I groan, covering my eyes with an arm draped over them as I fall back onto my bed. "Rina, don't get me wrong, I love hearing from you, we talk every day, but I do prefer words when you call me at oh-three-hundred hours."

Moving my arm to my side, I look to her projection. The light is positioned so she's sitting with her legs crossed under her on my floor. She rubs at her eyes, holding a blanket loosely around her shoulders.

"Astrid, I can't sleep." I look up at the now barren ceiling above me and she chuckles dryly.

"Well, that's apparent considering you woke me up in the middle of the night and look as if you just had four cups of coffee."

I roll my eyes and sit up straight. Something I've always found convenient was that our planets had the same time cycle despite being on the opposite sides of the B4 system from each other. I glance at the clock display on my Link and it indeed says zero-three-hundred on its display.

I huff in frustration. "That's beside the point." I watch as she covers a yawn and rolls her shoulders. "How are you able to sleep during a time like this? We both leave for the GTA substation in the morning."

"Don't know, maybe I'm just less of a tight ass than you."

I cross my arms, lack of sleep making me irritable. "That or you just aren't having as hard a time with this as I am."

This wakes her up completely. She points a finger at me and the movement makes her blanket fall from her shoulders, it pools in her lap. "Aye, check yo-self! You know damn well how hard the transfer decision is for me."

My eyes drift shut as I deflate. I feel my shoulders curl into myself and exhaustion makes my head heavy. "I know, I'm sorry." I open my eyes and rake a hand through my hair, light-colored locks knotting around my fingers. "I know that this is hard for you, I just don't know what I'll do if my application is denied. I tell you that Shawn is looking for housing for me?"

Astrid raises her brows and shakes her head. "Seems a little early doesn't it?"

I breathe out a chuckle. "That's what I said." I fold my hands in my lap and bite the inside of my cheek. "I've burned too many bridges here."

I think back over the years following Shawn's transfer to A1-C23. I fell off the wagon, hard. It would almost be better to say that I threw myself off it, breaking it in the process. I had done anything I could to stop feeling the abandonment that had struck me when Shawn didn't come home.

The two week buffer period after he went to the GTA had passed and he still hadn't shown. Then a month came and went. Eventually, I stopped watching the door and instead went in search of others. Darren had been the first to welcome me into bed. Then Ryker. Thierry, Jared, and Theo soon did as well, finishing the list of guys who didn't care who they slept with as long as they got laid. They had been routine for the past four years, a getaway to forget the loneliness of the bungalow, even if for just a moment.

Though, not only had I ruined relations with people my age for doing that, I had to go and fuck things up with the elders. A month ago, I had been in Ala, our capital, and somehow offended a fruit vendor. He and I had shared words and when security had come to remove me from the premises, that confrontation ended with a guard having a broken nose, and another with a dislocated shoulder before they were able to contain me. When I was finally brought to someone to plead my case, to my shock, I had been taken straight to the elders. The eight of them had chewed me out, giving such a verbal lashing that my ears might as well have started bleeding. I'm lucky that they decided not to enforce disciplinary actions due to "lack of time to finish my penance."

"Rina, what does that mean? That you've burned too many bridges?"

My eyes focus again on Astrid, having glazed over in my memories. "Here on Aoria, family and the connections between community is everything. Guess what I did," I chuckle and take my family ring off, throwing it across the room. "I butchered those connections to hell, everyone looks down on my choice to transfer and find Shawn rather than shun him and stay.

"Everyone expects me to simply come back, find a husband, and start a family of my own, building off the remains of his." Astrid nods, understanding our ways. I had explained to her before, the way our planet is run. Families stay together. When the kids grow up and find spouses, the two families merge, adding to the bungalows in their area so they can all stay together. Whole areas can be run by a single family, passed on generation to generation.

"I can't do that, A. I can't just turn my back on the only family I have left."

"Then don't."

She stands up and moves until she sits down on something, a chair or her own bed most likely. I adjust the projection so she sits next to me and wait for her to continue.

