Three Sides of a Heart

by Natalie C. Parker

  “It probably isn’t possible,” said Connor, the faint trace of a grin quirking up his mouth. Anwar had the remarkable gift of being able to cheer him up even when he was the one making Connor feel down in the first place. It was one of the reasons they stayed friends. Also, Anwar couldn’t help being superior in so many ways, and he didn’t—usually—flaunt it.

  “Come on, let’s get home. And don’t practice walking on your hands too much tonight, you might hurt yourself.”

  “I don’t need to practice,” said Connor. Inside, he was grimly determined that Anwar wasn’t going to win that challenge, no matter what. His friend might get the girl, but he was also going to play the triangle solo and look stupid in front of everyone.

  Kallie and her reluctantly dragged-along-for-buddy-purposes younger brother, Justin, called in at Connor’s house that night, even though her family was in another dome and it was somewhat risky to move around outside after sunset, when the temperature dropped to minus forty degrees Celsius.

  But Connor was out with his mom, helping her reset an experiment on top of the nearby hill everyone called Lookout! Mountain, from the time the balancing boulder came down; his dad was working the night shift at the air plant; and his eleven-year-old sister, Siobhan, forgot to mention the visitors when Connor got back because she was totally engrossed in designing a game that concerned space unicorns going shopping.

  Connor couldn’t sleep that night. He lay awake, thinking, dozing off, waking again. It wasn’t the walking-on-hands challenge, or the triangle solo, that kept troubling him. It was Kallie. And more than that—himself. He’d just given up, and he felt weak and useless.

  Finally, about four o’clock in the morning, he got up and went and made himself a so-called milk shake, or at least the vat-grown supposed equivalent. Connor had never known anything else, so he didn’t mind it, but all the nonnative people said the stuff was disgusting.

  His father came in from the night shift just after five thirty. He didn’t seem surprised to see Connor half asleep, sprawled across the kitchen table.

  “Early start this morning?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Connor, sitting up. “Got . . . um . . . a thing to do with Anwar.”

  “Anything I should know about?” asked Niall Brennan. “As in, anything contrary to the safety and well-being of the colony’s structures, personnel, morale . . . you know, the usual.”

  “Dad! We haven’t done anything like that for years. And we didn’t mean to make that gas, it was a byproduct—”

  “I know. But there is always the danger of backsliding, and you have an odd look on your face. Kind of guilty.”

  “It’s not guilt,” mumbled Connor.

  Niall sat down opposite his son, sniffed the half-drunk milk shake, and made a face.

  “What is it then? Anything I can help with?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Connor. He glanced at his dad. They’d always gotten along very well, but Connor didn’t naturally confide in him. Or in his mother. Or anyone. He kept things bottled up inside.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “I saw Matyas Esterhazy last night,” said Niall eventually. “He’s coming back to the plant as second engineer, which will be a big help to me. He was always a good guy to work with. But his really big news—which is secret until later today, so keep it to yourself—is that Chizuko’s taking over as chief scientist and 2IC Colony.”

  “Wow!” said Connor. Chizuko was Kallie’s mother. But the exclamation came out kind of feeble and restrained.

  “And Kallie’s come back with them,” said Niall. “I thought she might have stayed on Earth to finish school and then go to university there, but she didn’t want to, Matyas told me.”

  There was more silence. After an internal struggle, Connor made himself look at his father.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Kallie’s back. That’s . . . that’s why I’m awake and doing my impersonation of a holed atmosphere suit.”

  “You were always such good friends,” said Niall. “What’s the problem now?”

  “Being friends,” said Connor heavily. “I mean . . . I just . . . we’ve grown up, and I’d like . . . to be more than friends. But she’s, she’s gotten really beautiful, and Anwar wants to ask her out, and he always . . . I mean, anyone he asks, for anything, they always go along with him. . . .”

  “He’s got the charm, that’s for sure,” said Niall. “And it’s not just surface deep. But relationships aren’t all about charm and good looks, fortunately. Your mother and I would never have gotten together if that were the case. You should ask her about her boyfriend Robert Robinson sometime, before I—”

  “Uh, no thanks, Dad. All the same.”

