Chapter Nineteen

"/bypass: Comm. F. Tharrist >> 'Command. Get me a direct line to the Seat. Now.'"

 

The four of them sat there for a while, stunned. Staring at the detritus scattered around her now-ruined home, Gina realized it’d probably take days to pick up all the books, photos, and bits of plaster that had fallen on the floor.

That guy, whoever he was, had some serious nerve.

“So…” Von said, staring at Gina. “I feel like I’m missing a lot of context, here.”

“To be honest, so do I,” Gina said.

“Con-text,” Callana muttered under her breath, probably trying to decipher the word’s meaning.

“You ate a star,” Clenard stated. “You ate a star.”

Gina pinched the bridge of her nose. “It was the most romantic thing I’d ever done, too.”

“Romantic?” Von sputtered.

Shaking her head, Gina slipped beside Callana on the couch. The girl was just sitting there, blankly listening in on the conversation, but looking rather… quiet about the whole thing. Whatever she’d been going through after that kiss, Gina couldn’t tell. But if that was anything like the internalized homophobia she’d gone through all those years ago, she figured it would be best to take things slow. So, she just laid a gentle hand on Callana’s thigh and took a few deep breaths.

“We went out last night, got drunk, and… uh, well, you know the rest.”

“I really don’t,” Von said. He idly sat on the carpet, eyeing the piles of shattered décor and photo frames all around him.

Gina shrugged.

“How did you even… none of this makes sense,” Clenard said. “Stars aren’t, like, little dots in the sky you can just reach out and touch. Earth is only a few thousand kilometers across, and stars are a million times bigger! And hotter, too! And bright! Just the radiation alone would—”

“You do realize we’re talking about Callana, right?” Von said. “She can do whatever she wants.”

Clenard shook his head, pacing. “This is insane. What is even going on, Von? Who was that guy?”

“An alien?” Von offered. “Or… alien-ish, whatever that means.”

“He was one of the Angry Things,” Callana said. All the eyes in the room went to her as she finally muted the TV. “Yes. Um. They… killed me a long time ago—it does not feel long, though. He was one of them.”

“Okay,” Clenard said, “I’m a bit caught up on that, too. You’re clearly not dead.”

“I am… dead,” Callana said, avoiding eye contact. “Yes. Twice dead. It hurt. But death is not the end for me. It never will be. I get smaller and smaller but never go away.”

Leaning against a wall, Clenard sighed. “Yeah, okay. That might as well be the case. That’s fine. Yep.”

“I made a mistake last night,” Callana said, fidgeting with her fingers. “More than one. I… will not let myself mess up again.”

“Cal…” Gina muttered.

“I hurt the Gina; she is not human anymore. And I hurt myself, too. I cannot keep doing this,” Callana continued. Her eyes were so dark, and her tone was so dull. “I killed the humans on the planets I ate. I do not do a good job at the res-taur-ant, and I failed to… do something a long time ago.”

“You apologized for changing me. I’m not mad,” Gina said. “The past is the past. There’s nothing any of us can do about it anymore. You’re already doing your best. And the restaurant? Cal, who cares? I’m pretty sure it’s a drug front, anyway. Ron doesn’t give a shit; his cooks use pre-scrambled eggs out of a jug. And… about last night? Honestly? I had a really, really good time.”

Callana shot Gina a terrified, furtive glance before pulling her eyes away, focusing on a blank spot on the wall.

“Who told you… you know?” Gina looked back at Von and Clenard awkwardly. She gestured toward the hall, and Von seemed to catch what she meant, as he grabbed Clenard’s wrist and hauled him back into his room. “Anyway, who told you that you’re not allowed to kiss girls?”

Callana shook her head. “I… I do not know.”

“Okay, let me put it this way: why aren’t you allowed to kiss girls?”

Blinking, Callana stuttered for a moment. “B-because I… have to set an… ex-am-ple?”

Gina raised her eyebrows. “An example? For whom?”

“I…”

“You don’t know.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so… you can’t even remember why, but you know you have to be straight or else you won’t be a good example.”

“Yes?”

“That’s the densest thing I’ve ever heard, Cal.”

Callana cocked her head. “What?”

“How, exactly, does being gay set a bad example? Or being bi, or whatever, for that matter? It isn’t some horrible, shameful thing that we need to hide. I mean—in this country, it’s hard not to want to hide it… but just because other people say it’s wrong doesn’t mean that’s true. Nobody’s hurt by two girls kissing. If it doesn’t hurt anybody, doesn’t that mean it can’t be wrong?”

Callana’s eyes danced across Gina’s face, her brows furrowed in raw concentration.

“Well?” Gina asked. “’Coz if I can’t find anything wrong with it, and you can’t find anything wrong with it…”

“I…” Callana shook her head, gears grinding in the back of her alien mind.

Silence. Minutes passed, and Callana just kept looking off, avoiding eye contact, and straining to push any words out.

“So…” Gina said.

“Yes!” Callana exclaimed. “Yes! I have found the something wrong. It is cor-rup-tion!”

Gina stared at her with blank eyes. “Corruption.”

“Yes. I have power, but you do not. So, it is wrong to do the kissing, because I have power, and that means that I am man-ip-u-lat-ing you.”

“Okay,” Gina said, nodding. “Okay, yeah, but… uh, you don’t have all the power here.”

Callana cocked her head.

“I mean, I think there’s a better argument for me having all the power. Sure, you can, like, eat suns and stuff, but you don’t know much about Earth. It’d be really easy for me to manipulate you—way easier than it would be for you. The only real way for you to abuse your power is if you, like, threatened me or something. I’m not worried you’re gonna blow up the planet anymore, and I doubt you’d do anything to hurt anybody—let alone me. So, I’m really just… not scared of you. If anything, you actually make me feel… pretty safe, actually.”

