| |
ZOE
––––––––
“Zoe, I’m so glad you could come and see me. Julius was desperate to show you around our planet, I don’t think I have ever seen him so excited about showing off to anyone before, but then you aren’t exactly just anyone are you, you’re his Zoe.” Zoe instantly liked Julius’s mother, Queen Esme, she was kind and direct and was the type of mother that Zoe had always imagined having.
“I’m nobody’s Zoe,” Zoe scoffed.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offence,” Queen Esme apologised.
“Did he tell you?” Zoe changed the subject, her gaze wandering around the room. It was stunning, a sitting room she supposed it would be called, full of books and house plants and things that made it seem homely. Everything that Zoe had never had.
“About the baby? Yes, isn’t it wonderful, I’m so excited!”
“What?!” Zoe’s head whipped back around to face Queen Esme. “He didn’t tell you? He expects me to have a termination, he told me outright that this was a mistake that he intends to fix.”
“Oh.” The queen’s smile faltered. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, does it? He outranks me in all aspects of life. Besides, we all know what will happen if I refuse his demand, don’t we? He would just find some way to get the child off me, to raise it here where I had no chance of getting them. A judge would commit me if I claimed that my child's father took him to another planet.” Zoe laughed without humour.
“I am so sorry that he hurt you so badly.” Queen Esme reached across and squeezed Zoe’s hand briefly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Zoe shrugged, clearing her throat from the sudden lump that had formed at the Queen’s gesture.
“Do you love him?”
“I used to,” Zoe smiled, “I used to love him so much it hurt. I loved him for the past decade, I used to dream about what it would be like if he just looked at me, you know, the way he looked at all the other girls he worked with. It used to make me so mad when he would go out on dates with them, he was, is, quite the ladies' man.”
“He always was,” the queen agreed.
“I used to see him flirt with them and imagine it was me he was talking to, which is as pathetic as it sounds. I hated when he went out with them, to the movies, dinner, whatever. Inside I used to scream at it, wanting it to be me, wanting him to just see me as something more than just his friend, but it never happened. I just...I used to practise flirting in front of the mirror, just in case, and then one day, I just stopped. I looked in the mirror and saw myself for what I am, someone destined to be alone, and I gave up. I stopped trying. I put all of my heart into my work and it was enough, it is enough, I don’t need more, I’m fine on my own.”
“Do you still love him?” The queen asked gently.
“Yes, but it’s different now. I can’t go back to being friends with him, I can’t even pretend to be friends with him, and he doesn’t want anything else from me, he got what he needed and that is that. He used me and then walked away, but I can’t do that.”
“Because of the baby?”
“Yes,” Zoe nodded. “Will the baby be human or alien when it’s born, do we know?”
“Julius never told you, did he? I’m from Earth, I met his father when I was studying at university and fell in love. All Kizmetians are born looking like humans, their scales don’t form until they are fully grown, usually around age twenty-five, so please don’t be afraid of that.”
“I never ever imagined myself as ever having the chance to be with someone, to ever conceive a child, so everything is new to me. I never grew up imagining being a mother like a lot of people on Earth do. It was a huge shock, finding out I was pregnant, and then on top of that, to hear that Julius was an alien, I’m not going to lie, it takes some getting used to.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Now that I am pregnant, I think I might be good at motherhood,” Zoe placed her hand over her stomach, “I would keep this baby if I had the chance to.” She confessed in a whisper, a single tear running down her face. Zoe knew she couldn’t actually have Julius’s baby; she had meant what she had told his mother. She knew that if he took her back to Earth it wouldn’t be to leave her alone as he promised, no matter how much she wished it.
“Zoe, I know we haven’t met under the best circumstances, but I wanted you to know that Julius speaks of you often, it is clear to me that he thinks very highly of you. I am sorrier than I can say that things haven’t worked out as you might have wished they would. With your permission, might I check in on you every now and then, to make sure you are well?”
“I’m not sure where I will be Queen Esme. Tomorrow I will be handing my resignation in at work and putting my house on the market, it is time to move on, to find a new place to lay down roots, preferably where no one else knows me.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that, my son needs someone like you in his life I think.”
“He had me in his life, Queen Esme, and he threw me away like I was nothing more than a piece of garbage clinging to his shoe.” Neither of the women saw the figure standing in the shadowy doorway, or the look of heartbreak on his face.