  “Yeah, well, too much information, I know. But my point is, what makes you think Kallie would prefer Anwar over you? Have you asked her out?”

  “Uh, no,” said Connor.

  “You should. Maybe she’ll say no, but that’s better than moping around wondering what might have been, or just giving up. Ask her to something she likes. Music was always her main thing, wasn’t it? There’s a visiting quartet coming in on the Triplex next week, I forget what they’re called. Invite her to that.”

  “Maybe I will,” said Connor slowly. A thought had just risen to the surface of his otherwise misery-sodden brain.

  Kallie.

  Music.

  The new composition for the orchestra.

  The triangle solo.

  Kallie knew all about the long struggle between Anwar and Connor to not play triangle.

  “You look a lot better all of a sudden,” said Niall. “I’d like to think it’s due to the brilliance of my parental advice, but I doubt it. Is it?”

  “Yeah, kind of, Dad,” said Connor with a smile.

  “Do I get a hug?”

  “Don’t push it,” said Connor.

  “All right. I’m going to bed. You need to talk later, feel free to wake me up.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’m okay.”

  “All right. See you later.”

  Connor met Anwar at the airlock. They both gave the traditional grunt they’d developed to mean “too early to talk,” got in their air suits, and cross-checked. Halfway across to the main city dome, without needing to discuss it, both paused to look up. Phobos was zipping across the lightening sky, with the much smaller Deimos trailing under it, and the bright star that was Earth apparently static below both.

  “Why would you live anywhere else?” asked Anwar.

  “Yeah,” said Connor quietly.

  They started walking again, following the lane between the safety wires, the green lights set in the path every meter giving their constant reassuring flicker. In a dust storm they would brighten a hundredfold, and Connor and Anwar would clip on the wires.

  “You all ready for the challenge?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d better not break a wrist just to win by default,” said Anwar. “You are going to be playing that triangle. Even if your whole arm is in a cast.”

  “Yeah,” said Connor.

  “Vocabulary failure this morning, I see,” said Anwar.

  Connor didn’t answer for a minute or two, until they were almost at the main airlock.

  “Anwar,” he said. “I’m going to ask Kallie out too.”

  Anwar gave him a thumbs-up and grinned, eyes bright through his helmet visor.

  “That’s more like it!” he exclaimed. “She might even say yes.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  It was Anwar’s turn to be silent. He looked away, watching the outer airlock door swing inward.

  “Yeah, I do. I mean, I don’t mind you asking. I hope she says yes to me. But it’s Kallie’s choice. She might say no to both of us, match up with Evren like you said. Or no one. Or one of the girls.”

  “Right . . . ,” said Connor. “I hadn’t thought . . .”

  “It ain’t all about you,” said Anwar. “Anyway, better to ask and find out rather than getting all pathe
tic.”

  “That’s what my dad said.”

  “He’s a smart man,” said Anwar. “He’s learned a lot from me, of course, over the years.”

  Connor snorted and followed his friend into the airlock.

  The quad was deserted. School wouldn’t start for an hour, even the early homework workshop. The lights high above in the dome were still set for dawn, so it was kind of dim. Anwar did some stretches near the principal’s podium, interlaced his fingers, and flexed his hands. Connor did a little shadowboxing and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Ding, ding, ting a ling ling,” said Anwar. “Get used to the sound, you’re going to be practicing at home a lot to get that solo down.”

  “Why do you hate the triangle?” asked Connor. He’d asked before, but Anwar had never given a proper answer.

  “Dunno,” said Anwar.

  “You always say that.”

  “I really don’t know,” said Anwar. “I mean, who does?”

  “I actually don’t mind playing triangle,” said Connor thoughtfully. “Or the sound of it.”

  “Then why are we doing this?” asked Anwar. “You can just take the solo.”

  “Because it’s bad for you to always get your own way,” said Connor. “I’m helping build your character.”

