Xylina

The first date had that delicious awkwardness that makes you self-conscious in the moment, but in retrospect seems endearing and makes you nostalgic for a more innocent and hopeful time.

Adis suggested we meet in the Eloan sector of Gemini Station so I wouldn’t need an environment suit. I appreciated this because it meant I could order a stim on the rocks to calm my nerves, while all he could do was watch me drink it through his helmet visor.

We were so used to the formalities of our jobs as diplomatic liaisons that it took some convincing to get him to call me by my first name, but as the evening wore on, he was using “Xylina” more and more, and each time he did, I got a little thrill.

I think it was clear to me then that I really liked him, and while there were little alarms in the back of my consciousness warning me that two people who couldn’t physically endure each other’s environments could never have a functional romantic relationship, I ignored them. Our personalities were so compatible that even at that early stage we were finishing each other’s sentences. I loved his classic Terran features: the stockier build, too-rounded earlobes, and those eyes that watched me with an intensity that made my blood rush. It was easy to push aside the warnings while staring into those eyes.

• • • •

Adis

I didn’t come to Gemini intending to meet the love of my life. I was happy as a bachelor, never feeling the need to settle down on Earth, so it didn’t enter my mind I’d fall for an Eloan. Yes, we’re both technically human, but Xylina’s ancestors altered their DNA to thrive on Eloa, whereas I’m basic model Earth stock. We couldn’t even move around each other’s sectors without environment suits unless we wanted to risk deadly immune reactions.

But none of that came to mind when I looked into those violet eyes that blinked with both eyelids and a nictitating membrane as she sat across the table. I watched her sip from a beverage that would’ve been poison to me, right down to the ice cubes, but all I could focus on were her perfect lips touching the edge of the glass, and the subtly elongated shape of her ears as she pulled her hair back behind one of them.

We started out a little awkward, but the conversation soon flowed. I recall talking about work, but also many other things we shared. It had felt like we’d known each other for a lot longer. Like we could go on knowing each other forever.

• • • •

Xylina

When you’re first in love, you ignore anything that makes you think sensibly, instead reveling in that dizzying sensation of pure distilled joy, more powerful than the strongest stim. We ignored the advice of friends and family, laughing it off like they were the ones who didn’t understand.

We talked about visiting Eloa, and all the places I’d take him to. He spoke of Earth, and a place called Saskatchewan. It sounded exotic and thrilling, and I desperately wanted to see it, and feel Sol’s heat on my skin. I wanted to know this world that had birthed us before Eloa shaped us into something new.

Now, I can say I loved him as much for the things that made us different as those we had in common. It was the fact that we came from two such different experiences that appealed to me. I’d never known anyone like him. I got caught up in that excitement.

Deep down though, I knew my fantasies of seeing Earth with him would never come to pass, but I wanted to believe they could. I wanted to know everything about Adis, and all that made him who he was, and that included Earth.

• • • •

Adis

Xylina wanted to show me Eloa. I’d seen it from space, and in images. I thought I understood it and the people who called it home, but knowing facts about a place doesn’t make it feel familiar. You don’t feel it like it’s as much a part of you as the bones that hold your shape or the blood that courses through your veins.

I felt like an alien on Eloa, which I was. I couldn’t remove my suit unless I was in a room modified for Terrans. I spent every night alone, unable to sleep because of the slightly off gravitational pull, not to mention other effects on my body as it craved both Xylina and a more familiar environment. When I did sleep, I’d often wake from nightmares in which the environmental controls failed.

Later, I found reasons to avoid visiting Eloa. I know it bothered her, but it made the gulf between us seem too great. If I wasn’t there, I could pretend it didn’t matter. But I couldn’t articulate that to her. How can you tell someone the home they love makes you feel small and afraid?

• • • •

Xylina

I’ll admit, it hurt that when I suggested he attend my sister’s renaming, he made excuses, and I ultimately went alone. I felt like in rejecting my world and our customs, he was rejecting me. But I made the best of things when he planned a day of tether-flying outside the station.

As we launched ourselves into space, both of us wearing suits for once, it was like it was that first evening. The conversation came easy, as did the laughter. Both our bodies and our souls felt free, and so we used our momentum to bring us together again and again, dancing in the vacuum and forgetting all our troubles. For a few hours at least.

Then he said he loved me.

• • • •

Adis

I thought she’d be happy. I meant it, too. I didn’t care we were literally from two different worlds, all that mattered was we loved each other. On the station, and out in space, none of the problems we might have seemed that solid. I guess I felt like anything was possible.

But then she started talking about the future, the questions coming fast and furious as she thought through what I’d said. How could we make a life together? Where would we live? There were ways to have children, but to which world would they be genetically adapted? The brief moment of carefree abandon was lost.

It’s not ideal to cry in a spacesuit, so we called it a night. I won’t sugarcoat it; I was angry as hell at her. But for the life of me, I hadn’t been able to answer a single one of those questions in a way that would satisfy us both. I guess I was angry at myself too, for knowing she was right, but at the time I didn’t want to admit it. I’d never felt that way about anyone. It took a long time to accept that the person who’d made me feel so good, and so alive, was also someone I couldn’t be with.

• • • •

Xylina

Looking back, we never stood a chance. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, and all that. Maybe other people could’ve made it work, and I tip my hat to them if they do. Adis and I, we couldn’t. Sometimes love isn’t enough. That said, at times, I still mourn for what we had.

What troubles me more, as a diplomat, is what this means for our two peoples. Have the two halves of humanity grown irrevocably apart? Are we just too different—too distant—to come together in any meaningful way?

No, I can’t believe that. I think about that day in space, the two of us floating across the stars toward each other, no matter how far apart our launches took us. I have to believe it can be like that for our worlds.

• • • •

Adis

In the end, I accepted a new position back on Earth, in Stockholm. It’s beautiful here, and I’m settling in. I’ve even been on a couple of dates.

I still think of Xylina now and then. I may not have her genetic alterations, but my time in orbit of Eloa left me changed all the same. We agreed to stay friends and talk once in a while, though the time delay makes it awkward. We go through the whole checklist: our work, our families, our planets. She catches me up on station gossip. But it’s not the same, and I know in time our talks will dwindle to nothing.

I won’t forget her though. When I think of her, I still picture her the way she was that first evening, watching me with those violet eyes, and me wishing I could take my helmet off to kiss her. But that memory seems as far now as Gemini Station is from Earth. Maybe the distance between us was always there. Still, what we had, for all its flaws, was still special, and that matters. Maybe it’s even enough.