to fuck about with.

  “Alright. I wasn’t going to do that. It’s not my business to meddle in. You do what you’ve gotta do. I’m going to go and see to Quinn now. She should have simmered down and I want to make sure she’s ok.”

  “You do that.”

  “Luke, listen… I can’t say that I agree with most of what you’re doing, but I respect the hell out of your motivations.”<
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  “But you think I’m being an ass.”

  “Yes. But a moral, well-meaning ass.”

  When Alya and Raj turn up they barely take the time to change before we set off. That suits me fine. I know distance alone won’t cure this, but I still want to get the fuck out of here.

  My problem, or my solution, follows me to the bridge. Quinn sits to the other side of Raj, like normal, but this time she doesn’t even look at me. I can still sense her there, feel her deliberately blocking me out. I guess I got what I asked for. That ought to make me happy, but it doesn’t.

  I spend the departure desperately trying to sort my shit out, but I run out of time before I run out of shit. It doesn’t matter, though, because the evening is more of the same: we are politely sharing a space. That tension that had been building up between us has gone, and so has all of the friction. Everything is so cool it’s cold. We’re just two strangers who happen to be on the same ship, heading in the same direction for the same purpose. There’s nothing between us, not even bad feelings.

  The first time we end up alone, Quinn does apologize for raising her voice. She does it so calmly and politely that I want to scream at her, to say or do something inappropriate just to snap her out of that, to get her to drop the act and tell me that she loves me or hates me or wishes I were dead, anything other than this blank, cold formality that stands like a wall between us. I don’t, though: I calmly and politely tell her that it was all my fault, we calmly and politely agree to disagree, and we calmly and politely drop the subject. Then we split.

  I go to my bunk early because I feel like my head is boiling and my insides are frozen. Alya insists on checking up on me but she spares me any medical tests. I think she’s convinced herself that I’m mooning over Jo. If she were to ask me about it I’d have to put her right, but she’s not the sort to do that. Letting her believe that makes things simpler.

  When I get up in the morning, nothing has changed. I struggle to accept that: how can something that big happen without leaving any trace? I keep expecting to open a door and get sucked into a vortex, or for everything to disappear around me, but nothing happens. Everything is normal. The guys are normal too. Quinn is even better than normal: we get on so well now that she slammed her door in my face.