Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  When the message cuts out nobody moves for a moment, then they all spring into action. Alya and Asher sit at their monitors, running through calculations and talking at each other in monosyllables. The more they talk, the less optimistic they sound. Raj pulls up his route and contact lists and starts to fiddle on the com. Quinn kisses the top of Asher’s head and goes to the kitchen. She comes back a few minutes later with coffee and snacks for everyone. They hardly look at her, but they all take them.

  I stand in the middle of the room like the waste of air that I am. When I can get my brain to work again, I think about what I’ve done. My route. We travelled in the wrong direction for days. Osh’s father – no loss there, but a loss nonetheless. My route.

  Quinn nudges me with the tray. “Coffee?”

  I’m sure there is an appropriate response to that, but I can’t remember it. I turn around and walk away. I get to my cabin, lie on my bed, and turn everything down as far as it will go. It’s nowhere near low enough.

  I don’t know how much time has passed when the knocking on my door starts. It takes me a while to come round enough to notice that it’s not actually a knocking: it’s a kicking. Someone’s kicking at my door. They’ve been kicking it for a while and they aren’t stopping.

  I press the door release button. The kicking noise stops and a walking noise starts. I look up and Quinn is in my cabin, holding a tray.

  “You missed dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Did I ask you that? Eat your fucking food.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “No. But I can point out to you that your behavior compares unfavorably to that of my five-year-old daughter. Would you prefer that?”

  “Not really.”

  She shoves the tray in my hands and stares at me. After a few moments I realize that she’s not going anywhere.

  “You’re going to stay here until I eat?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m really not in the mood right now, not for food and not for this.”

  “Because of the route thing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Do you really want to know? Really?”

  She turns around, shuts my door, and stands in front of it. I don’t like that at all. I don’t like anyone blocking my only exit – that’s happened too many damn times and never ended well. This is totally fucked up. I need to do something and do it fast, but my godsdamned brain decides to take a break instead and leaves me stranded.

  When Quinn turns back round I honestly don’t know what the fuck she’s gonna throw at me. From her face it isn’t gonna be good, but I guess it doesn’t matter because the only thing I can do right now is clutch at the tray in my hands and listen to the whale song my ears are playing.

  “I think you’re a self-obsessed, narcissistic, conceited asshole. I think you think that the entire universe revolves around you, that everything is about you, and that you’re better than anyone else.”

  That’s such a ridiculous statement that I manage to get my tongue unglued. “No. I really fucking don’t.”

  “Oh yeah? Riddle me this, then: why is the route problem about you?”

  “I drafted it. I got it wrong. Osh’s father…”

  “You drafted a route. Three other people tried to do the same. Did you even bother asking whether their routes turned out to be right?”

  “No, but…”

  “They weren’t. Not one of you predicted that course. But that doesn’t matter, because it’s not about them. It’s not even about the mission. It’s all about you being right. Luke Bergstra, infallible and omniscient, got something wrong! What a fucking tragedy!”

  “We followed my route. We wasted days…”

  “They followed your route –the route you specifically told them you weren’t confident about, yet they decided to follow regardless. Do you blame them for it? No, you don’t. It doesn’t matter if they make a mistake, because they’re common mortals. You, on the other hand, have to be right all the time.”

  “If I’d not drafted that route…”

  “They would have followed one of theirs, and still got it wrong. But that wouldn’t have mattered, would it? What would you think if Alya had drafted a route and got it wrong?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Think about it, then! Alya drafts a route based on the data she has. The route turns out to be wrong. What do you think of her?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. If she did her best with the available data…”

  “That’s enough? Even if she’s wrong?”

  “She can’t do more than her best!”

  “So why doesn’t the same apply to you? Are you better than her?”

  “No! It’s not like that!”

  “How is it, then?”

  “I fucked up!”

  “We all did! You didn’t pick your route! Everyone fucked up more than you! Are you going to treat them like shit for that?”

  “No!”

  “Why?”

  “Because they don’t deserve it and it wouldn’t fucking help!”

  “So why is it different when it’s you?”

  “I don’t know!”

  We’ve been screaming so loud my chest is starting to tighten up and I’m struggling to get air in. Quinn is panting too. She bites her lip, takes a few deep breaths, and turns her volume down some.

  “Ok. So you drafted a route. That route was wrong. Everyone else also tried and failed, or didn’t even try. You were the only one who was against following your route. Aren’t you technically the only one who was right? Shouldn’t you go around telling everyone that you told them so?”

  “I let them all down.”

  She looks about to scream again, then she checks herself.

  “No. They let you down. They let themselves down. They didn’t listen to you. Had they listened to you, we might have followed a different route. Still a wrong one, mind you, so I don’t know what good that could have possibly done. You didn’t make them follow your route. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to. You didn’t have that power. You also didn’t have the power to predict the route the killer followed. Nobody did. On the surface that route makes no sense, which indicates that there are factors at play we simply don’t know about. You’re not omniscient: big whoop. You don’t expect other people to be. Why the double standards?”

