I woke without a thought, lazily coming to consciousness. A grogginess that made it hard to do anything other than lay awake in my bed and mindlessly waste the day away. I was emotionally raw. The time to work through everything that had been happening would come someday, but not today.

                Instead, I lay in bed reading My Sweet Halation. The novel was far from my usual genre, but it was interesting and I couldn't help myself turning page after page, engrossed in the romance. The slow build up and the passion between characters that was bubbling just below the surface left me blushing and desiring more of the same.

                I had read through the first eight chapters when Lunëne peaked their head through my curtain, face beaming.

                "Heyyy, I see you missed breakfast for the usual reason." They joked while opening the curtain and letting themselves in.

                "Oh damn," I exclaimed, at first startled by their sudden appearance and then a second time when I looked at my clock. "Well, what can I say..."

                I sat up and slid over, instinctively pushing the book behind me and out of sight. I looked over and smiled back. I thought I saw their eyebrow flick up for a second but then the look was gone. As they walked over to me, the space between us felt thicker than usual. They sat down and looked around the room for a second with a half a smile still lingering.

                "Um, anything good?" They inquired awkwardly.

                "Oh sorry, yeah just a bit of a guilty pleasure I guess." I replied.

                There was really nothing to hide, but for some reason it seemed like two different worlds that shouldn't interact. And trying to figure out what those feelings meant would mean facing them and acknowledging some truths that were dancing in front of us in our near future. Things that felt like an inevitability but were still exciting with its uncertainty. Or maybe that was all the romance novel speaking.

                I slid the book out and showed them.

                "Oh, looks..." They had both eyebrows raised now and a smirk. "Romantic. You like a good romance book?"

                "I like some romance." I could feel my face becoming warm and flushed.  I pushed away the memories of past failed relationships, romantic blunders, and embarrassing mistakes that I had made. I wasn't going to overthink this.

                "Hm. Me too." They cuddled up to me and closed their eyes. I gave a silent thanks to the heavens that they saw me blush and didn't care. The ease of being around them was such a blessing. I leaned back into them gently and closed my eyes, letting myself feel their warmth and their chest rise and fall slowly. I could hear their soft breath.

                My room shook with the deep rumble of thunder.

                What could be more romantic than cuddling in the rain during a-

My thoughts cut off as my eye opened and l looked over at Lunëne wide eyed. We stared at each other for a moment as the rumbling grew louder and the room felt as if it were vibrating.

                "What do we do?" They asked in a forceful whisper, as if the dangerous rumbling could hear us. I looked back with open mouth in shock and hesitated, desperately looking for words.

                I didn't know what to do, but I pushed myself off my bed and strode over to the doorway to look around. Not seeing anything but other passengers equally worried, I walked back to the bed aimlessly. A picture had tipped over and several books on my shelf were working themselves loose.

                There were several thunks as the books hit the ground. My room seemed to be hazier, as previously unseen dust became disturbed and made its appearance. I gripped the edge of my bed as I tried to sit down again.

                I pushed back thoughts about how vast and empty space is. An existential fear of my insignificance in the face of the unstoppable and uncaring environment surrounding this ship gripped my heart with a cold dread. If something catastrophic happened to this ship… I would die. Lunëne next to me would die. Audrina, Garland, Elissa, Valentin, Silas, Milton would all die. And I had no choice in the matter, no power, no chance at even an attempt at survival. My life was not in my hands.

                The thoughts overwhelmed me as the noises and rumbling vibration died down, and then started back up again for another sweat-inducing moment.

                The silence that followed was deafening. My thoughts were just as silent. My body was far too tense; all of my energy was focused on my next action. I had no way to know what to expect, so I remained fixed in place, as still as a statue. I could hear Lunëne's breath, now shaky and heavy. I felt my hand tremble and own breath came out ragged, not realizing that I had been holding it.

                The silence continued, and I felt Lunëne's hands grip my arm just a little bit harder. I couldn't speak. I was too on edge, and some part of me felt that if I said anything to break the silence, all hell would break loose. I felt the hint of tears welling up in my eyes and I blinked them away. My breath was slowing, and I stiffly turned my head towards them as they whispered.

                "Holy fuck."

                I nodded. A minute of silence had passed, or maybe only fifteen seconds, so I stood up and peaked out the hall again as if it had any answers. The entire ship was quiet for a moment before I heard someone from down the hall call out.

                "Everyone ok?"

                Up and down the hall were a few scattered affirmations. I turned and went to sit down again.

                We sat in silence, both lost in thought. I could only imagine what they were thinking about, but I was confident that it was the same thought I was having.

