Alone

by E. J. Noyes

  Ignoring the letter works for about ten minutes, then it becomes as overwhelming as everything else in my life. I slide a knife under the envelope flap to slice it open, almost amused that she sealed it—it’s not like anyone else is here to read it. Her writing is smooth and flowing with long tails and large loops.

  Celeste,

  There are no words that will ever sufficiently convey how truly sorry I am that this experience ended this way. It wasn’t how I wanted things to be between us. I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to find a way to express to you how much our time together meant to me.

  Please, if you take one thing from all of this, I would hope that you could find a sliver of trust to believe me when I say I love you.

  Take care of yourself.

  Olivia.

  I trace the lines and curves of her beautiful writing with my forefinger. Now she’s gone and I wish she wasn’t. The confusion that’s been present ever since I found out about The Lie morphs into something so big I don’t think I can hold on to it. What kind of sickness is it to want her when she hurt me this way? All my thoughts spin around and around but won’t stick. She lied and manipulated me. She said she didn’t want to, but she had to because of the study. She betrayed me, she used me. She said it was all real. She said she loves me.

  Love.

  No matter how hard I try to push past it, I can’t stop dwelling on that one word. The concept of her loving me is a massive speed bump I’m getting stuck on. No, I’m letting myself get stuck on. I’m stuck on it so I can keep this little bit of hope, because if I don’t then I’m left with the thing that’s been with me my whole life—that niggling doubt and the ever-present fear that nobody wants me.

  I close my eyes, straining to hear Mother’s voice. I wait and wait for her to say it but she never does. So I say it myself, flat and emotionless the way she used to. “You’re not worth anything. I wish I’d never had you.”

  I scrunch up Olivia’s letter, walk out to the burn pit and set a lighter to the paper. When the flame is almost licking at my fingers, I drop the burning ball. Only when I’m completely satisfied that nothing but ash remains do I go back inside. I really should check in. It’s hours past my usual time but that’s their fault, the fault of whatever pill she gave me last night. Not mine. Just like her being here was not my fault.

  Mug of coffee. Still groggy. What shall I say to them today? I start with the basics.

  SE9311: Hello.

  Cont A: Good morning, SE9311.

  My heart stutters when I see that designation. My knees are shaking under the desk. My hands are shaking on top of it. I think I might hurl. I can barely type a response.

  SE9311: What are you doing here?

  Cont A: I’m working. How are you? You’re quite a bit later than usual. Is everything all right?

  SE9311: Really? You’re asking me how I am?

  Cont A: Yes.

  Well, Olivia…I’m angry, hurt, devastated, betrayed, and so fucking confused I can barely tell what’s really happening and what’s in my head.

  Cont A: SE9311, do you have anything to report? Are you okay?

  SE9311: Not to you, no. I don’t want to see you here ever again. I won’t talk to you. Get someone else. I’ll be back in 10 minutes.

  I stand up and leave the room as quickly as I can. I stuff my feet into the boots waiting by the door and run outside. I didn’t even take the time to put a jacket on, I’m shuddering and I don’t care. I run, stumbling in unlaced boots along uneven ground, down the hill to Hug Tree. There’s something inside me, something rage-filled that wants to come out, and for a brief and terrifying moment I consider punching the tree trunk. But I don’t.

  I am many things—gullible, sad, loving, broken. But I am not violent. I have never been violent. “I am not like Mother,” I whisper to myself. “I’m not, I’m not. I’m a good person. I deserve to be loved.”

  I wrap my arms around the tree and squeeze it as hard as I can, my arms and ribs protesting against the force. The pressure doesn’t ease any tension from my body. My cheek is pressed to the slightly smoother section of tree where it always rests, and I clutch the trunk harder as though I could somehow transfer feelings from under my skin to under the bark. Then I would be okay.

  From above I hear a faint grinding whirr and when I look up I see one of the surveillance cameras swiveling in my direction. It’s her, undoubtedly, checking on me. Those cameras have never moved in all the years I’ve been here. I imagine her, wherever she is, wearing makeup and dressed in a nice business suit and heels calmly instructing a security person to spy on me. I raise a childish middle finger at the camera and turn back to the dwelling.

