Fighting Gravity

by Leah Petersen

  Mercifully, the work was interesting and demanding enough that I didn’t have time to worry about it.

  -

  The week passed and Pete went back to his own work. The lab felt too big, too empty, hollow. All the pieces were there, but something was missing. Everything seemed to take too long to accomplish with only one pair of hands. My work had never felt so much like work before.

  I missed him. I cursed myself for being a moody baby and tried to focus on the work at hand; that was what I was there for after all. Time with Pete was just a side benefit. A temporary one. In a few months I would be returning to the IIC.

  The thought made me ache.

  -

  After Pete had diverted so much of his time to the lab for a full week, I thought it would be longer than usual before I would see him again. When he strolled in only five days later I was shocked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What?” He grinned. “I’m not allowed to come anymore? Have I overstayed my welcome?”

  “Of course not. I’m just so surprised to see you. I didn’t think you’d have time for me, for the lab I mean, for weeks.”

  He shrugged. “I got used to being a part of this. I’ve wanted to come every night for the last four nights. I like being here better than anywhere else.”

  A thrill of excitement ran through me at those words. He frowned.

  “What?” He approached and I told myself I was imagining that his hand twitched as if he wanted to reach out and touch me but hadn’t let himself.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something but with a frustrated expression he turned to the experiment I’d been working on.

  “How’s this going?” he asked.

  “Well, actually, I was concerned with how we’d been neglecting it last week but it seems to be no worse for the wear.”

  “Hmmm,” he murmured, examining the data on the tablet in front of him.

  The nearness of him crackled against my side like too much electricity. I tried not to think about it and I couldn’t think about anything else. I was vividly, stupidly aware of him. It was exhilarating, I wanted to laugh, I wanted to panic. He was so close it was overwhelming. I couldn’t bear it. I turned away, an agonized noise bubbling in my throat.

  He moved with me, pulled me against him, and kissed me. The kiss was hurried, intense, and fearful, as if he expected to be shoved away.

  My head screamed to do just that—to run, but my hands were tangled in his hair. My body yearned toward him, closing what distance remained between us. I groaned.

  His shirt was coming off and I knew that it was my hands undressing him, but they felt like they belonged to someone else. I turned us around and pushed until he was backed into the table behind us, and I pressed myself against him.

  It was frantic, his rough caresses, his kisses like bites on my neck and shoulders.

  I pulled his face back to mine and we kissed, violence and fear and lust. He moaned and pressed against me.

  I would remember all of this much later with clarity and definition. In the moment, I wasn’t connected to the brain that drove the body; that would only store these memories now, to later relish and regret them at leisure. His back was to me and I had a vague awareness of having been responsible for that. I put my mouth to his neck and he leaned his head back into the sensation.

  I felt my hands unclasping his pants. Something that was still aware in me was alarmed by this, but was lost in a fog of lust. My pants were gone now, too. I had no idea who had removed them and I was long past caring.

  I pushed him down over the table and leaned over him. My mouth was so close to the back of his neck that I could feel my own breath warm against my face.

  “If we cross this line, there’s no going back.” My voice was a husky whisper.

  “I know,” he answered, gruff and intense.

  So I crossed it.

  -

  When it was over and we were still and silent but for the sound of our ragged breathing, I stood, letting my hand trail down his back. He shivered. He didn’t turn around. Instead he bent to reclaim his pants. As he began to dress himself, he kept his back to me.

  Icy panic twisted my guts. It had all been so sudden, unthinking. He wouldn’t look at me.

  I was trembling. When at last he reached down and retrieved his coat, he turned to me as he shrugged into it. The side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. He closed the distance between us, and taking my face in his hands, he brushed his lips against mine. Then, without a word, he left the room.

  I slumped down on the couch facing the window wall and stared out at the stars. My emotions were a helpless jumble that tied my stomach into knots.

  I thought he’d wanted me to. Hadn’t he kissed me? Hadn’t he all but given permission? He never asked me to stop. He’d reached back for my hand and held on to it.

  But I knew he regretted it, from the way he’d left without a word. Whether I’d read him wrong from the beginning, or whether he was just was sorry for it now that it was over, didn’t matter. The result was the same.

  Now he would hate me. Our friendship had become the thing that made my life make sense, and I’d destroyed it.

  A couple of hours later I woke and dragged myself from the couch, returning to my own bed. There I dreamed.

  In the dreams, Pete looked at me with regret in his face. He stopped coming to the lab; he asked me not to come to the games anymore. And one day, along with all my other mails, I found my reassignment to the IIC—just as he’d promised, that day in the hallway—and he never spoke to me again.

  It was early and I was bleary eyed, but there was no point trying to sleep any more. I dressed myself without sending for Jonathan and went to the lab. Jonathan found me there later and brought me breakfast, which I didn’t have the stomach for. He looked concerned when I met his eyes, but he didn’t ask.

