That night I locked myself into a com-pod and recorded a message for Izzy.
Actually, I recorded fourteen messages, but I kept erasing, stopping and starting, getting it wrong. Being wrong. Finally I was so exhausted, I sat there for ten minutes and stared at the screen. It took me that long to realize that I was recording myself sitting there. I hit delete on all of the files I’d created, shut the system down, and began ripping open the Velcro straps.
“Damn it, Izzy,” I said.
I hit record one last time.
“Izzy,” I said, “I love you and I guess I always will. I’m sorry for dragging you with me all this way into the black. That’s me being selfish. That’s me being unfair. That’s me being weak.”
The red eye of the camera burned into me.
“You’re braver and smarter than me and you tried to tell me, but sometimes I’m too stubborn to listen. Or maybe too scared. I don’t know. I mean, I heard you, but I’ve been acting and thinking like we’re still together. As if this is somehow going to work out. How stupid is that?” I laughed and wiped my eyes. “So . . . yeah, this is me finally getting a clue. This is me finally—hopefully—managing to say the right thing. But what’s the right thing? How do I say it without being ridiculously corny?”
A couple of seconds burned away.
“Okay, I guess I don’t care if it sounds corny. I’m just going to put it out there,” I said. “Izzy, you were the best thing that ever happened to me. You brought color and light and music and laughter and love into my life. And those are things I can take with me, even out here, even all the way to Mars. I will always love you. Of course I will. But I can’t bear to think of you there in some kind of suspended animation. This is not us being Tristan and Izzy anymore. This is us being us, each in our own world. I love you and you will always be my best friend. You’ve always been a better friend to me anyway. Sorry about that.”
I placed my palm flat on the screen for a long, long time.
And hit the stop button on the recorder.
Maybe half an hour later I was able to record a second video. This one for Mindy. I said most of the same things, but in different ways. I had no doubt they’d edit it into a ratings winner.
Who cares?
I put my face in my hands and as the ship flew through the black I counted all of the things I’d left behind. Weighed them, valued them, and began putting them one by one on the shelves inside my head. Where they would have to be from now on.