BACK THEN, THE day he arrived, Emily looked wide-eyed at the alien who was now a boy, who was now Aidan.
He shrugged.
“I can’t help it,” he said.
“Help what, honey?” said Mom.
“Being so intelligent,” said Aidan. “We were doing riddles, and I figured out Emily’s easy.” He did a kind of eye-roll thing, directed at her. A way of including her, as if they were a team, as if it were them against everyone else, as if they were complicit. In that moment, Emily sensed her heart could go one way or another, she could accept or reject what was being offered; but she smiled at him. She was like him; she couldn’t help it.
Then her parents turned to her.
“Aidan, go to your room,” her dad said. As if Aidan had a room.
“Why?” said Aidan.
“We need to talk to Emily. About…what happened at school.”
Her dad pointed to the chairs at the kitchen table, like: Sit down. Emily sat.
“A fire, Emily?” he said. “What were you thinking? I mean, I knew you didn’t love this place, but what the…?”
She shrugged.
“The school is considering full expulsion,” said her mom. “And the police want to talk to you.” She paused, her voice crumbling. “Is it something I did? Or didn’t do? Am I to blame for this somehow?” Tears started in her eyes.
“No, sweetheart, this isn’t on you,” said Emily’s dad, putting an arm around her mom. “Emily. See what you’re doing to your mother.”
Emily looked down at the table. At the whorls and swirls in the wood. What could she say? She’d burned down part of the school. She hadn’t meant to, but that sort of distinction didn’t feel like it would improve anything. This was about as bad as it got.
She looked up and met Aidan’s eyes.
He winked.
Then he turned to her parents, and…
It was hard to describe. He just sort of looked at them, but he was glowing. Only without actually glowing.
Her mom opened and closed her mouth, like a nutcracker soldier. Her dad leaned his head over to one side.
“What were we talking about?” said her mom.
“I…I don’t know,” said her dad.
“Huh,” said her mom. “It’s the strangest thing….I just…I…”
“You said we could stream a movie tonight,” said Aidan. “Make popcorn.”
Her mom’s face brightened. “Yes! Good idea, honey.”
“Emily can choose,” said Aidan. “She’s had a tough day.” He smiled at her.
“Sure,” said her dad. “You’ve always been so generous, kiddo.”
Always been.
Head spinning, Emily took Aidan’s hand and led him upstairs to her room, leaving her parents standing in the kitchen, bemused looks on their faces.
“Whatever you did to them,” she said when they were in her room, “don’t ever do it to me.”
Aidan nodded. “OK.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She sighed. “It won’t work forever, making it go away. I could have burned down the whole football stadium.”
“It’ll work for however long I want it to,” he replied. Then he smiled his brightest smile. “Anyway, I know all your memories, remember? I know you didn’t mean to do it.”
Later, they came into the kitchen for dinner, ahead of their movie night. Emily’s mom had made hot dogs, and was popping corn in a big pan on the stovetop. Emily hated the kitchen. It was small and functional, no decoration apart from her mom’s motivational fridge magnets.
A picture of an arctic fox cub, with the words: WE ALL HAVE THE POTENTIAL FOR GREATNESS WITHIN US.
Another with a flexed bicep and: BE STRONGER THAN YOUR EXCUSES.
And one her mom loved so much there were actually two magnets with the same words: YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR OWN STRENGTH.
Her mom had set the table earlier, and now she frowned at it, like it had moved when her back was turned. “Huh,” she said. “I’m such a ditz. I set the table for three.” She went over to the cupboards and took out an extra plate, knife and fork, glass.
If it hadn’t been so freaky, it would have been impressive. There were no photos of Aidan in the house, only of Emily, but it didn’t seem to matter to her parents. He had always been there. He would always be there.
When they went up to bed that night, her parents somehow didn’t see that the spare room didn’t have any stuff in it—that it was just a double bed and a lamp on a small table, ready for guests. They did not appear to notice that there were no toys, no posters, no crayon marks on the walls. They tucked Aidan in and told him a bedtime story—Emily watched and listened from the doorway; it was about a boy who climbed a mountain to look for a flower that would save his grandmother, and never had she been told a story like it.
It was weird. It was awful, it was sad. All she had ever wanted was for her parents to leave her alone, but in that moment she felt a deep pang of jealousy.
But she never resented him. In fact, he made her laugh, just like their parents said—their parents, their parents, it was even in her own head.
He teased her; made up silly songs about farts and kangaroos; played long and elaborate games of Monopoly with her, the rules of the game only vaguely applying to the baroque world they created together, of landlords and tenants and anarchists and magicians.
From that first day she knew: she would never let anything happen to him. He’d looked inside her head—he knew everything about her, all her secrets. He was someone she couldn’t lie to, and she’d loved him almost instantly.
She should have known it couldn’t last.