The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Nineteen

It's the next morning, a day off, and I'm doing my breakfast mess duty which is basically fine because it's just dishing out eggs for a while followed by a lot of loading up the dishwashers and is all over by ten. When I get out to head back to the berths to get some more sleep Dom is standing there. He is sad and beautiful and leaning the way he does, standing straight slowly when he sees me, pulling his cap off, looking like he's getting ready to say something but when I stop in front of him, watching him, he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. I'm walking away when he takes my hand.

'What are you doing here?' I say, not looking at him.

'I wanted . . . ' he starts, but doesn't finish, and when I look at him he is just shaking his head, passing his thumb back and forth across the back of my hand in a way that feels like it will wear a hole. 'I would have done anything to be with you, Seren, remember that. You're the one who said it couldn't happen.'

'We're moving on with our lives,' I say, quoting Captain Kat I think, and regretting it instantly. All the same he pulls on my arm until I am close to him, not touching but almost, the heat of his arm warming mine, cool breath on my neck and he says, 'Te extraño, estrellita,' and then, 'All I do is miss you, do you know that?'

'Yeah.' I laugh. 'I can tell. It's really obvious when I see you out with her that all you're really doing is missing me.'

'Seren, you were there with HIM.'

'I know that.'

'So that's OK, but it's not OK for me?'

'I'm not the one standing here saying I miss you.'

'I could see you were upset last night, Seren. You expect me not to come to you?'

'Yes, I do expect that. I'm fine. I don't want you coming to me, OK?' And my voice gets all dumb and warbly and I try to wipe away the stupid tears that are burning my eyeballs, unstoppable, without him noticing, but I guess that never really works, does it? And while I'm standing there, shaking hard, he runs his hand down the back of my hair, picks up my ponytail, holds it to his lips, breathes in once slowly – all of this I know without looking at him; all of this I know because it's something he's done before – then he smooths it back into place, trails his hand down my back then up again, takes hold of my shoulder.

'I keep wanting to ask you whether you kissed her last night,' I say to the floor just in front of me. 'And then I realise I don't ever want to hear you lying to me again.' I try to walk away, just as he pulls me into him, closes his arms around me, stops my shaking or makes it worse, I'm not sure which, and we are right in the corner, up against the cold side of a vending machine, in one of the places where the sound from the engine rooms resonates, alone it seems, and I wonder why it is that we can't just stay here for ever.

'Just tell me he'll be good to you,' he says then, his mouth against my ear, his voice cracked in a way that makes me ache inside, that makes me blink a stream of hot tears on to the front of my overalls. 'All I need to know is that he knows how lucky he is to have you.'

I struggle then, elbow him, and he releases me; he doesn't make it difficult, just lets me go and then watches me turn back to him, looking back like it's the last time, and he is just horribly beautiful right then, draped into the corner with the flush along his jaw and cheekbone that shows even through the darkness of his skin, with a shine in his eyes that threatens to make me lose it.

'Just so you know,' I say, struggling to form words. 'It was NOT me that said it couldn't happen. It was life. It was this place. It was the system. So don't ever say or even THINK that it was me, because it wasn't.' Then, just when I'm walking away, I stop. 'Please will you promise me something?' Out of the corner of my eye I see him nod, and I swallow, press my hand against my stomach, breathe, wonder if I'm really going to be able to say this and then I do. 'Don't come to me again; don't even speak to me. We just can't be characters in each other's lives right now, Dom, maybe not ever. Will you . . . can you . . . I need . . . please will you do that for me?'

And though actually all he says is, 'Seren, don't, please,' I know that what he's really doing is agreeing, I know it by the tone in his voice, I know it by the way he pinches his nose and doesn't look at me again, I know it by the way I walk away and all I hear is the hyperdrive sound as it echoes in the vents while Tamerlan, the guy who does my route on Saturdays, passes me to refill the vending machine with Nutso bars and watches both of us, me and then Dom, leave in opposite directions.

More coming later this week for Seren and Dom! If you enjoyed this chapter, please don't forget to vote – thanks.

The Loneliness of Distant Beings has been published, but to get it in front of as many people as possible I'm posting it to the lovely Wattpad community. The plan is to have it all up before the publication of my second book - The Glow of Fallen Stars - in August.

If you can't wait to read the ending, or just love the feel of real pages, then you can purchase Loneliness from your local bookshop or online retailers!