  -

  That day lasted forever. I was ready to believe we’d passed into some time-dilatation phenomenon. I couldn’t make myself concentrate on the task at hand. My gut was in knots. I couldn’t stop thinking of the way he’d kept his back to me as we’d dressed, the way he’d left without a word. That kiss could have been a kiss goodbye. It probably was.

  I felt ill, but when Jonathan reminded me it was time, I went to dinner anyway.

  Pete would be there.

  I watched as he entered the room and took his seat. He didn’t look at me. That wasn’t unusual, but in light of what had passed and what I had concluded, it was confirmation. I sank down into my seat. I spoke little and ate less, and left before dessert.

  I went back to the lab out of habit more than anything else. I didn’t imagine that I’d be any more capable of working than I had been earlier, especially now that I knew.

  I sat at the table, the table, and stared at the experiment we’d abandoned the night before. I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there when the door opened, startling me. Pete stood just inside the doorway. I froze. His gaze was locked with mine but I couldn’t decipher the look on his face. He approached and, standing not too close to me, he examined the experiment in front of us. My throat tightened and I looked away from him to the experiment, as well.

  “We didn’t adjust the pressure settings last night, did we?”

  “No.” A strangled whisper was the best I could do.

  The silence stretched between us. He picked up a pressure gauge and took a reading. I forced myself to join him. If I could salvage some kind of friendship with him out of this, even something less than what we’d had before, I’d take it.

  We worked in excruciating silence for a long time. Finally he put down his instrument and turned to face me. “Jake,” he began.

  My heart clenched. I didn’t look up or answer, but I put my instrument down as well.

  “Jake,” he began again, “I’m…I am so sorry for what happened last night. I hope you know, please understand, you…that
is…” His voice trailed off into a groan. “I hope you know, that you knew, that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do just because of what I am. You’re under no obligation, you don’t owe me anything. I’m just Pete when I’m with you. I’m not the emperor, not here, not when we’re alone. I would never want to be with you if it wasn’t something you wanted, too. If you didn’t understand that before, I sincerely, sincerely apologize for what happened and I hope you can forgive me. And maybe, if you want, we could still be friends and no more than that. If that’s the way you want it, just say so. I promise I’ll never put you in that position again. It will be like it never happened.”

  I was looking at him now, stunned. “You think I was with you only because I thought I had to?”

  “Yes,” he answered, holding my gaze. There was real fear in his eyes.

  I took his face in both hands and kissed him hard. All the anxiety and anguish that had built up through the long night and day flowed away as he melted against me. He tasted like nutmeg and happiness.

  His arms went around me, a hand behind my head, holding me to him. I broke away but only to pull him with me to the couch. I pushed him down onto it and lay down on top of him. We kissed for a long time, our ragged breathing the only sound.

  Much later we lay together, both sated, languid. I lay with my head against his chest, his arms around me. I felt a deep peace, all the more poignant in the wake of the grief over my imagined loss.

  “I don’t suppose you’re still worried about my interest?” I said.

  He laughed, “No, I don’t suppose I am.” But then his face became thoughtful. “I was very worried though, last night. I hadn’t thought that through—you know, planned it. I didn’t think you felt the same way about me that I did about you. But then it happened. I almost didn’t realize I was going to kiss you until I was already doing it.”

  He shifted so that his face was closer to mine and he kissed me. “I’m not used to making impulsive decisions. I have to make the right decision every time. I’m always very careful about what I do or say. Last night I was sure I’d made the wrong decision, because I hadn’t given it enough thought.”

  “You should have known I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you are.”

  His laugh was easy, carefree.

  “And anyway, I wasn’t exactly a passive participant. How could you not figure out that I wanted it?”

  He was looking up at the ceiling. “Jake, you have no idea how most people respond to me. You never have. That’s one of the first things I liked about you. Most people will do whatever they think I want them to do, without regard for their own feelings. They’re usually trying to get something from me or curry favor, or they’re just afraid. But they’ll do what it takes to get what they want. I could kiss anyone on this ship and they likely would do the same as you did.”

  I stared at him in shock. His expression was sad, but when he looked back at me, he made a wry face. “See why you surprised me so much, in the beginning? You didn’t even wear my ring, just because you don’t like jewelry.” He chuckled. “It was very nice, to be treated like a person. It’s been a long time since anyone did that to me, long before I became emperor.”

  He sat up, pulling me with him, and slid behind me, wrapping his arms around me, his chin on my shoulder. “Let’s go back to my room.”

  I stiffened.

  He moved his head off my shoulder. “What?”

  “I don’t think we should. That’s a bad idea.”

  “Why? I’m not being impulsive now. I haven’t thought about anything else since I left here last night.”

  “Pete, there’s no way I could go and come from your room without everyone on the ship knowing about it within a day.”

  “That’s a generous estimate.” He grinned. “I bet they’d all know by breakfast. Is that a problem? Are you ashamed?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Not ashamed, it’s just…not safe. Or, I don’t know, it’s…well we can’t let people know. You’re the emperor and I’m…not.”

  His face screwed up.

