Assistant for the Alien Prince by Tammy Walsh

Jessica

The moment I returned home,I headed upstairs, stripped off the ridiculous dress the Grand Septon had stuffed me into, dumped it in the bottom drawer of a cabinet, and slammed it shut.

I would deal with it later, I told myself, knowing I wouldn’t intentionally get to it until I stumbled upon it one day in the future, and the flood of its associated memories would hit me like a tidal wave.

But that was a problem for future me, not present me.

I took a quick shower, dried myself off, and glanced at the bed Zai and I had shared for that short interval together.

I shut the door and promised myself I wouldn’t go in there ever again and would treat it as if it was haunted.

I ventured downstairs as I dried my hair.

The house was deathly quiet—something I had never really noticed before.

Too quiet.

I filled the kettle and set it to boiling just to have a little background noise.

The old grandfather clock ticked obnoxiously in the hallway.

It was always the wrong time and I set about fixing it immediately.

Anything to keep my hands and mind busy.

It took less than the time the clock was delayed to fix it.

That took care of a few moments of distraction.

Now I just needed something to occupy the next fifty years with…

I need a new bedroom,I told myself.

I couldn’t sleep in the one I usually occupied after it’d been sullied with memories of Zai, so I headed upstairs and set about airing out the guest bedroom and replaced the dusty sheets with fresh ones.

I slapped the pillows to puff them up a bit and peered down at my handiwork with my fists on my hips.

A double bed.

For one.

The sadness hit me all at once and my knees buckled.

I found the corner of the bed, held my face in my hands, and let the tears come streaming down my face.

I wept like it was the end of the world and I hadn’t gotten to enjoy a fraction of the things I’d planned.

I had a good long cry, letting whatever thoughts and emotions that wanted to surface come to the fore.

I promised myself that after I let myself have this one moment of weakness I would never dwell on these things ever again.

Once the worst of the tears subsided, I wiped my cheeks and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

The moment had passed, and although I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I thought about such things, I hoped it would at least be the deepest I would let my emotions take me.

I moved to the sink Aunt Mary had installed when she was sick, ran the water, and splashed it over my face.

I tugged on the towel, accidentally yanking a drawer open that it’d been shut in.

I dried my face and moved to shove the drawer shut when I noticed a short stack of ring-bound notebooks.

When I fingered the top one open, I noticed the date written in the margin.

It was the year she’d died.

Beneath it, scrawled in her natty handwriting, details of each day.

I smiled as I scanned each page and the ritual my aunt had maintained with military zest.

The same routine over and over again.

When I opened each of the other drawers, I found more of the notebooks, going back years and years…

Until I came to the very last drawer.

The notebooks in there were musty with age but in surprisingly good shape.

I picked up the first one and flicked through its yellowed pages, traveling back in time to seven years before I was even born.

As I scanned through it, my eyes bulged and I stumbled back and perched on the edge of the bed.

The papers were full of scribbled words, far more frantic and difficult to decipher than her usual hand.

She’d crossed out as many words as she’d left alone.

My aunt had always been so calm, so controlled, so… in tune with herself.

To think she was capable of being overly emotional was hard to believe.

As I read one entry after another, I pieced together her story.

Her boyfriend had cheated on her, and by how she reacted, she’d loved him very much.

She shut herself away in this house to forget about him, to get a little space for herself.

She continued working from the house for a while… until the desire to do even that left her.

Eventually, she was left with nothing to do but maintain the house.

And that became all she did.

She rarely thought of her boyfriend by that point and had forgotten any interest she might have had in the opposite sex.

The only real pleasure she had was spending time with her nieces, Jessica and Tina.

They reminded her of the children she’d never have.

Although I tried not to think about Zai, I realized he’d been right.

Aunt Mary had run away from her problems, she had locked herself away so she wouldn’t get hurt, wouldn’t get close to anyone…

To avoid a repeat of the intense lows she’d experienced at her ex-boyfriend’s hands, she’d given up any chance of experiencing the intense highs too.

She locked herself away in this part of the world until it became as uninterested in her as she was of it.

In a word, she gave up.

Was that what I was doing by wanting to come and live in this house? I wondered.

Giving up?

To avoid getting hurt?

Had I already done that by turning down Zai’s offer of being his fated mate?

He had only been the second man I’d allowed close enough for him to break my heart.

The first had been my father, who I’d looked up to as a hero for the majority of my life.

It’s a cruel thing to learn the shortfalls of your heroes, especially when they turned out to be much weaker than you took them for.

Would I shrivel up and die the same way my aunt had?

Would I allow myself to forget Zai?

Could I bring myself to do that?

Suddenly, forgetting about him didn’t seem like the best thing to do.

I clutched the diary close and thought of how wonderful my aunt had been.

Kind, caring, considerate…

And without a family of her own to look after and care for.

I hoped I would be as kind and decent as she’d been, but I didn’t want to give up on those aspects of life.

I wanted to explore everything life had to show me.

I wanted to live.

My heart filled with joy as I considered all the amazing things I still had to look forward to:

Growing old and seeing my children have children of their own.

Pursue a meaningful career and help others.

Fall in love and share my life with that one special someone…

Was it too late to accept Zai’s offer?

Could I still be his fated mate?

Was there still time?

A knock came at the front door that jarred me from my dreams.

I put the diary away and headed downstairs.

The sun had already begun to set and it was already turning dark.

I stopped halfway down the steps and peered over in the direction of the front door.

A shadowed figure stood there, the image of his fist turning clear as he rapped on the glass.

I edged down the stairs and approached the door, in two minds about opening it.

Finally, I did but kept the latch on.

Through the gap, I saw a small, hunched, and hairy little man with bushy eyebrows.

“Was that an Ev’vat ship I saw earlier?”

He was referring to the one that’d dropped me off.

“Yes.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, you know what the Ev’vat barbarians can be like. I thought you might need some help.”

If I did need help, this scrawny little man wasn’t going to do much of it.

I suppose they could use his bones to pick their teeth with.

Still, I appreciated his concern.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, relaxing just a little.

Someone with this much concern for his neighbors couldn’t be very dangerous.

He peered over my shoulder and lowered his voice.

“If there’s someone inside the house and you feel like you can’t answer clearly as you’re under duress, just clear your throat.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“No clearing of throats necessary. I’m not in any danger. There’s no one else here.”

The hairy little man smiled, revealing a missing canine.

“Well, that’s just swell. It’s funny, I’ve been watching this house for some time now and never knew anyone lived here.”

“They don’t, usually. It’s my old aunt’s house and she left it to me in her will.”

The little man nodded.

“Well then, that explains everything! If you’re ever short of sugar, milk, or anything else, or need a little help with a faulty light switch, just come to the house over the hillside there and I’ll pop over and help you.”

If he’d said it with a leering eye, I might have taken it as a come-on, but he seemed sincere and his eyes never once dropped below my eyes.

“I will, thanks,” I said.

“You’re most welcome.”

He tipped an imaginary hat and turned to leave.

He made it two steps before he turned back.

“Oh, there is one other piece of advice I could give you.”

“Oh?”

“Often the thieves in this area work in pairs. One to distract the mark while the other creeps in through an open window around back and sneaks up behind them. It’s a simple trick, but an effective one.”

I heard the floorboard creak a fraction of a second before I felt the hands wrap around my face and yank me back from the door.

And by then, it was already too late.