  Controller Take Two is Controller E, the newbie who replaced Olivia—sorry, Controller A—when she first came here. And now it seems they are tasked with picking up the slack for her again.

  Cont E: Are you there, SE9311?

  SE9311: Yes.

  Cont E: How are you?

  SE9311: Fine. Thank you.

  Such a stupid societal convention. Clearly, I’m not fine. I count to twenty, trying to slow the racing of my pulse with some deep breathing. It doesn’t really work.

  Cont E: Would you like to discuss it?

  SE9311: Yes I would. But not with you.

  Not with anyone in that place. Not with anyone connected to her.

  Cont E: May I remind you of your contractual obligations? I’m willing to be a sounding board, or you can log your feelings by either text or video.

  Fuck the contract, and there’s no way I’m going to video log myself talking about how broken I am. She shouldn’t be allowed to see those things, to listen to me say those words. I draw another deep breath.

  SE9311: Is she gone? Is she watching this?

  Cont E: Dr. Soldano is not in this room.

  I don’t have the tools to know if Controller E is lying or not and regardless, what they’ve said doesn’t really answer my question. Not in the room doesn’t mean she’s not watching me or tracking what’s happening between me and Controller E. She’ll see this log, because she told me herself that she’s read every text transcript and watched every video. I’m caught in a triangle of obligation, my need to talk to someone about it, and my loathing for what’s happened. The words fall off my fingertips.

  SE9311: I’m confused. I don’t know if what I felt was even real. I feel like I have no right to be as devastated as I am. I feel like I don’t know if I’m even in love with her or not. And if I’m not then I have no right to my feelings. But I don’t know because I’ve been warped by what happened before she came here. I feel like everything she said was a lie, manufactured to suck me in and make me feel something for her that wasn’t real.

  Real. Real. Real. It’s been the buzzword of the past few years and the most terrifying thing of all is that nothing has ever felt as real as my connection to her. But if the false things feel real, then will real things feel false?

  Cont E: I can understand your confusion and the emotions you’re experiencing.

  SE9311: I’m sure you can’t. But anyway, whatever. Tell me, E – was it real? Was it really real for her?

  The cursor blinks. Blinks. Blinks. Come on. They owe me. She owes me. She probably is there, standing over Controller E’s shoulder. Watching me. Telling them what to say to me. I turn toward the camera in the corner, then immediately realize my mistake. You just broke rule number one, you stupid fucking idiot. Never let her see that you need her and how she can hurt you. Ashamed, I turn back to the monitor, watching letters then words appear.

  Cont E: I can’t discuss details of the experiment and I certainly wouldn’t presume to speak for Dr. Soldano.

  S9311: Of course. Thanks for the party line. Is that all?

  Cont E: If that’s all you wish to say, then yes.

  S9311: Yes it’s all I wish to say.

  Cont E: Okay then. Enjoy your day.

  What a ridiculous thing to say. I turn off the screen without logging anything a
nd stagger from the room.

  Hours, minutes, a day later, I come back to the computer room. Slowly, I drag the chair close to the desk. I remember the way she sat in this exact spot, so poised and almost elegant even though she was wearing sweats with a hole above the knee and a hoodie with the sleeves pushed up.

  Olivia will read these chat logs, my personal logs and watch any videos I make. She gets to keep watching me while I’m left here with nothing. The time away from this room has hardened my resolve. Screw her, if she doesn’t like what I have to say then she shouldn’t have done this to me. The monitor flickers before the password prompt stabilizes. With one finger I enter my password and navigate to the logging program. I don’t think, I just type.

  I need to talk about what happened because if I don’t I think I might lose it. I’m sure she’ll fill you in on everything I told her, but this is my stuff and the stuff I couldn’t say, or didn’t think to say while we were talking about what she did to me. The truth of what being here has done to me.

