Chapter Five

40 Years

The Starship: Seattle Grace
Destination: The Colony World of Homestead II
Status: Autopilot
Crew: 258 asleep
Passengers: 4,998 asleep, 2 awake
Year: 3487
(38 years to go...)

JANUARY 20:
I have been living like time doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now how many days I have been awake on this ship because it was a fantasy. A dream that this was some sort of destiny. I wasn't even keeping track of the date. The date matters, people's birthdays matter. There are a few I've missed since being awake here. Those people matter, I can't just abandon the things I've been doing my entire life. Lost in my daydream of accidental happiness. I woke up twenty-four years old today. I was asleep for eighty-one years. I should be dead. I should be asleep. Everyone I ever knew on Earth is probably dead now. Except maybe my niece Laura, but she'd be eighty-two so not quite as cute as the toddler I left. My dad is gone. My future is here or nothing. How am I supposed to just carry on? But I made this choice, didn't I? I chose to leave everything behind and chase a pipe dream that I could find my long lost sister. I abandoned my dad and my real sister for that? That wasn't Mark's fault, that was me.

JANUARY 24:
These things are running around my mind waring rings into the squishy flesh of my brain. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon when I reached Homestead II. Now that will never happen. Mark has taken that dream away from me. Unless he develops an aneurysm or something and I have to operate. Not that he'd survive my intern hands. Maybe he deserves that. How could he make this choice? How? How? How? Keeps running around, like children. I know why he did it. He was alone and he hates being alone, he picked out someone he liked the look of and here I am. I can't understand how he lives with himself though. Maybe he just doesn't care anymore. But I can't be angry with him for being alone.

JANUARY 28:
I have ignored him for a week now. Most of the time the anger I feel towards him, the outward hate that I feel for him ripping away my life. It shoots out of me in bursts. He gets the worst side of me. And then I go back to ignoring him. And he just takes it, like he knows he deserves it. I think he's waiting for something. Waiting for me to get out all my anger and then realise he's all I've got and fall back into his arms. But how dare he? How dare he do something decent when he's done something so cruel? It hurts that he's a good person. After it all, he still cares. It makes everything worse.

JANUARY 29:
Sometimes I cry so hard that my shoulders shake. Sometimes I scream at nothing. Sometimes Mark tries to talk to me and I just walk away from him, abandoning whatever I've put my mind to doing. I've read four books in the last three days because I can't think anything about real right now. Sometimes I know he can hear my cursing his name but he just does nothing. My anger bubbles inside me until it manifests in dreams. I think about hurting him but I don't go through with it because I took an oath once, a long time ago. Do no harm. I will not stoop to his level. I've thought about killing him but what would I do with his body? I think about punching him every time I see him. I want him to hurt like I hurt. Every time something stops me.

JANUARY 31:
I run around the Grand Concourse for some exercise. I do this most days. Mainly because my legs ache when I sit around for too long. And because I had all this energy built up, running makes me hurt in a different way. The burn in my lungs is physical, it's distracting. Distraction is the new tactic I'm trying, it's not really working. But I haven't dreamt about Mark for two nights in a row now. I was running across the top third floor deck, past the same silver I see everywhere. Past every twist and turn of 'space grey.'

I heard his voice. At first I thought it was inside my mind playing tricks on me. But then he spoke again, "Lexie." It was loud, booming. I covered my ears and kept running.

"I know that nothing I can say will make you feel better." I could hear him through my hands. He was so loud. "Please listen."

"I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOU!" I screamed as loudly as I could, trying to get his voice out of my head. But the sound was echoing around in waves.

"I was so alone." He said, "for so long. It felt like I was disappearing, the night I found your pod. Lexie I told you I was feeling bad but I almost walked out of the airlock. Lexie you saved me."

"I DON'T CARE MARK!" I shouted back, putting my hands to my head and trying to rub the sweat away as the tears formed and I ran into the wall. My legs stopped working and collapsed, I was crying again because I didn't know how to stop it and he was still talking.

"I found your video file and I watched it, about a hundred times. I memorised every word you said. I fell in love with you Lexie." It doesn't matter. None of it matters. "I wish I could take it back. I wish I could put you back in your pod and watch you go back to sleep. But I can't. And if I did I would fall to pieces." I don't care how much he needs me, not anymore. He broke that.

