Summary: No one seemed to notice that I'd lost someone too.
I Lost a Friend
"We'd been there since the start of everything. I like to think I was her favourite assistant, even from the beginning. She'd always ask me to handle her work personally, and I took that to mean she trusted me and my judgement.
"She was the first friend I made on Pandora. I was an eager young researcher with a love of everything Pandora— she was a cynical, overworked genius whom I idolised from the moment we met. But we seemed to click, at any rate. She took me under her wing, and we worked together like the dream-team I'd always imagined I'd be a part of, making huge discoveries that were leaps and bounds ahead of what other people were doing. It felt needed, and I loved being a part of something so special.
"Who did you think she asked to proofread the first draft of her infamous book? Me, that's who! I was the first person to ever read the inspiring, delicious words she had written about the Na'vi, words that would later be quoted in hundreds of places all over the internet, in documentaries, in other published books and papers; and I had been the one to get the first look.
"When people look at me, they assume things. I'm not saying that everyone does, but most people do. They assume that I'm trustworthy (I am), hardworking (also true), and a mindless drone. That last bit is stupid and stereotypical. Grace used to say it was the dopey smile that did me in, but I think it had more to do with my love of the moon in its entirety. You could just tell how into it I was, and that made people assume that I did nothing else.
"What people didn't seem to realised was that I lost a friend in the war. Norm lost Trudy— a tragedy in its own right, but not really a surprise to anyone, Trudy being who she was. Neytiri lost friends and family, most damaging being her father, but there were lots of Na'vi lost in the war. Jake and Norm acted almost as if Grace had been their loss, too, and maybe she was, in some small proportion.
"They had lived with her for three months, and they may have grown close, I don't know.
"I lived with her for fifteen years, so I think I have a claim to have had been closer. She was my best friend, and I loved her like a sister. We used to stay up late in the lab to finish products, talking in a code that no one else seemed to understand; we knew each other so well we could finished each other's sentences, so that our conversations sounds strange and only half-formed.
"I loved Grace Augustine like she was family. She was the only family I'd ever known, and I'd lost her to this war. She'd died fighting for something she believed in (and asked to take samples up until the very end, I've heard), and maybe she was proud of herself for that. I understand her more than anyone else, but no one seemed to notice I'd lost someone too.
"My crying was done alone, my mourning not as on display as Norm's or Jake's or Neytiri's. Sometimes I was jealous of them for being so very open to one another about their feelings, their pain, their fears. They talked like they were close, like they were friends. I was never a part of that with them. Grace was all I had.
"I felt Trudy's loss like a punch to the stomach— she was a friend, too, since she'd ferried Grace and I to the Halleluiah Mountains and back over the years. She and Grace had been close. I knew her quite well and for quite a while, so I understood how Norm could fall so easily for her. She was very easy to fall for.
"But Grace was different. I felt her death like a stab to the heart, a mortal wound that no one else seemed to see. I walked around bleeding, the pain clear as day and as sharp as it'd ever been, for weeks.
"I was always a background character in this thing. Jake was the star, Norm the supporting actor and best friend character that everyone felt for because of his goofy, nerdy charm. Ever since the start of this chapter, when their ship landed and this whole conundrum began, I was forced to the background like a lamp, an insignificant piece of furniture. Before they arrived, I was on top of the world, on top of this program, on top of life.
"And now no one noticed me. I stayed behind because I loved the moon (Pandora is not a planet) and all the people that lived on it. I loved the plants and the biology of the forest, and I loved Grace, and Pandora was so much her now, I couldn't bear to leave it.
"Jake set up a grave for her, and I visited it as often as I could. The Na'vi have no word for grave, and it took a lot of explaining for Neytiri to understand and let him make her resting place somewhere we could find and visit. It was under a beautiful tree, one of her favourite specimens... she would have loved it.
"So maybe I'm just a background character. Maybe I don't really get a say in what goes on, but honestly— is it that hard to notice that I've suffered just as much as everyone else? I lost someone very important to me, and every day I struggle to get out of bed and continue working, but I do it for her. I get up to finish what she started, because she would have wanted it that way.
"I miss Grace. I'm not ever going to forget her."
Max Patel reached up and turned off the camera, ignoring the single teardrop making its way down his cheek. He got up and started his daily routine, ready to begin the day and work to finish what Grace's research had been leading to. She would have wanted him to, because she was his best friend, and he was her favourite assistant. He'd lost a friend, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from doing what he loved. And that was what made him stronger than everyone else.