My face heated at my own stupidity. What a flaccid argument.
“Of course you wish I’d stayed poor and downtrodden. That’s what you all want. The rest of us under your heels, staying out of the way while you stuff yourselves.”
“That’s a mischaracterization, and you know it. I’m not like them.”
“Aren’t you? Just ’cause you’re maybe not as bad doesn’t mean you’re absolved. You used to talk a big talk, agreed with all the things I said, about things needing to change. But have you done anything to impact that change since I left? I see the same rigid class system as before. You’re complacent and complicit.”
There he was, the Elliot who clearly thought I was the very worst kind of person. A spoiled princess hardly worth his time. This Elliot made it easier, and the anger that boiled up from my stomach and turned to acid on my tongue was the very thing I needed to get over him. We would spar, and I would learn to hate him, too.
“And what are you, coming over here to participate in the Valg? Doesn’t that make you just as complicit?”
“You don’t know me anymore, Leo, or what I want.”
“Likewise,” I spat back. “Why did you even come up here? You don’t care about me. You were just spoiling for a fight.”
“Maybe I want to see you suffer a bit.”
It was as if he had struck me in the face. My whole body began to shake—with rage, devastation. I clenched my hands into fists, locked my knees, anything to control myself in front of him. And then I let loose.
“Well, congratulations. The universe has taken care of that for you. My ship is falling apart, we’re inches from complete financial ruin, my father and sister are useless, and I’ll be married off to the highest bidder in a matter of weeks, kicking off a lifetime of unhappiness. Enjoy the show. Now, good night.”
Just then, Klara rounded the corner. “I wondered where you two had disappeared to!” Her wide smile promptly faded when she got a proper look at the two of us, stiff as boards and clearly sparring.
“I was just going.” I cast Elliot my most saccharine smile. “Enjoy your stay, and the Valg. I hope you get everything you want.”
With that, I whipped around and headed for my quarters, having had the last word but leaving with the heaviest of hearts.
Six
I translated my anger into action, writing letters to every captain in the fleet about my water-recycling system, begging for a meeting. Every time I flashed back to Elliot’s wish to see me suffer, to Captain Lind’s disdain, I found someone else to write to. All I needed was one ship to take a chance on my idea.
This way, I was working on three potential scenarios, each increasingly less pleasant. Ideally someone would agree to be the pilot ship for my system, and I could use their startup investment to fly to the Olympus and file my patent. Otherwise, I would suffer Elliot’s presence for the next month but happily collect the Orlovs’ weekly rent, which I would use to take care of the patent then. But that would bring me perilously close to the end of the Valg Season and the worst-case scenario, with Father breathing down my neck to marry to save the family. He just didn’t understand that I was trying to do that already, but in a way so that the price wasn’t my own happiness.
The Valg kickoff complete, the social-events calendar had been paused while the majority of parents returned to their ships. That meant a forty-eight-hour reprieve before the tug-of-war with my father began in earnest.
I busied myself with unpacking, tidying our temporary apartments, balancing our new and slightly improved budget. Another reason I hoped for some other ship’s buy-in was so that I could use the Orlovs’ rent to make improvements rather than bank it all for the patent fees.
On the day after this all-too-brief reprieve, my wrist tab and personal tab began to chirp repeatedly and annoyingly in unison. I glanced down at my wrist to see an insistently flashing rose-entangled V. I tried swiping it away, but the noise didn’t stop. With a huff, I woke up my personal tab and tapped to open the Valg app. Finally, both devices quieted, now that I’d locked eyes with today’s scheduled event notification—there was a pool party starting in half an hour.
I ignored the other half-dozen blinking notifications—I needed to fill out my profile, take the dating personality quiz, RSVP for the next event, browse profiles. My fingertip was hovering over the skip button for today’s event, but then Carina appeared.
“Don’t tell me you’re doing budgets again,” Carina scolded, pausing at the living room entrance. I looked up from my tab, blinking hard before confirming that, yes, my sister was wearing next to nothing and had a towel slung over one arm.
“I’m not going,” I said.
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Leo, you can’t hole yourself up in here doing work the whole time. The Valg Season is supposed to be fun.”
I bristled. “Maybe I was reading, which is fun.”
“Father said you have to go with me to Valg events or I can’t go. Please? I want to go swimming. I won’t make you socialize or swim, but come. You can read by the side, and maybe some similarly antisocial boy will also be reading, and you can bond.”
“Fine.” I pulled myself up. “I’ll go, but only for a little while.”
I swiped away the Valg app and pulled up my favorite book, trudging after Carina. At least this was a daytime activity and not one of the faux-romantic nighttime ones. I would get one event out of the way and limit Father’s complaining for a few days.
Carina insisted we travel by lift pod instead of foot, despite my protests. The lift unsettled me more than a little bit. It felt as if we were hanging off the side of the ship, nothing between us and the vastness of space but a bit of glass. It was heavily reinforced, I knew, but logic didn’t save my stomach from doing somersaults as we glided parallel the Scandinavian’s side. I let out a relieved breath as we came to a stop all the way aft, the lift doors sliding open, spilling us out into an alcove off the promenade.
The pool occupied prime real estate on the uppermost deck where the ship’s backside curved in an elegant arc and, as on the promenade and bridge, sprawling windows were prioritized over more practical appointments. We had to key in with our bio-signatures, as the pool was accessible to the general public on board only on Mondays. The rest of the time it was private-access only, to maintain an air of luxury. Crowds would dampen the mood. And everything in the pool area meticulously cultivated a mood.
The large entranceway door slid open at our touch, and we stepped into the oblong-shaped lobby. Immediately I was engulfed in low, sultry lighting and the smell of tropical fruit. I drew a deep breath. Pineapple. They pumped it through the air vents, a different scent every few hours.
Mingling with the seemingly distant echo of lapping water and chatter were mellow chimes, the preferred soundtrack of the spa, located to our left. To the right was the all-gender locker room, where Carina deposited her shoes and shucked off the thin tunic I’d made her put on before we left. She frowned at me.
“You’re really only going to read? No bathing suit?”
“I’m not wearing one,” I reminded her.
“You can buy one here . . .” I shook my head. She rolled her eyes. “Then at least take off your shoes so you’re not totally out of place.”