Author’s Note: So… I have a bit of a confession to make. After I wrote “Clouds Got in the Way” and “Be Prepared to Bleed,” I started to think about how that character ended up in the state she was in, and even before “Acceptance,” I knew where the alien’s story was headed. In fact, I wrote this to segue right into “Clouds Got in the Way.”

“Friend Luna?”

She wanted to shove Alvin away, not sure how to take his presence or anything else at the moment. She knew he was trying to help, but nothing helped, not now. What she felt wanted to break her, and she didn’t know how to go forward. She’d thought she’d never recover from her mother’s death, from all the confusion and the mixed emotions and the way her father was, but now she understood—this would be what broke her, not the instability of her hormones or her grief or anything her father did.

Being in love with Tynan was that last straw, wasn’t it? The one meant to break the camel’s back, the one that would destroy her. She couldn’t help a bit of bitter laughter at the irony of it. Dennis would have loved it, knowing that she had been on the other end of it. She’d gotten her heart stomped on, and she’d been the one to suffer.

The greatest irony of it all—she’d fallen for someone she could never have, someone who couldn’t touch her, someone she could never have a real relationship with. She didn’t know what Tynan looked like in his “real” form, didn’t know where he came from or what he was. She’d built it all up in her mind. She had the perfect relationship. He couldn’t push her where she refused to go, no, because he couldn’t touch her and didn’t even feel.

He was a black hole, after all. She had fallen in love with a black hole, and she’d actually thought she could hold onto him. How stupid was that?

“Friend Luna, are you crying again?”

She was. She didn’t know how to stop herself most of the time. She was angry, she was miserable, and she hated herself for all of this. She should have known better, and yet she hadn’t. Maybe this was it, a fit punishment for all she’d done in the past. Maybe this was just as it should be.

“Alvin, please, I don’t want to talk now.”

“We miss Tynan, too.”

She grabbed hold of the alien, wrapping her arms around him until she couldn’t take the way his wings beat against her and had to let go. She didn’t understand. Had she been such a fool, was that it? Was she confusing all that she had experienced with Tynan into something it wasn’t? She’d set up that whole “date” just to confront what she thought was between them—she could have sworn he was in love with her, too, so how could he just go and ever come back?

Alvin flew over to the window, and she followed him, looking out. She wasn’t going to watch for Tynan today, not again, but she couldn’t look away from the window, either. She might end up staying here forever.