Her eyes go wide.
Shit. I am screwing all of this up. She can’t find out that I’m a clone. It’s not just my secret. I’d be endangering my sisters if someone told on us. We’re already so obvious. Three identicalAsian women named Ruth? We might as well fucking put targets on our foreheads.
Neck hot, panic in my belly, I do the only thing I can think of. I turn and walk away.
CHAPTER
TEN
SIMONE
Jesus,what’d I say?
I watch as Ruth-Ann marches off toward the cantina, her shoulders stiff and angry. I’m bewildered at what I said to hurt her feelings, but I feel like a monster. She’s my friend, and just the sweetest, most thoughtful person I’ve ever met. Everything she does has meaning behind it, from the tea she brings me in the morning to the recipes she scribbles down for me, selected specifically because she knows my level of baking or the ingredients I have on hand, or when I’ve burned my fingers and can’t do a lot of finesse-work. She’s thoughtful and notices everything.
So the fact that I’ve somehow made her upset bothers me.
Pluto’s still seated on the ground. His tail thumps once or twice as he watches her leave, but I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or hoping she’ll come play.
I want to chase after her and apologize, but I don’t take more than a step away from my cart before someone’s approaching to shop. I force myself to turn back and put my best sales smile on. “Hey there, Chloe. What can I get for you today?”
I’ll have to apologize to her later.
It takes far too long for my cart to sell out today. I’d made extra this morning, my mind full of the idea of extra credits and what I could put those towards. Now I’m regretting the additional batches of cookies. I want to pack up and go, but leftovers don’t sell nearly as well as fresh food. So I keep chatting with customers and bagging up pastries and sweets and do my best to watch the doors of the cantina at the far end of the settlement. When I’m finally sold out, I pack up and take both Pluto and the cart over toward the cantina as fast as I can. I peer into the windows, my hands pressed to the glass.
No one’s inside. I’m too late. They must have packed up and left already.
And Ruth-Ann didn’t even stop by to say hi. My gut clenches and there’s an ache bubbling deep inside me. I hurt my friend’s feelings. I made her run off and avoid me. Something I said bothered her so much that she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
It’s devastating.
I go through our conversation over and over again, trying to read through the lines, to somehow understand what it is that I stepped into. What did I say that was so offensive? Why are birthdays bad?
It isn’t until I push my cart back to the boarding house and see Janelle at the front desk that I remember: stasis amnesia. Janelle had a terrible case of it and can’t remember where she’s from or how old she is. This must be the same thing affecting Ruth-Ann. It all makes sense now.
Oh my god. I’m such an asshole. How could I have forgotten? My memory’s still seared by Pearl, a woman I’d met when I’d first been enslaved by the praxiians. She looked to be the same age as me—late twenties—but didn’t cuss. Instead, she’d say things like “golly” and “jeepers” and couldn’t remember large chunks of her life.
It wasn’t until later that we found out she’d just emerged from stasis…and she thought the year was 1958.
After finding out that it was over fifty years later, something inside Pearl had shriveled up and died. She’d gone into a fugue-like depression that nothing could snap her out of, not even her sale to another praxiian lord. I remember watching her leave our cage, a lifeless, sad husk of a formerly vibrant person.
Stasis amnesia does fucky things to the brain. Maybe Ruth-Ann has a similar situation and me prompting her about her birthday brought up bad memories. Or worse, no memories.
I’m the bad guy in this situation.
I feel awful about it. Sick to my stomach. Poor Ruth-Ann. I pried at something that obviously triggered her and now she’s avoiding me, and I can’t blame her for it. She’s just protecting herself.
I need to give her time to recover, to let her come to me when she’s ready to be friends again. My heart heavy with regret, I push my cart into my room and stare at my surroundings. It feels like I’ve somehow lost my best friend.
I hope she doesn’t hate me for long. I don’t think I could stand that.
It sounds stupid, but I miss Ruth-Ann already. I sit down on the couch and hug Pluto, but it doesn’t ease the ache in my heart. He snuffles at my hair, but he doesn’t lick me like I’m a kitten that needs tending to. Not like he does to Ruth-Ann. For some reason, that just makes my heart hurt more.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
SIMONE