“S-safe?”

“Yeah?”

“But… you saw my real body, and…”

Gina gave Callana a soft, gentle smile. “And I don’t care. I don’t think my brain can process how—well, in that body, you kept slipping in and out of dimensions I can’t see, and I could even see inside you sometimes, and it was pretty disorienting. It didn’t make me feel unsafe, it just gave me a headache… and it kinda fucked with my perceptions of reality.”

“That still does not sound good…”

“Not ideal, I’m not gonna lie, but… do you want to go back to that body again?”

Looking off, Callana shrugged. “Not really… It wasn’t awful, but I think this works better. More prac-tic-al. I think it would be nice to have more of the ten-tac-les, but I do not think the humans like to see those. And I feel a lot more… con-tent than I used to. I liked to change my body a lot before, but it never fit too well. It feels fam-il-iar to have four of the arms. Yes. I do not mind it.”

“Uh… the bottom ones are called legs.”

Callana frowned. “Really? Legs?” She overpronounced the word a few times. “I do not like ‘legs.’ I like ‘arms.’ Why not call them the arms?”

“’Coz they’re slightly different?”

Scowling, Callana mulled it over for a little while. “Point is, I just… I am not a human. I do not think like a human. I do not want to be a human. What I am is… just Callana, for now. And I like that.”

“Well, I like you as Callana, too. You don’t have to be a human to be a good person. You don’t have to be ‘normal’ for me to like you.”

Callana’s lips twitched. “No. That is not… you are twis-ting my words!”

“Okay, so, what is it you wanted to say?”

“I—I’m not… we can’t be…” She trailed off, her sentence as incomplete as her idea.

“Cal, this isn’t about what you ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ do, it’s about what you want. If you don’t want to be… with me, then that’s that. But that has to be a decision based on what you—and I mean you, Callana, personally, and for no ‘ethical’ reasons—want. It’s a lot simpler than you think it is.”

Callana froze.

“Look,” Gina said, picking up a loose shard of glass that had shattered out of one of their photo frames during the earthquake. She took a quick nibble, then ate the whole thing. It had a vague sourness to it, oddly enough. Not too far off from, say, a lime. “It’s not up to me or anyone else. I—I have my answer. I’ve been mulling it over for weeks, now. I like you, Callana. You’ve changed my life. A month ago, I’d be freaking out just as bad as Von and Clenard over this whole earthquake thing, flipping out, going nuts, the whole nine yards. But if there’s one thing you’ve helped me with, it’s going with the flow. Honestly? I’ve always had really bad anxiety—not as bad as Von’s, but still pretty bad. Before I met you, the only reliable way I knew how to cope with that was to… well…”

Gina pulled up her sleeves, revealing rows of thin scars. Hundreds of them.

“It’s been a long time since I hurt myself, but the desire was always there. And I was worried when you ‘fixed’ me that I’d start up again, since it’d be so much easier to hide… but I haven’t. It’s been weeks, and I’ve only had the urge once or twice. I’m not saying you’re the only thing keeping me from relapsing—that’d be super codependent and unhealthy—but it’s more that… you’ve really brought this chill vibe into my life. ’Coz if every day is gonna be different from the last, then maybe all I have to do is just go with it. You know?”

Callana shook her head. “But… I am not… I am different.”

“When have you ever cared about being different?”

Shifting her eyes, Callana took a deep breath. “All the time. Different from who I was, different from what you are, just… different.”

“Oh. I… I didn’t…”

Nodding, Callana shrank back into herself. “I do not want to be a new person, but that is what I am. I have started over, and I feel… vul-ner-able.”

“Yeah… I can’t even imagine.”

“I do not like feeling vul-ner-able.”

“That's okay. You don't have to take every step all at once.”

Taking a deep breath, Callana scanned the shambles of the apartment. “This place is a mess.”

“Yeah, that guy was a jerk.”

“I did not mind him.”

“Sure, but do you have any idea how long it took me to sort my fucking bookshelf? ‘Don’t worry, I won’t make a second earthquake’ my ass.”

Callana chuckled. “He was not good at not making the earth-quakes.”

“How could anybody be worse? How hard is it to not cause an earthquake?”

“Even I have not made one!”

“Right? ‘Oh, we can’t have you eating celestial bodies,’ he says, right after he wrecks our whole-ass house. What is he, a cop? Fuck off, right?”

“Yes!” Callana exclaimed. “Fuck the police!”

Gina burst into laughter, doubling over on the couch. Callana joined in too, a mischievous smile plastered on her face.

“You hang out with Clenard too much,” Gina said, wiping her eyes. “Holy shit, Cal.”

Callana stuck her tongue out at Gina, but Gina retaliated by bopping her on the nose. She scrunched up her face, recoiling a little, but her eyes twinkled when she looked back at Gina.

“I really like you, Cal,” Gina blurted.

Panic flooded Callana’s face for a moment.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Gina said, fumbling over her words. “But… you know, that’s how I feel. And I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I won’t rush you, either. But if you do ever want to—to take things a bit further, it’s all up to you. The ball is in your court, okay? And whatever you choose to do, just… make sure it’s your own choice.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other. But then, Callana nodded. And somehow, for now, that was enough.

 

Tension! Romance! Ominous, background spooky stuff! What more could you ask for? If you're enjoying Call an Ambulance!, please consider supporting me on Patreon! I'm kinda broke, so... you know... it might help. Anyway, stick around, check out my other stories, and I'll see you next time!