Stardawn Read Free

long were we locked like that, hungry mouth to hungry mouth, my breasts against your body, my fingers all tangled up in your hair? It couldn’t have been long. Before I knew it, we’d drawn away again. Yet your lips still lingered centimeters away from mine, shining with our shared saliva. When you laughed, I felt your warm breath against my mouth. Light, tickling laughter. I didn’t need to ask what was so funny—I was laughing too. How far we’d come since those afternoons in your room when we were little. How strange the path had been, pulling us away from each other and then close again. And yet here I was, resting in your arms, our laughter everywhere—like a pair of twittering birds, tucked inside that tree.
    You let me go. You grew serious again, wiping your mouth against the back of your hand.
    “There’s something I need to tell you.”
    I thought you might break my heart then. Reveal that you were already intended for someone else. But I guess you saw the look on my face, how my features must have grown grave and pale with your words. So you reached out and touched the tips of your fingers to mine.
    “Not like that. It’s just—” You hesitated, your words jagged at the edges. “—about Mazdin Rafferty.”
    My fingers should have been warm. They were touching yours, after all. But they were cold as metal, cold as space.
    “Tell me later,” I said, my words coming out in a rush. “Not tonight. Please, don’t ruin tonight.”
    Of course I wanted to know what had happened between you two, what it was that had made you so swift, so cruel. But tonight? Tonight I needed to believe that you were gentle, that you were kind, that the only people on this whole ship were the two of us, sitting together up in that tree.
    “But you wrote in your letters—”
    “Benny!” My words squeaked out. “Not tonight . Please!”
    I slipped my palm against yours and squeezed, to make myself clear.
    Smart boy. Or man, I suppose. You listened. How long did we sit there together in the bough of that tree, our hearts beating in both of our hands? It was purple night by the time we climbed down, by the time I thrust myself into your arms. Not to kiss you. Just to hold you for a moment. I smelled your body, heady, beside mine. You didn’t use to smell like that, like book glue and dust and something feral. Once you simply smelled like a little boy, unwashed hair and muddy boots and sweetened milk drying on your breath. Now you’re grown and I am too. I wanted to show you that, so I stood up straight and tried to look brave in the moonlight.
    “See you tomorrow?” I asked, my hand lingering in yours. You nodded, but didn’t say a word. You didn’t have to, Benny. Your eyes said enough.
    Yours,
    Alyana

48th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benny,
    Nobody else knows I’m different. That’s the strangest part of what happened between us. Days ago, I was just Alya. I giggled with my friends and fought with my brother when he came over for Friday dinner. I wore my heart on my sleeve—isn’t that the saying? I couldn’t keep a secret because I had no secrets to keep. But today I have you, your kisses, and the way your body felt when we leaned against each other. I am a new creature, with new blood coursing through my veins. Do you feel transformed too? I walk through the dome, bidding the men and women who pass hello. They don’t know why my steps are so light, my smile wide. They think I smile for them.
    But it’s your smile. You gave it to me.
    There are new lambs in the pasture. Today, I stood by the fence on the way to school and watched them practice ambling forward on their knobby legs. They understand, better than most, I think, the new eyes through which I view our world. Before, it was small, predictable, known. But now? Now it’s grown, Benny. I closed my eyes as I leaned over the splintered rail, offering the half-eaten apple I’d taken for breakfast out to the woolly creatures. When I felt their