Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
I couldn’t watch. I stared to the left of the screen at a pink quilted wall that looked to be made with leather. I stared at the strange wall instead of looking at the screen or looking at Zane. I didn’t want to see his emotions on his face, didn’t, couldn’t bear to see pain at seeing his wife and the mother to his children smiling with excitement at a future that would be ripped away from her way too soon.
I saw Spar’s eyes dart to me, and the nostalgia in his vanished. He cleared his throat and snatched a controller out of Treya’s hand, then flicked his wrist. The screen went back to landscape photos.
“Been meaning to upload that to our newer technology, technology Zane himself invented. I’ll do that and watch the rest later. Dessert, anyone?” he said as he stood, smoothing out his expensive-looking suit.
“We need to get home,” Zane said curtly and reached out to shake Spar’s hand. Spar pulled him in for a hug.
“Thank you for having us. It was lovely to meet you,” I said to Treya. Her lip curled. She didn’t even try to hide it. If I’d been a turtle, my arms and legs would’ve shrank inside my torso.
I turned to Spar, and he gave me a tight hug. “Sorry about that just now,” he said.
“It’s okay. That’s your daughters. You should be able to have a moment to remember them whenever that opportunity presents itself. I am so very sorry for your loss.”
He smiled at me with surprise and looked to Zane who wasn’t hugging Treya goodbye. He simply said her name, under his breath, almost as if it were foul language.
“Isn’t she an absolute delight?” Spar said, about me.
“She truly is,” Zane said without losing the anger on his face.
Treya scoffed.
***
The ride home was quiet. Until it wasn’t.
“She’s a sour fucking sow.”
I sighed.
“She wanted to make you feel less. She wanted to make herself seem like more. Like she was the ideal and you were the poor imitation. She made herself look like a sour sow. Do not internalize any of that. That’s why Daxx didn’t want her. That’s why Ollie declined to visit. She’s rotten and spoiled. Spent the last four years treated like she was one of the most precious rare commodities on the planet. Who or what she was like before that went to her ego, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter because she’s wretched.”
“Yeah. I’m guessing she and I won’t be friends,” I said. “Whatever.”
He stewed in his angry juices all the way home. And me? I daydreamed about that gorgeous bride and their beautiful mountainside wedding. Feeling sad. Feeling less than, just like Treya wanted me to feel.
When we got back, we spent two minutes with Zane’s dad who had already put Ollie to bed and Chili in that same bedroom with three bottles so we’d get a full night, telling us he was using temperature control to keep the waiting bottles fresh. Chili was now only eating every four hours instead of every two and he had begun eating some fresh fruit that day.
The next day, we would start Chili on weaning to more solid foods and we would introduce him to his new habitat. We would do it slowly, over a couple of days, allowing him more and more time to spend in there before making that his full-time place.
Immediately after Zane’s dad left, Zane had me in his arms and was carrying me to bed, putting his mouth on me.
The moment I was on the bed, he was undoing my shoe straps and kissing my ankles.
“You were amazing there tonight. You were composed. You were polite, even if the hostess was a total wretch. You were the picture of grace and beauty. I am so proud of you, Tanya. And proud of myself for making you my wife.”
My mouth dropped in surprise.
“And you will never, not ever have to be subjected to that again.”
I gulped.
“I will not ask you to associate with that fucking retched woman ever again.” He tossed the second shoe.
“I can handle it.”
“You should not have to.”
“Okay, Zane,” I whispered. “But it’s okay if you felt things when you saw your wife on that screen. I mean, she’s gone.”
“Tanya, please. Stop being so perfect.”
“I can’t help it,” I said with a grin.
“Honestly, it’s the past. I’m here, with you, and this is precisely where I want to be. Most of the emotion was at seeing my mother on the screen. I miss her and the day I married Arla it was one of the last occasions where she wasn’t bedridden. She’d gotten very ill.”
“Oh Zane, I’m sorry.”
“Most Phallyxians are extraordinarily healthy. But my mother was an expert in geology and traveled extensively. She contracted a rare illness in a harsh region of our planet. It played havoc with her health for the last five years of her life, before taking her life.”