  “I don’t know. I should have seen it coming. I should have done something.”

  She blows her gasket again. “Why? How? Nobody else did! Do you think you’re always the smartest person in the room?”

  “No!”

  “So stop expecting yourself to be better than anyone else!”

  “I can’t fuck up!”

  “Why? Everyone else does!”

  My chest tightens so hard and so fast that I can’t talk. I can’t fuck up. I can’t let people down. Why doesn’t she get it?

  She watches me gasp for a bit before shaking her head and looking away.

  “Ok. You’re apparently entirely incapable of rational thinking when you’re involved in a situation. So how about this: from now on, before jumping to any kind of judgment, sit your ass down and visualize the exact same situation, but with Alya in it instead of you.”

  “Say what?”

  “Don’t treat yourself differently from how you treat Alya. It’s not complicated.”

  “But…”

  “But what? How could this possibly be a problem?”

  “Because Alya is Alya, and I’m me.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s better than me at, like, everything.”

  “So your expectations for her are higher?”

  “Yeah. Kinda. I guess.”

  “Luke. She didn’t even fucking try to draft a route. She was one of the people who agreed to follow yours. She contributed nothing to this bar a decision that turned out to be incorrect.”

  “That’s not fair. She had no way of knowing my route was wrong.”

&
nbsp; “But you somehow should have, because of your magical powers? And you tell me that you don’t think you’re better than anyone else?”

  I stop and think, ‘cause I can’t fucking talk. I think about what I’d do if Alya had tried this and fucked it up. She’d feel bad, but it wouldn’t be her fault. I’d know that, clear as anything. Of course it wouldn’t be her fucking fault: you can’t expect good results from poor data. But she’d still be upset, because of course she would. So what would I do?

  I’d take steps to unfuck things, because unfucking things is the priority, but as soon as that was done I’d get on with unfucking her head. I’d tell her it’s not her fault until my throat was sore. I know she’d struggle to hear me, but I’d keep at it. I wouldn’t try to cheer her up ‘cause you can’t push that shit with her, but I’d try to take care of her. I’d cook her something she likes…

  I look at the tray of food I’m still holding.

  I swear to all the gods, if I start crying in front of Quinn I’ll just walk myself right out of this fucking ship.

  Quinn’s voice sounds so rough it startles me. “Are you going to eat that before it gets so cold it’s only good for the recycler?”

  I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak. A couple of mouthfuls in, though, I gotta say something.

  “Raj didn’t make this.”

  “How do you know?”

  “His dough sucks. I mean, it’s ok, but it’s not like Kolya makes it. And Alya can’t cook for shit. Where’d this come from?”

  I look up at Quinn and she’s half scowling, half smirking.

  “I give you three guesses.”

  “You could just tell me.”

  “What do you think? I made it.”

  “Where the fuck did you learn to cook like this?”

  “You showed me, you ass!”

  “Oh.”

  I think back at how that whole thing went down and I want to dig a hole and bury myself in it.

  “Did they come out alright?”

  “Yeah. They’re great. Really.”

  “Good.”

  I finish the rest of my food in silence. It’s weird as hell to have Quinn standing there while I’m eating, but everything else is weird as hell too, so it all kinda balances out. Three nanoseconds after I’m finished, she walks right up to me and snatches the tray out of my hands.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I was going to say… Oh, fuck it. Did Alya put you up to this?”

  “Put me up to…” She rolls her eyes. “No. Contrary to popular belief, I am occasionally capable of independent action.”

  “You just decided to cook my favorite food and scream at me?”

  “Yes. No. The screaming part just happened. You’re remarkably easy to scream to. You’re fucking infuriating, you know that?”

  “I’ve been told that before.”

  “Maybe one day it’ll sink in.” She walks towards the door. “By the way, I meant it.”

  “What?”

  She looks at me like I’m some kind of weird specimen, fascinating and repulsive at the same time. Her eyes are big enough to swallow me whole.

  “About thinking of Alya in the same situation before coming up with one of your weird-ass conclusions. You don’t seem to be an asshole about her. Not as much of an asshole, anyway, which isn’t saying a great deal. You could use her as a litmus test. It can’t make things any worse. Night.”

  She walks off and shuts the door behind her.

  I let myself fall back on the bed. I’ve been whacked on the head a few times in my life, sometimes hard enough that I nearly passed out, a few times so hard that passing out would have been a relief. I can’t remember anything hitting me this hard, ever. It’s so fucking obvious when I think about it. I’d just never thought about it.

  I think back about a few things that happened to me. When I put Alya in my place, everything fucking changes. It’s not that the story is different with Alya in it, it’s that it changes how I feel about it – well, no, it’s that I get to feel how I felt, that how I felt is suddenly ok. I run through a whole bunch of old stories because once my brain gets hold of a new toy there’s no stopping it, and every story that changes seems to make my heart a bit lighter. It’s soppy as fuck, but that’s how it literally feels: some of the weight that was pressing on my chest just flies off.

