Page 49 of The Bully Alien

"Why? So you can wallow in misery alone? So you can cause another explosion, one that will blow yourself up?"

"I don't..."

"You don't want to die. If you get off this planet, you'll find a way to hunt down the Grots and kill them, won't you?" I ask.

"I... I can't leave so it doesn't matter what I might do!"

"It does matter," I argue. "Why wouldn't it? You never know. Besides, if you're right that there are other aliens walking around and masquerading as Earthlings, why don't we just find one and see if they have a spaceship? Maybe there's another one out there who needs a ship and only has an engine. Together, you would have a working ship, and we can all leave—"

"No."

"No? I really thought that was a good idea," I say mildly. "What was so terrible about it?"

"I'm not. I can't."

"You can't what?" I ask softly.

But he just shakes his head.

I sigh and touch my scar, my gaze on him. He slowly meets my gaze and watches my fingers.

"I was kidnapped when I was young. My parents won a lot of money, the lottery, and I was kidnapped because they guys wanted money. They sent my parents a live video of them cutting me. My dad had a heart attack and died. My mom paid them, and I was released, but the real damage had been done inside, but the kids in grade school... they treated me differently. They wouldn't talk to me anymore but would whisper about me all the time and not just behind my back. In high school, the bullying was terrible. I had to see a therapist, and... My mom got cancer when I was fifteen. She knew she was dying, so she helped to get me emancipated. Do you know what that is?" I ask.

Wyatt nods, and I slowly lower my hand from my scar to my lap.

"I inherited money from her, what was left from her winnings, which wasn't much. The kidnappers took most of it, and now, they weren't ever found. They probably fled the country with the ransom. I finished high school and came here. I had that therapist for a long time, and she thought it was't heathy, my choice I'm major. She thought I wanted to run away instead of face my issues. Maybe that's some of it, but I want to be free of everything on this planet. Nothing good has ever come of it. My mom hardly let me live at all because she was afraid I would be kidnapped at all, and since my social life was shit, it didn't matter. I didn't have a reason to sneak out. I was stuck. I was miserable."

His gaze shifts to my arms.

"Yes, I thought about ending it all a few times. I never cut nearly deep enough, not long enough either. I just... It wasn't really about actually killing myself. Feeling the pain meant I was alive. I felt numb after my mom's diagnosis and then again when she died months later, and it was a way to feel again. Shouldn't I have felt pain at her loss instead of numb? I don't even know if my feelings are normal or not. I'm all fucked up, Wyatt. I hate to break it to you, but I'm the one who learned your secret, not someone else, not something better."

We're silent a long time.

"I... I was numb at first," he mumbles. "I still am. I don't want to accept it, but Franx wouldn't lie. It's the truth. I just... I can't handle it."

"I know. It's hard. It's unbearable. It's fucking wrong, what happened to your people."

"What happened to you."

"All we can do is put one step in front of the other. Try to survive. Keep on keeping on." I snort. "It sounds like bullshit, but it's how I get by. For better or worse."

"Isn't that in your wedding vows?" he asks.

"Oh, I'm never getting married."

"No? Just like you were going to die a virgin."

I eye him and say nothing.

"I'm glad."

"What makes you glad?" I ask.

"That you didn't die a virgin."

"Yeah? Being celibate for a few years too many for you?"

"I wasn't a whore back on my home planet," he protests.