  “I don’t mean I don’t want to be with you, Pete. It’s just a bad idea to make people notice you. I mean me, it’s a bad idea for me to… Things can work out sometimes if you keep your head down, but if you make people remember you’re there…”

  His face was pensive. “But, Jake, people will always notice with me. I’ll always be the emperor.”

  “We’ve managed to keep a friendship secret all these months. Why can’t we keep doing that?”

  “Oh.” His voice was quiet. “So, you want it to stay like this? I can’t keep coming here every night. And even if I could, people would know something was up. What you’re asking is for nothing to change.”

  “Not nothing. This is new,” I gestured between us.

  His smile was wan. “So just once a week or so, we get together on the couch between experiments?”

  “It doesn’t sound that good to me, either. But it sounds better than the alternative.”

  “Does it?”

  He got up and started dressing without meeting my eyes. I stood and put my hand under his chin, lifting his gaze to mine, but he swatted my hand away. He attempted a smile a moment later, but it wasn’t entirely sincere. I could see the irritation he was trying to hide. I retrieved my clothes.

  “Don’t be angry. Please? This isn’t about how I feel about you or about us.”

  He gave me a skeptical look.

  “It isn’t! Pete,” I grabbed his arm as he turned away, “don’t do this. Talk to me. Maybe there’s another solution.”

  He shook his head. He wouldn’t look at me. “No. No, you’re right, Jake. Going public would be a terrible thing for you. And we wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. It’s important that you’re happy.”

  “I’m not trying to make this all about me. There’s got to be some middle ground. Help me out.”

  He shook his head, his lips drawn together in a thin line. “No. If it’s so important that no one know we’re together, then it has to be like this.” He pushed past me. “I have to go. I didn’t have the time to come here in the first place. I’ll see you on the field.” He started to walk out of the room, but he turned back and kissed me so hard that I thought he bit me. “Good night.”

  “Pete!” I called after him, but he didn’t turn around.

  fg15

  I sank down onto the couch and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. Pete was being unreasonable. He didn’t realize what he was asking of me.

  It wasn’t his fault. He was classed-out before he was born. He couldn’t understand what it was like to be lumped in with everyone else and then sifted to the bottom. He didn’t know what it was like to be the dirt that better people stood on.

  I’d spent my whole life trying to make the impossible work, fighting the gravity-well of my birth. It was one thing at the IIC, where there were mitigating factors important enough that we could all pretend we didn’t know what I was. This was different.

  I knew about people like this Duke Blaine. And he had a lot more at his disposal than a cane if he decided to hurt me. He would have much more efficient means of getting rid of me, too; quiet, unpleasant ends that didn’t involve petitioning committees.

  I was so tired of being afraid.

  I tossed and turned again all that night, kept awake by a whole new set of worries.

  -

  But in the lab the next day I found it easier to concentrate and not fixate on my problems. After all, this was such a small thing in comparison to what I’d feared the day before. Pete did want to be with me. The rest was just details.

  It was Pete’s reaction that I was still frustrated and upset about. I hated that he’d left angry and hurt. It made it worse that I had no access to him, no chance of seeing him or talking to him until he came to me. And it was that way because I had insisted on it.

  It was a hard week. Every night at dinner I watched him, waiting for him to
look over, smile maybe, something to let me know that he wasn’t still angry, that he understood or at least accepted. Or beyond that, just that he was thinking about me, in spite of the rest. But he never did. All my sanguine conclusions from earlier in the week became harder to hold onto as the days passed.

  The next game was three days after I’d last seen him, but he never came. When I thought about it I realized that he’d already told me the Arelian Ambassador’s visit would keep him from the game. I almost left. I had no desire to play with the others there. The gathered nobles made no attempt to be nice to me, but no one had the courage to uninvite the emperor’s guest.

  I stuck it out, in part just to be contrary. And being able to funnel my aggression helped release some of the pent up frustrations. I got called out several times for being too rough. I did try to rein it in, but I didn’t try very hard.

  When my mood plummeted after that game, I realized how much I had been counting on seeing him. The rest of the week was miserable.

  -

  I went to the next game, even though the thought of the nobles there made me angry. I went because Pete should be there. It was nearly a week now and I was consumed with frustration.

  When I arrived at the playing field Pete wasn’t there yet. I began warming up and stretching but I ignored everyone around me.

  When Pete did come in he was, if anything, interacting with me even less than normal, which wasn’t much to begin with. He didn’t meet my eye and only offered a quick greeting when he passed.

  He named off two team captains and we began to divide up. I was selected for the team that Pete was not on. That was normal because, in spite of what they thought of me, it was obvious that I was the one person willing to play my best against Pete, ignoring his title and instead seeing the position he held on the field. So I was assigned to play opposite him.

  The game for the day was soccer and the teams were well chosen. At one point, as Pete drove the ball down the field, my defense caused him to slip and go down. I took advantage, stole the ball, and turned that into a goal for my team. We did our whooping and hollering but Pete stormed over, planted his hands on my chest, and shoved me so hard that I stumbled a few feet backward.