"Just because that is what is expected of you, doesn't mean it's what you have to do. I say screw 'em all." We both chuckle and I nod. "Now, I need to get my beauty sleep before going to the substation tomorrow. You should too."

"Yeah, yeah." I roll my eyes and pop my fingers. "I'll talk to you sometime tomorrow-or well, later today-after we get there. Maybe see if we can get the GTA to let us see each other?"

"Sounds like a plan, sister."

The transmission ends and my room is plunged into darkness. I reach to turn on the light by my bed, but then realize that the lamp no longer sits there. For the past week, I had been packing my essentials and giving away everything else. There's no reason to have furniture that will sit unused in a vacant bungalow. The only things that remain are the larger pieces of furniture and my Skimmer that the Dawsons said they would take once Micah and I left for the substation.

I sigh and move to lay down when a pit forms in my stomach. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I look to my right, across the room where my ring reflects the moonlight that streams through the window. Shawn and I are the last two people with Barringer family rings, all the rest have been buried underneath the waves of Aoria's oceans along with their owners. The pit grows and I rush to the ring, slipping it back onto my right ring finger. Once the cool metal is wrapped around my finger again, the hollow feeling dissipates and my usual numbness coats me again.

There are only two times when I don't feel so numb, so empty. When I'm talking to Shawn and Astrid, and when someone's touch pushes all thought from my mind.

I lay on my bed and look at the ceiling above me. When I was twelve, Shawn painted a school of Tangubi fish and couple sea stars. When I was sixteen, he and I repainted it a basic light blue and pinned pictures of our family up there. Now, the chipping paint is all that is there. A color between pale lapis and zenith blue surrounds me with each wall.

Finally, my eyelids grow heavy and I take one last look at my Link, checking the time. I have just under four hours to sleep before I have to get up at zero-eight-hundred hours. A breath escapes me and I relax into the mattress, already missing the only home I've ever known.

The Skimmer stops in front of Micah's bungalow and with the engine now off, I float and sway slightly with the current. I close my eyes and savor the feeling of the movement, there won't be a lot of water out on A1-C23, the planet is basically just a large moon, all rock with what can be considered enough atmosphere to be called a "thin-atmo-climate."

"Serina," I open my eyes and pick my head off the headrest of my seat. Micah stands on the other side of the Skimmer, leaning against it as he watches me hesitantly, almost like he's afraid I'll yell at him for interrupting my thoughts. "Is this all your stuff?"

I look at the duffel bag and suitcase in the passenger side of the Skimmer and frown. Twenty-one years of memories were reduced down into just a duffel and small suitcase of clothing, small trinkets, and photos. My head dips in a nod and I slowly climb down out of the Skimmer.

My small purse bounces against my hip as I jog up to the door of his bungalow. Mr. and Mrs. Dawson meet me outside the door and each give me a loose hug. While they did little to help me or Shawn when our parents passed, they were here more or less when Shawn left and I was by myself. It was nice to know that I could have a home-cooked meal every once in a while.

I step away from the pair and hold out my hand. "The keys to my bungalow, and the Skimmer."

Mr. Dawson takes the keys from me and I turn away, walking back to Micah to grab my bags and take them to his Skimmer. I step up on the support just above the water and gaze into the body of the Skimmer, noticing that my bags are gone.

"Micah?"

"Already put them in the back with mine." I look over my shoulder and see that he stands with his arms crossed, hands buried deep in the folds of his blue robes.

I clear my throat and nod, then reach into the Skimmer one last time, grabbing my own robes before stepping off the support and into the shallow water. Once on the sand, away from the water, I slip my arms through my deep blue robes and pull them over my light blue shirt and pants.

"Let's go." Micah nods and gives his parents one last hug before heading in the direction of the side of their bungalow where they store their Skimmer.

As we walk, my ears perk at the sound of Mrs. Dawson's sobs. For the past week, since I found out that Micah was requesting a transfer, I had prepared myself for this. I knew that when we left the flood gates holding her tears back would open. My steps falter and I watch Micah's as well, but we both keep looking forward and move again.