  I want to tell you guys about time. Fast time and slow time. Since I came here I’ve lived with this weird time thing, where nothing seemed to move the way it should. Every day kind of rushed past and I’d lose massive chunks of time, like days and then weeks that just seemed to never actually happen. But they had obviously, I just hadn’t noticed. And I liked it, because otherwise I’d have to sit here by myself and examine every single second of every day. And that would really fucking suck.

  When Olivia came, all that time-speed weirdness left and I felt every moment with her as if someone had hit the slow-mo button on the remote. And I felt like I could actually see things for the first time in forever. Now she’s gone and everything’s rushing past so fast I can’t grab hold of it.

  And I hate it and it’s her fault that everything is awful again. But it’s mine too because what kind of idiot am I to believe someone would really come to me in those circumstances? I believed it because I wanted it to be real. This whole thing is a million emotions all caught up in one big ball of string and I can’t separate each one out. I guess all I can say is…well done, you guys got me really good.

  I just want my slow time back, Olivia. That’s all. But I don’t think I want it with you.

  I hit submit and turn off the monitor.

  My guts are a tight knot of anxiety and every time I try to eat something, it sits like thick mud in my stomach. After two attempts at lunch, I give up and instead set up the chessboard and start a game. But after White’s opener to D4, Black can’t think of how to counter. My mind is completely blank. I stare at the board, willing a thought to come to me.

  “Is your fever back? Let me feel,” Olivia murmurs.

  I swipe my hand in front of my face, pushing away an imagined forehead check. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t seem it, darling.”

  “Why do you think that is, Liv?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “This isn’t fair, you can’t be here like this. Please don’t come again.” Gently, I sweep all the chess pieces back into the box and put it down in the basement.

  I sleepwalk through the rest of my day, following the routine of checks and balances. I medicate myself with half a sleeping pill, afraid I might wake during the night and be empty again. Afraid to stay awake listening to all my people telling me things I don’t want to hear.

  The bed shifts, weight on my body, the tickle of hair on my stomach. “Celeste? Tell me what you want me to do.” A hot mouth closes around my nipple.

  “Lick me,” I beg her, fumbling for a hand I can’t find.

  But I wake before anything else happens. It’s three in the morning, the habitat dark and still. I clutch the duvet where it’s bunched around my breasts and try to calm down. My body still hums from the dream I had about her and I can feel how aroused I am, but when I touch myself there’s no follow through. It’s blank space. I reject her and everything she did as though it was meaningless.

  “I’m sorry, Celeste.” She sounds so sad.

  “What do you want?” I ask the empty room.

  “You.” Olivia exhales, long and loud. “Just you.”

  When I wake again just after dawn, it’s raining lightly but steadily, the soft thrumming on the roof promising slushy snow and chilled bones. Perfect moping weather. After breakfast, logs, and check-in, I bundle myself up in a fluorescent rain slicker and make my way carefully along the path to the greenhouse. The rain has pushed any overnight snow from the solar panels, not that they’ll be much use in the gloom, so there’s little for me to do but be in the greenhouse. I still have work to do here and I’ll be damned if I let her stop me from seeing this thing through until the end.

  My pepper seedlings are almost four inches high and the zucchinis are starting to reach out tentatively. She planted those seedlings, hands gently piling dirt around the base of each one. She smoothed everything down so lovingly as though she wanted to be sure what she was doing would last.

  “Do you remember when I found those sunglasses, Celeste?” Olivia laughs. “That was so funny.”

  “Go away. Please leave me alone.” I look around the greenhouse, knowing even as I do it that I’m not going to see her. My voice shakes when I ask, “Riley? Heather? Alli? Are you there? Anybody? Please.” Even Mother would be preferable to her right now.

  The sound of rain on the greenhouse roof is the only answer. Why won’t anyone else talk to me? I drop to my knees and pull up everything Olivia and I planted together. Then I hurl them at the glass wall. The glass doesn’t shatter, or even crack. I am a person in a glass house. I really shouldn’t be throwing stones.