  It’s not all fun. Some of the shit that my brain throws at me makes me angry. Like, really angry, angry enough that if I could go back in time I’d probably do something bad about it. It’s some kind of next-level headfuck I’ve been carrying. I mean, I know my mom is a piece of shit, really, and she’s hardly a mother at all. I know she fucked up all the way through. I’ve known all of this for as long as I can remember. What I didn’t know is that it was ok for me to think that, that it didn’t make me a bad person. If my mom had treated Alya the way she treated me, I’d have fucking gutted her and I wouldn’t have felt remotely bad about it.

  This changes everything. It changes it to the point that I don’t know what’s what anymore, because the way I was looking at the world was all fucked up and I have to reconsider everything. I’ll have to reconsider myself too, at some point. I don’t know if anything in my life is going to stay as it is. I don’t know if anything is solid. What I know is that about half the fuck-awful weight that’s been crushing me has gone.

  When my brain finally exhausts itself, I stay lying there, just enjoying that feeling. I wonder about telling Quinn about it, about how she’d react. Maybe she’d think it’s ridiculous that I got to my age without figuring out something so damn basic. I don’t think so, though, ‘cause she’s nice. I think she’d be happy, even though she only helped me, not someone she cares about. I mean, she behaves like she cares a little bit about everybody, but I know I piss her off. She’s told me enough times. She keeps talking to me, though, keeps giving me her time, and now she’s given me this. She’s like some fucking fairy from a story, coming right out of nowhere to grant me a wish I was too fucked up to ask for.

  Good stuff always seems to come out of her. It’s like she’s a flower or something: you feel better just for being around her. It works best for me when she doesn’t notice I’m there, ‘cause when she does she gets pissed off at me and that’s no party, but I can’t blame her for that. Being nice doesn’t mean you’ve got no standards.

  No wonder Asher and Gwen love her so much. Who wouldn’t? I know I would. I’d do anything to have someone like her in my life. Only I’ve never met anyone else like her. Just her.

  I stay there and work that thought over for a few minutes or years, because it’s true, and now that I thought it I can’t unthink it.

  Holy shit. I thought I was getting to like Quinn a fair bit, which was weird, what with the fact that we can’t stand each other. I thought I looked up to her because she’s a lot more sorted out than me and her life is pretty fucking perfect. She has everything I could possibly want and more than I could ever hope for. Now I think that’s bullshit. At some point I crossed a fucking line and this isn’t just me liking her anymore. This is something else entirely. I have no idea when it started and I sure as fuck didn’t mean it to, but I thing I’m in fucking love with fucking Quinn. Fuck.

  For a while it terrorizes me. I don’t need it and I don’t know how to manage it. Then I remember what Alya told me a while back: that there are only two things that matter about a person, what they want and what they’ll do to get it. She got that from a book. The first time she said that to me I thought it was bullshit, then I realized that it isn’t, that the bullshit is how we convince ourselves that the stuff that only exists in our heads and we never do anything about still matters.

  So maybe I don’t know who I am anymore. Maybe half of what I thought was true turned out to be bullshit. Maybe I’m in love with Quinn. None of that matters. What do I want? What am I going to do to get it?

  I let myself think about it. Once I let it start, it all bursts out.

  I want to push her hai
r off her face and watch her look up at me, her head thrown back. I want her to look at me like she looks at Asher sometimes, like for just that second nothing else matters. I want to know how her lips taste. I want to feel her mouth open under mine, close my eyes, and dive in there. I want to feel her inside me – not like that, but maybe like that, too, I don’t know, I think I do but I don’t know, I’d have to find out. I want to feel her walking around my brain, touching all the edges of me. I want her to see all of me, not just because if she says that I’m ok then I’m ok, but because then we’d be together, really together. I want us to stand naked in front of each other and know everything there is to know about each other and about us. I want to be so close to her that I don’t know where she stops and I start, and it doesn’t matter. I want her eyes to be the last thing I see at night and the first thing I look for in the morning. I want to go to sleep knowing that she’s there, that she’ll be there when I wake up. I want to be able to stare at her and wonder how something so good came into my life, and for her to catch me at it and smile. I want to hold her hand, our fingers interlocked, and know that it means something. I want her to have my back and I want to have hers. I want to be able to love her all the way. I want to just throw myself right into that love, nothing held back, because any other way is bullshit.

  I want her to be the center of everything. I want to do what makes her smile. I want to see her happy and know that I’m a part of that, that inside her there’s a bit of happiness that I put there. I want to fight monsters and bake bread and write songs and remember her birthday and do whatever it is people do when they love each other. But that’s the thing: I don’t know what that is. I don’t know how people are supposed to be with each other. I know how love feels inside me, and it mostly sucks. It feels like cold and loneliness and betrayal and doors slamming in your face and rusty nails carving a hole through your chest. I don’t know what it looks like outside, what it does. I don’t know how to be with people. I always fuck it up.