We're almost to the Skimmer and I can practically feel the tension that is pooled in Micah. I can see his tense posture and note the clenched fists that swing at his sides. His hands stay closed on themselves until we reach the Skimmer and he opens my door, giving me a hand in.

I purse my lips to keep from saying that I don't need help and simply stay quiet, climbing in with one hand in his and the other holding my robes up to keep them from getting wet.

We don't talk. Micah seems lost in his own hard decisions, and I just don't know what to say about what just happened. I don't have anyone to leave, don't have anyone to walk away from with my back turned, fighting to keep from looking back. I don't have to do what he's doing. But, I did have to be in a similar place as his parents four years ago, at least they had a warning.

"I guess we've gotten past the hard part, right?"

I glance at him and shake my head, leaning it against the frame of the Skimmer. "I wouldn't know."

"You can be a bit of a cold bit-"

"Would you just shut up and drive to the fucking capital?"

"Thank you, for proving my point."

I shoot him a glare and his hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. My teeth clench and I move my eyes to the passing water.

"I don't get what your problem is. Yeah, your parents died, and your brother left, grow up! We all lose people!"

"You have no right-"

"Yeah?" Micah stops the Skimmer and we start to float idly on the calm water. "You and I used to be friends, do you remember what a friend is?"

"Of course I do!" I cross my arms over my chest. "I happen to have a good friend, Astrid."

"And where is she? I sure as hell know she isn't planetside."

"The fact that she's from a different planet doesn't matter!"

"Yes, it does!" He looks around at the spanning water around us. "If she isn't here, then she doesn't get to see the real you! She doesn't see the hollow bitch that sleeps around to spend her time!"

I physically flinch at this, those words feeling like a solid punch to the gut. "That's right, I know. Everybody knows!"

I purse my lips and fume. "Drive."

"No, you need to see-"

"I don't need to see anything!" I sit up straight and thrust a finger in his face. "Now shut up. And. Drive. Or so help me God, I will throw you out of your own Skimmer-oh, but wait, it won't be yours much longer now will it?"

My lips form a sly smile as he processes my words. "You act all high and mighty, but fail to acknowledge the fact that you're abandoning your own family." I huff and turn to the water, leaning against the Skimmer once again. "Stop judging me, or else I'll judge you back, ten times harder."

After a moment of silence, the Skimmer finally starts to move again. With each passing minute, we get closer to the capital where the shuttle to the GTA substation awaits. I count off each klick in my head and bite at the inside of my cheek.

She doesn't see the hollow bitch that sleeps around to spend her time!

I'm not surprised he knew. I'm not even upset that he knew or that he said it, it's true, so what? What upsets me is that he felt he was in a position to judge me for it. Before our parents died, Shawn and I were always over at Micah's bungalow, playing with him and his older brother Kieran. The four of us were always getting into messes. I was the youngest, and a girl, so I was either struggling to keep up or I was being treated like a princess, there was no in-between.

Shortly after our parents died, Kieran drowned, and Shawn and I stopped visiting because we two families had our own issues to deal with. Though, despite becoming mere acquaintances and hardly ever seeing each other, Micah maintained the ability to read me like an open book.

It seems to me, like he used his powers for evil, reading me and judging my decisions silently. I slept with a few guys over the past four years, so what? Men put women down for doing something they would congratulate their buddies for doing. I'm sure Darren or Jared's friends were patting them on the back for bedding me. And what do I get? Side looks and silent remarks. Do I want to be congratulated for sleeping with different guys? No, but I don't want to be judged for it either.

The engine to the Skimmer clicks off and I thank God that I don't have to sit here with Micah any longer. I open the door and hop out onto the dock that we've stopped next to. As quickly as I can, I snatch my bags from the Skimmer and start walking in the direction of our pick-up location, leaving Micah alone.

"Do I at least get a thanks for giving you a ride?"

"You mean the ride that you all but called me a whore during?" I look back at Micah and he crosses his arms, shoulders rounding slightly. "That's what I thought, see you never, Micah."