Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 43: Stay, Stay Here

Seth

As it often does, a weird silence settles between the two of us, Joshua and I. We sit here in this office I've taken over, bathed in rosy light from the dimming evening behind the curtains. I'm curled up in my red chair, and Joshua's sitting on the floor by my knee, looking pensively down at the carpet.

I want to keep this conversation going; I can feel it teetering on the edge, and I just want to hang on to it, grab it before it's lost. It all depends on Joshua though. I can't make him talk to me, and I can't make light of his feelings either. That he's even opening up to me at all, it's... it's uplifting. I cling to this small hope, and I wrack my brain for what I could talk to him about. I don't want him to close in on himself again, not after it's taken so long to get here!

Joshua glances up, catching me looking at him. Our gazes meet for a moment, and then both of us dart our eyes away, searching for something else in the room to look at. And there's a lot to look at.

My gaze lands on the collage I've put up on the wall behind the desk, and I remember Joshua telling me he had questions. A strange apprehension wells up inside me as I think about telling him about me, about my origins, though I can't explain why. It should be a relief, to finally tell him, right? And he's just opened up about his own origins, so shouldn't I?

But there's this fear, this nagging little worry that I can't escape, that warns me Joshua might react badly. It's always up in the air with him: I can never tell anymore how he's going to react. Though... I suppose that's better than it was before, when I knew he wouldn't take to my foreignness well.

When I look back to Joshua, I find his gaze has settled on the Spanish textbook in my lap. He looks as gloomy and pensive as he had before, as has become the norm for him since I brought him here.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask quietly, tentatively.

Joshua blinks, and his eyes clear. He meets my gaze and gives me a little shrug.

"I just realised how much work I'm missing... At school. It's been... What, one school day now? Two? My AP classes are going to kill me when I get back. Not to mention, well... I'm sure the whole school is talking about what's happening. I can't see how they couldn't be. To them, I'm missing, aren't I?"

The more he speaks, the more he seems to be working around a lump in his throat, trying to push past it, though the weight just keeps clinging.

His words are like weights themselves, dropped into my arms. It hadn't even occurred to me what other people might think of this whole fiasco, of what they've gathered from the little they can figure out. I've been so wrapped up in worrying about Joshua, and to an extent, Perkins too, that it hits me now: I've almost forgotten more people than just us exist in this world.

It's a weird realisation to become aware of; I almost can't believe I'd forget.

"Are you?" I ask, suddenly feeling like I'm sitting on the edge of a ravine. Leaning out over the side.

"Am I what? Missing?"

Joshua looks at me with confusion, a dab of incredulity, and I shake my head.

"No, are you going. You said— You— Are you going back?"

I don't know why I'm tripping over my words all of a sudden, but I look to Joshua, and I need to know.

Joshua blinks. His eyebrows raise slightly, and he looks at me like he'd never considered the question.

"Am I..?" He asks, almost to himself.