  “I’m not sure losing a challenge and ending up doing what I want you to do anyway is very character building,” said Anwar. “For me, anyway. Maybe it’s good for you.”

  “Let’s see,” said Connor. “We start here? On three?”

  Orchestra practice was the first lesson of the day. Anwar kept giving Connor sideways looks as they went in, because he couldn’t figure out what was going on, and Connor refused to tell him.

  They were the first there, as per usual. Anwar took up his xylophone mallets and absently picked out a tune.

  Connor picked up a triangle and a wooden striker and began to softly play along.

  “If you’re doing that to annoy me, it’s working,” said Anwar.

  “I’m just freeing up my fingers,” said Connor. “That solo is going to be pretty hard to play.”

  “And you are going to look particularly stupid playing it,” said Anwar. “But somehow I get the feeling there is something—”

  Kallie came into the rehearsal room, talking to Dr. Bethune. She was wearing bright blue coveralls now, the standard school uniform, and she’d had her hair cut shorter overnight, like most people did to make the air suit helmets less annoying. Connor thought she looked even more beautiful than before and felt his hand actually shaking with nervousness, so he had to put the triangle down.

  Anwar played a wrong note and dropped one of his xylophone mallets. He was staring at Kallie too—or rather, what she held in her hand.

  A conductor’s baton. And she had sheet music under her arm.

  “Oh, I get it now,” groaned Anwar. “‘K.E.’ I knew even you couldn’t fall off your handstand in the first three seconds.”

  “Hi, guys,” said Kallie, coming over. She spoke as if to both of them, but she looked directly at Connor, and she seemed to struggle a little, as if feeling something very deeply. “Dr. Bethune says you . . . neither of you . . . want to play the triangle in my new composition?”

  Anwar groaned again and rested his head in his hands.

  “Because I wrote it . . . I wrote it for . . .” Kallie was having trouble getting the words out.

  “I’m playing the triangle solo!” blurted out Connor. He stepped closer to Kallie, looking her right in the eyes. He took a deep breath and continued. “And will you come and see the visiting quartet that’s arriving on Triplex next week? With me. Not just friends. A date.”

  The last word came out a bit strangled, but Kallie didn’t laugh.

  “Yes,” said Kallie. “Of course. Why else would I come all the way back to Mars?”

  Connor got the hug right this time.

  “You know, I am prepared to reconsider my whole ‘I hate triangles’ thing,” said Anwar.

  But Connor and Kallie didn’t hear him.

  Vim and Vigor

  VERONICA ROTH

  Edie bent over her tablet, stylus in hand, reviewing her sketch. Vigor, the super-strong heroine of the Protectors, stood on the edge of a building, her fingertips bloodied from clawing a hewn stone in half. Edie had dotted Vigor’s nose and furrowed brow with freckles as an homage to the fanfiction writer whose work she was adapting into fanart.

  It was almost done. She just had to get Vigor’s cape to look like it was fluttering.

  After the day she’d had, she was glad to have a distraction. She had been asked to prom—twice. And though her friend Arianna insisted it was a “nonblem”—a problem that wasn’t really a problem, like having too much money to fit in your wallet—Edie still felt short of breath. And not in a good way.

  She shaded the underside of the cape, the corner tipping up in the wind. Vigor was one of four superheroines in the Protectors, a line of comics featuring Edie’s favorite superheroines. Vigor was half of a duo with her sister, Vim. They developed superpowers after being exposed to a radioactive explosion. Separately, Vim had boundless energy, never requiring sleep, and Vigor had super strength, but together they could summon a crackling, destructive energy they called the Charge.

  Her phone buzzed against the desk. She leaned over to read the new message. Arianna, of course.

  Arianna: Pros for going to prom with Evan: Good-looking, smart, good conversationalist. Cons: pretentious. Totally corrected my grammar that one time.

