Page 20 of Uprooted

Elowen

Bri and I are opposites in most ways, but we share a disdain for early mornings. The synth-coffee only makes matters worse. I’ve given up on it, but Bri drinks the stuff hoping one day it will taste like the real thing.

I should be mad at Andi for scheduling the All Staff this early, but the good news she announces makes up for the ungodly hour. She happily tells us all teams are making great progress and sends us off with news that our initial findings will be sent off by the end of the week.

“So, where’s the boyfriend today?” Bri asks me while she zips up her steri-suit.

“Not my boyfriend.” I plonk down on the bench and pull up the thick suit I’ll be stuck in all day.

“I’ve been seeing Aro at the mess hall with two bowls of noodles, growling at anyone who tries to sit down with him. It’s pathetic,” Bri says while we step through the airlock and enter the lab. She says it the way you would talk about a sick puppy. The ones with the oversized watery eyes.

“How much longer are you going to torture this poor guy? Hasn’t he passed the test yet?” Bri asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not testing anybody.”

“Please. Don’t play innocent. You’re avoiding him to see if he will track you down. I get it—make sure he’s truly interested before going any farther. I think that he’s proven himself by now,” Bri says .

“I have been avoiding him, but not to test his interest in me. I’ve been avoiding him because I want to keep my job, and that means not getting distracted by the first hot alien that smiles at me.”

“You’re not going to lose your job. That’s a convenient excuse,” she says. “I’m just saying, he’s clearly interested, and I think you could use a little diversion.”

“When we have a pollination solution, then I can think about a potential relationship. Until then, I’ve got to stay focused on work.”

“You know that you’re allowed to have a personal life,” Bri says.

“I can have a life once we fix the giant mess that’s waiting for us on Earth.

” “Can you hear yourself right now? It’s preposterous that you feel like you have to put your life on hold, and single-handedly save humanity.

It’s a pretty narrow view of success—you don’t have to achieve everything to earn happiness. ”

Bri’s eyes don’t let go of mine. She is dead serious. She wants me to truly hear what she’s saying. Intellectually I know she’s right.

“You aren’t ready to hear any of that yet. The last thing I’ll say—I just hope you realize that I’m right before it’s too late.”

“I hear you, and I’ll think about it. I promise.”

If I didn’t love Bri so much, she would irritate the shit out of me. Not only does she command the main character energy I’ve lacked my whole life, now she has the gall to go and be insightful and emotionally intelligent.

“I’ll be eating dinner in the mess hall tonight, like a normal person. When you’re ready to stop hiding, you can find me there,” she says with a teasing glint in her eye and heads to her workstation.

Is it ego that has convinced me I have to be the one to figure this all out?

Every day, people balance a personal life with their professional one.

I've put this limitation on myself that I can’t do both.

The idea of letting go of a tiny bit of control to see where things could go with Aro sends anxiety through my entire body.