FEBRUARY 5:
I was laying in the pool because it meant I couldn't hear him. The water rushing against my ears was enough of a distraction. I laid there and let myself float so I could feel nothing. The lights flickered off and on. I stared at the ceiling and tried to make everything go away.

Later I went to the bar and talked to Meredith, "you're always happy." I said, her face fell a little at that. Any implication that she wasn't human and she faltered. "You have a purpose. I have nothing anymore."

"But you had Mark, why did you give him up?" The robot replied, cleaning her glass vigorously.

"I didn't give him up. He let me down. He took everything I wanted away from me, and he ruined everything that I had sacrificed for. I don't wanna talk about it Mer."

"They say time is a great healer." The hope almost killed me.

"Broken hearts aren't that simple." I said, taking a sip of wine, I hated that it satiated me because I was so used to being uncomfortable. "You wouldn't understand," I said it because I knew it would make her feel bad. It was spiteful and mean and I didn't want to take it out on her but I didn't want to talk to Mark and that didn't leave me with many other options.

"Meredith!" My head whipped round as I heard his voice. I looked at him with such contempt. "Tuesday's my day with Meredith." I could tell he was already drunk because his words came out in a string.

"It's Wednesday," also that. He looked around confused like he hadn't been keeping track. Of course he wasn't, he didn't have any reason to. He had no one to track it for. I took a last gulp of wine before standing up and leaving the bar. As we passed I caught the edge of his cologne, it wasn't newly sprayed, but it lingered on his clothes. Smelling it only made me walk faster. I didn't want the memories of his skin on mine.

FEBRUARY 7:
I watched my own video files today. Memories. I looked through countless hours of childhood footage just to hear my mom laughing and my dad smiling. I cried because I know he's gone now. And I will never get to hug him or smell his liquored breath again. The scent had actually started growing on me. I watched Molly saying goodbye to me on a loop, how her eyes danced when he held up Laura to wave at the camera. I wonder what her life turned out to be. I wonder if she had any more kids. I wonder if she missed me when it rained or when she ate avocados or peanut butter cups. I've been eating a lot to get through the emotion of leaving my family but it's better to feel sad in my own decisions that to wallow in what could've been my future. So I've stopped thinking about Mark pretty much altogether. Now I just reminisce and eat chocolate and feel nostalgic in my past. Maybe a different wound will hurt more. Maybe the pain will be so deep that it'll block out whatever Mark did.

FEBRUARY 10:
I walked past the Concourse and Mark was drawing something on the floor. I've never seen him do that before. He looked up at me so sadly. But I walked past him without saying a word. Despite what my head is telling me, my heart is still broken.

I walked through the pod room and laid down until I dreamt myself back into hibernation. In my dreams, my pod is warm and bright and I am calm. My breathing slows to nothing and my hearts stops. Do I want to die? Is that the only thing that would stop me from feeling? What would Mark do if I died? Wake someone else just to ruin their life. Maybe he'd learn. Maybe he'd spend the rest of his life repenting from my suffering. Maybe he deserves that too. Death and grief. Maybe he deserves to suffer just as much as I have. Why won't my heart stop aching?

FEBRUARY 14:
There's a tree in the middle of the Concourse. It's small and alive and so so green. I walked up to it just to feel an imaginary breeze against my face. Pretend I was in a park and there was life all around me. An imaginary squirrel approached from one of the branches and crawled across onto my hand. I stroked his little head and put him back in the tree. When I opened my eyes again, the tree was still there. I ran my fingertips over its bark and took in a deep breath. I felt the leaves against my skin and felt like I was at home.

Did he do this for me? It's a stupid question because who else would he do it for? Hope flutters in my chest, I know that's probably too real and too poetic to write in a diary but it's what is happening to me right now. I am thinking of him and the tree and my emotions are not spiking. I don't feel anger. I feel a hint of pain stabbing away as usual but it makes me cry in a sad way. In a way that means I miss him. I probably cry too much these days. Do I miss him? I feel like my heart is screaming. Reaching out to say 'yes of course I miss him.' But I can't say it out loud. Maybe for a moment I can admit it to myself that I miss him. That I love him.