  * * *

  I stumble through my days, each one a mirror of the one before. The Controllers—aside from Controller A who remains mercifully absent—pick at my carcass like vultures. I don’t protest. They’re allowed to do whatever they want, ask whatever they want. It’s what I signed up for. I tell myself that over and over—I asked for this, it’s my choice, I still have some control.

  Mother and Riley won’t talk to me. Alli and Heather are disapprovingly silent. Joanne is sad and doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. I need them all to come back, even if it’s only to admonish me for being so stupid. So blind and trusting. I need someone to sympathize with me and agree that what they did to me, what she did to me is awful. I wait and wait for someone to talk to me. Anyone. Nobody does. During the day I’m as alone as I’ve ever been.

  When Olivia’s voice comes to me each night I’m back in slow time where I can finally just…breathe. It’s a sick irony, that the thing I don’t want, the thing that hurts so badly is the thing that helps me. Then she leaves again and everything is moving up and down and sideways, leaving me even more hollow than I was before.

  Twenty-one days after she left, I break. I can’t take it any longer. I can’t handle having her in my head. I can’t handle having everything here reminding me of her. Everywhere I am and everywhere I look absolutely reeks of her.

  Each of these things on their own would be fine. The solitude. The voices. What Olivia did. My own self-loathing at my idiocy. But cumulatively, they’ve conspired to overwhelm me. And I’ve broken. She’s broken me. The only person who ever has.

  The moment a Controller appears on the screen I tell them what I want.

  SE9311: I’d like to go home now please.

  Cont B: Please repeat, SE9311.

  SE9311: I’m done. With this.

  Cont B: I require confirmation. Please input your exit passcode.

  I open the desk drawer to my right and pull out an envelope. Inside is a single piece of paper with a phrase on it, as if I might forget the thing that would get me out of here. I type my termination code which I chose right before I came in here.

  SE9311: Childhood’s Retreat. Robert Duncan. EXIT.

  I’m suddenly yanked back to Olivia quoting from that, my favorite poem. Knowing how she used those words makes me nauseated. Every step of her being here was porten
tous, too neat, too perfect, too coincidental. For the millionth time since I discovered The Lie, I remind myself of what a fucking idiot I am.

  Cont B: Code verified. A transport will be there for you at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Please refer to the manual for your exit guidelines.

  What I really want to say is Fuck all of you. Instead, I use one finger to type my final message.

  SE9311: Thanks. It’s been…interesting.

  I shut down the computer and close the door of the computer room for the last time. Didn’t Olivia say it took time to organize transports? That procedures and checks had to be followed? Another lie. She said and did whatever suited her own purposes.

  For the rest of the day I follow the steps on the checklist, readying everything for the crew who will come in just hours after I leave to prepare things for the next person. Even though it’s not listed, I do a thorough cleaning of the habitat, because I’m not a slob. I entertain wild thoughts of making an extravagant final dinner, but in the end I heat a canned meal and eat it while sitting cross-legged on the couch.

  I’ve pictured this moment of leaving so many times, and in all those fantasies it was a wonderful catharsis. I would walk around the habitat, touching things, saying quiet and overly sentimental goodbyes. In the fantasy, I would feel sad but at the same time, I would also be relieved to be going back to my old life.

  The reality is stark and boring and I can’t help but wonder why I was so excited about this mystical old life that I’m about to return to. Is it even worth going back to now? Everyone will have moved on while I’ve been stuck in this time warp.

  Olivia doesn’t visit me during the night.

  I wake well before dawn and lie in bed until the sun rises. When it’s finally light enough outside, I take a walk around in the early morning chill, looking at everything I’ll never see again. I skip breakfast and coffee. I check and double-check that I’ve packed my lambskin, and stuff toiletries and the few clothes I brought with me into my backpack. The books I carried in at the beginning are left in the shelves along with all the books they delivered to me over the years. I’ve read and re-re-re-read them so many times that if I never see another J. R. R. Tolkien or George R. R. Martin book again it’ll be too soon.