The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Twenty-Six

The run circuit takes us round West, where I spend almost the whole time wondering where Dom might be and looking around me just in case I might see him. And this is where we are this one day when we are running and suddenly Ronaldo stops short. The rest of the guys on the circuit are running past us as he turns to whoever has taken his elbow and says, 'Mira hombre . . . '

And then whoever it is says, 'Hágame un favor, tio.'

And because I would know that voice anywhere, in any language, I turn to him, pull him into my arms, breathe against him; because it is Dom, it's Dom, it's Dom, and he is here.

'It's you, thank God it's you,' I say, pushing my face against his jacket and knowing I'm going to cry.

He is smiling but wet-eyed, palming my cheek and circling me tight with his arm before he turns to Ronaldo and says, 'Cinco minutos, vale?' and even though Ronaldo seems seriously hacked off and looks up and down the passage a little before nodding, he lets us walk away. So this is why I am watching the side of Dom's face as he pulls me in against him.

'How did you . . . ?' I ask.

He shakes his head and says, 'Let's just say that Benitez and I have a history and he owes me a favour and leave it at that.'

So this is how we end up at the seating in View, with Ronaldo at the bottom, pacing back and forth, and us sat way up at the top talking faster, faster, so fast we can barely keep up because he said we only had five minutes and he probably plans to stick with it, and at first all I can say is, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You were right – I shouldn't have done what I did.' And then, 'How are you? Please tell me you're OK.' At this point I am pulling his leg up, his ankle in my lap, and I am examining the thick black plastic of his tracking tether like it is a cancerous growth. But he pulls it out of my grip and takes my hands, and I look at him and it's only now I notice the matching bruises on his cheekbone and eyebrow, hatched across with broken skin. I reach to touch them but he catches my hand before I get there, presses it between both of his.

'Who did that?' I ask him.

'No, that's not important.' He shakes his head. 'It was just . . . ' He shakes his head again, almost laughs. 'That was Annelise's dad.'

'Oh, right,' I say, not sure if I'm relieved by that or not, but there isn't time to think about it.

'Just listen to me, estrellita,' he says. 'Don't lose hope. Just do whatever you need to do; whatever they want you to do.'

'But are you OK?' I ask him.

'Don't worry about me,' he says. 'Have Security been talking to you?'

I pull his hands in against my chest, close to my heart, and say, 'Yes.'

'And?' he says, swallowing hard.

'They're trying to blame it all on you.'

He almost smiles then, but it's a breathless, panicky kind of smile. 'That's good, Seren, that's the best possible outcome. That's good news.'

'But what . . . what will happen to you?'

'Don't worry about that,' he says, his face twisting into pain. 'Don't worry about me. I've been in trouble before, remember, and it worked out OK.' But I don't believe him any more than he does, so to try to convince us both he takes my face between his hands and peers into my eyes as he says, 'I need you to do the right thing for you, estrellita; I don't want you to fight for me.'

'That doesn't mean I'm going to stop,' I tell him. 'I'm never going to stop fighting for you. Never.'

And he leaves his hands on the side of my face but he is shaking his head and saying, 'You know how much I love you, and I always will, but you just have to do as they say. Please listen to me. Please promise me you will listen to me this time. Because otherwise . . . '

I look at him, at the face he pulls that I don't recognise, at the way he looks away, down at the floor, struggling, and I say, 'Otherwise what?' and I swallow the big rotten lump of fear that has gathered in my throat and wait for him to meet my eye. 'Otherwise what, Dom? What did they say to you? What did they do?'

But Ronaldo is striding up the stairs and saying, 'Vamos, Seren.'

On instinct I hear myself say, 'No,' and I grab Dom's sleeve, pull him into me, kiss him, hold him, don't let go even though Ronaldo is pulling at my arm and I am saying, 'Five more minutes. Just five more minutes, please.'

I wrap my arms around Dom as tight as I can and I lay my face against his chest, right in the dip of his breastbone in the place I consider to be mine, the only place I have ever really belonged. There is this stillness then, and I can sense their eyes meeting over my head, can feel, even if he himself can't, how torn Ronaldo is to have to take me away.

And right then, right in that one still moment, I open my eyes and see it, out through the quadruple-pane glass, its colour a celestial blue. It is still so beautiful.

Huxley-3.

I hear Ronaldo sigh behind me, saying, 'Venga, guapa,' and he pulls on my arm again.

Dom kisses me as I am eased away from him. 'Please do what's right for you, estrellita. Everything's going to be OK.'

'But you need to keep yourself safe,' I say, shaking off Ronaldo's hand, feeling it rising in me now: the fear. 'I need to know you're safe.' I turn to Ronaldo. 'Please, don't do this.'

He looks surprised. 'I don't make the rules,' he says, and then, 'Vamos, or we'll get back late and they'll know something's weird. Let's move.'

Only because I'm scared of being found out, of what this would mean for Dom, I let him take me, I let him pull me along even though for the longest time I am looking back to where Dom has followed us and is standing on Main, hands on his head, watching us go until we're out of sight.

It's only then that I turn back to Ronaldo and see him studying me. I go to speak but he stops me.

'I don't want to know anything about any of that,' he says, holding up his hands. 'I'll only tell you something I've known for a while – Domingo Suarez has a habit of making things more complicated than they need to be for himself and the people who care about him.'

'Why would you say that?' I frown. He doesn't answer, but I'm not giving up. 'You know each other?'

'From Education.'

'So you know Mariana too?'

He stops, making me stop, and we stand facing each other in the narrow passageway. 'Why are you asking me about Mariana?'

I'm so shocked, seeing the look on his face and the tightness in his mouth, that I stammer a bit before I get my words out. 'Nothing – no reason. She's just . . . she's a good friend. Well, she was.'

He frowns. 'Why do you say that?'

I shrug. 'I keep thinking she'll come to see me but she hasn't.'

He watches me another few seconds, not speaking, his eyes completely in shadow from the overhead light. 'I think I preferred you before you started talking. Now come on, we're taking too long,' he says, and he runs on.

We're waiting for a downwards transporter when we see this short, red-haired woman from Engineering and she's in maternity uniform and Ronaldo stops to kiss her and they speak to each other too quietly for me to hear and when she leaves I say, 'Your life partner?'

And he nods, and I end up thinking for a moment about how far away it all seems to me now – a normal everyday life like that – but then I'm not sure it ever even did feel that close. Not to me.

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!