                Being told the journey was risky is different than facing it. Maybe it was youthful ignorance in some ways, feeling like I was invincible. I could remember my father talking about some of the crazy things he had done as a teenager, and it would always end in a warning against the crazy things he thought I would do as a teenager.

                Except I had done crazy things too. Drunken parties, stupid dares. Playing with fire, literally and metaphorically. Hanging out the back of a car with three too many people crammed in while the driver did donuts in an abandoned parking lot. Jumping from a bridge that was just a little too high into the river below, swimming late at night in chilly water after the hottest summer days.

                And I had lived through it all. And this was just another adventure. Until now, until I had felt my trust in everything around me shaken.

                The now familiar announcement rang out from Milton, delayed by several minutes this time.

                "First of all, the ship is safe. Again, sorry for the issues. We were hit by a larger meteoroid that did substantial damage to an unmanned part of the ship. Good news is that the damage looks to be repairable, and we are not expecting any technical issues like we had yesterday with the power and the lights. While that collision was unexpected, the tracking system is predicting no more significant impacts like that again. There will be several small meteoroids that we are on a path to collide with but they will be much less severe. Finally, I just want to reassure everyone that we are prepared for these situations. While we were not expecting this particular space road bumps if you will, we are not going to let them stop us from safely landing on the planet just a few short lightyears away."

                We sat in silence for another second as I watched the disturbed dust drift to the ground. The miniscule specs drifted mindlessly towards the floor in an enchanting swirl.

                I could feel Lunëne look over at me, and I turned to return their relieved expression.

                "Always an adventure." They said with a small voice crack. They laid on their back and closed their eyes. I stared at them dreamily, finally feeling a hint of normal.

                And suddenly I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face. They reached out blindly with their hand, feeling for my face. After a moment they found it, and with arm fully outstretched they slid their hand behind my head and pulled me down onto their chest.

                They shifted around to get comfortable and I followed their lead, getting intimately close. Now I could hear their breath while feeling their chest rise rhythmically. Before I knew that I was tired, I had fallen asleep.

###

                We had dinner later in the day than usual, and everyone had similar shaken looks. Even at our table, the conversations were anxious and went nowhere. Silas in particular was quiet, even more than usual. He was the last one to get to the table and we had wondered if he would even show up at all. He was also the first to leave, getting up with barely a word.

                "We're going to be leaving too I think." Elissa thought aloud, looking over at Valentin.

                "Pssh, speak for yourself." Valentin shot back with a facetious eyeroll and glancing around at the remaining table members.

                Elissa looked on unamused. Valentin turned towards her and softly cleared his throat and sat up a bit straighter. His expression slowly morphed into a sincere look and he almost seemed to fidget for a moment, a completely alien look for him.

                And then it was just Lunëne, Garland, and I alone at the table. Lunëne made a motion to get up when Garland suddenly spoke up.

                "So... what are you two doing after this? Headed back to your rooms?"

                "Oh, well..." I started, looking over at Lunëne. They returned my look with eyebrows raised and mouth open.

                "Actually..." They turned to Garland and smiled, "I ran into someone the other day and we're going to hang out after this."

                My heart dropped an inch and I worked to keep my expression blank. Why was that news to me, but more importantly, why was I expecting to know about their plans?

                "That sounds fun!" Garland exclaimed.

                "Well, it's not going to be much. We're just playing some tabletop games in the rec room. They have a small group playing tonight and needed an extra player. I guess the last player was..." They hesitated before continuing, "Um, actually I think you might have run into her before Soelli, since she's on our level. Audrina?"

                "Oh! Yeah…yeah, I know Audrina. I ran into her at the library before." My heart jumped for some reason that I couldn't explain. I could see Garland subtly looking at me from the corner of my eye, and I glanced over. For that brief moment, I thought I saw her eyes narrow as if she was trying to figure something out. As our eyes met, she quickly looked back at Lunëne and smiled.

                "Sounds fun! I used to have a gaming group back home... honestly the best part wasn't playing, it was just the talking, getting to know each other, gossiping," Garland paused while reminiscing. She suddenly started to stand up. "Well, try not to stay up gossiping all night!"

                Lunëne turned to me as Garland walked away. I was still lost in thought and trying to keep my blank expression. Audrina and Lunëne... really wasn't a combination that I could imagine.

                "Sorry I didn't tell you earlier."

                "No worries! It does sound fun, and I have so much reading to catch up on anyways. Have fun!" I replied, while sliding my chair away from the table.

                I was worried that if the conversation continued, I'd end up saying something I regret. We'd end up talking about why Lunëne felt the need to apologize. I wasn't ready. I also didn't want them to think I was running away, so I waited for them to follow suit and stand up. And then we went our separate ways.