  Edie scowled at her phone. Arianna was just trying to be helpful, but she had been hounding Edie about her decision all day. She had a point about Evan, though. Their flirtatious friendship formed around smoke breaks in the field across from the high school, during their lunch hour. He was the only person who would talk to her about the human brain for more than five minutes. But the only stories he read were about listless men who didn’t care about anything or anyone, and he had asked her to prom between two puffs of a cigarette.

  Edie: Well, you did use “between” instead of “among.”

  Arianna: Shush.

  Arianna: Pros for Chris: Hot. Funny. Allegedly a good kisser. Cons: you dated him for a year, so high potential for drama.

  She had loved Chris Williams once. Or at least, that was how it had seemed, in the dark in the back of his car with his hands on her, or swimming in the lake behind his house in the heat of summer. She had loved the glow of his smile against his dark skin, and the way he always opened doors for people, even if it made him late. But their relationship had been like a house with no foundation—one little storm washed it away.

  Well, maybe it was more than a little storm.

  It had been a heap of twisted metal and a wooden box lowered into the earth.

  Edie’s stylus wobbled on the tablet screen, and she swore, hurriedly erasing the stray line that ruined Vigor’s cape. She had that hot, tight feeling in her throat again. She’d gotten another text, and it sat open on her desk, waiting for a response.

  555-263-9888: Hey! It’s Lynn. Want to go with us to see the Vim and Vigor movie tonight?

  Lynn had attached a selfie, and in it she was wearing Transforma’s signature purple lipstick, her lips pouted in an air kiss.

  Lynn was one half of what was left of the Protectors Comics Club Edie had joined in middle school. Originally, there were four members—Edie, Kate (the founder), Lynn, and Amy—just as there were four superheroines in the Protectors—Vim, Vigor, Transforma, and Haze—so they had each taken on a superheroine name and identity. It was cool at the time.

  They had been all but inseparable for four years. Then Kate, who was always full of questionable ideas, suggested they drive to the local 7-Eleven for slushies one night, even though she only had a learner’s permit. It was supposed to be a twenty-minute quest for sugar, and it ended in a car crash.

  Amy was gone now, her resting place marked by a simple headstone in the Serene Hills Cemetery just outside of t
own, with a little slot for her data next to her name. At such a young age, her “data” amounted to a few files of childhood artwork and her school records.

  555-263-9888: Opening weekend! (!!!!111!)

  At one time, the Protectors Comics Club had talked incessantly about a movie based on Vim and Vigor coming out, but it had looked unlikely until last year. Kate had even texted Edie when the movie’s release date was announced, but Edie hadn’t known what to say back to her. And now it was here, and she didn’t know what to do—not about prom, not about Kate and Lynn, not about anything.

  Deep breaths, she told herself. Her therapist had told her not to fight the anxiety when it happened, to just count her breaths and accept it. She tried that. When her heart was still racing a few minutes later, she fished around in her purse for the little tin of pills that had been prescribed for exactly this purpose. Her fingers felt clumsy, almost numb. Edie popped one of the pills in her mouth and swallowed it dry.

  Then she typed a reply to Lynn.

  Sure. Time and place? Gotta support the cause.

  They had always talked about the Protectors like that, as more than just a bunch of comics. They were a cause, because they were stories about women being heroes, not just spunky reporters or love interests who were sacrificed to the latest villain.

  After the text sent, she picked up her stylus and started to draw again.

  Edie waited outside the theater for Lynn and Kate, her little purse clutched close, feeling self-conscious. She spotted Kate from a distance because of her huge, baggy Protectors sweatshirt, with the symbol of the group on the front, curved and blue. And Lynn was easy to find because she was wearing her bobbing, horned Transforma headband. Transforma could shapeshift into any animal or alien the Protectors came across, though in her “human” form she always had red horns. And purple lips.

  Kate stuffed her hands into the center pocket of her sweatshirt and gave Edie a frown as she approached. Her freckled nose scrunched a little.

  “Hey,” Edie said. She wondered if Kate knew that Edie still read her fanfiction. She definitely didn’t know that Edie still sketched it. Would she like it, if she knew? Or would she think it was pathetic?