Page 111 of I Think I’m in Love with an Alien

Jeneticist: Looking now.

SquidHead: OH SHIT.

Stargazer: Oh my God. That’s us, right?

JazzyPlum: They managed to get photos of all three of us.

Seeker: How serious is this situation?

FarfromHome: I am uncertain. The subject is inflammatory: Real aliens at Space Con!

Jeneticist: They’re being accused of hoaxing in the comments.

Stargazer: “You smeared Vaseline on the lens or used a filter, big deal. Quit trolling.”

Seeker: It seems as if nobody believes them.

JazzyPlum: I’m a little concerned about AlienHunterX who says, “I sent you a DM.”

SquidHead: I’m making a second account. I’ll use a VPN. Time to start a comment war.

Stargazer: Is that a good idea?

Jeneticist: I don’t have a better one.

SquidHead: Don’t worry. I’ll get the thread locked.

JazzyPlum: Thank you. And good luck.

39

Jennette

People who say that silence is golden have never waited for an answer this important.

But I have to know if I’m building castles in the air with someone who would rather be elsewhere. As much as I’m falling head over heels for Tam, I refuse to be his last resort. I’m more than a consolation prize, right? But the fact that he hasn’t answered yet… I don’t love that. In fact, the quiet between us stings like nothing I’ve experienced before.

Finally he says, “I do not know.”

I commend him for the brutal honesty, even as it levels me. Intellectually, I understand that this is a theoretical issue because he can’t leave. It’s a moot point. And I should be reassured by the fact that there are other choices on Earth; he could live alone like Ravik presumably has. He doesn’t require me in the financial sense, and there’s no question that we fit together well in so many ways.

That much should be enough, but I’m greedy. I don’t entirely understand how relationships work on his homeworld, but what he’s said makes me think they’re often poly, and that partners remain open to the possibility of loving others. Does that mean he’ll want to do that on Earth too? It hits me that I’m trying to make a relationship work with an extraterrestrial being when I haven’t even found a human who’d choose me permanently.

I don’t want to become someone who looks for problems or who sabotages what could be the best thing in my life. I’m just…

“I’m scared,” I whisper.

A human partner might reassure me at this point. “Of what?”

That’s Tam, trying to uncover the facts. I fully admire his thorough, logical mind, and I know that it was a problem for him where he’s from. So maybe he wouldn’t have chosen to stay there, but I’m sure he misses his family.

“Being your only option.”

“There are billions of beings in the universe,” he says in a dispassionate tone. “Yet I felt entirely alone until I met you.”

“Online met or Space Con met?” The distinction doesn’t matter, but I am curious.

“Online. I had been lonely before, but I’d never felt that isolated. But once we began communicating in that thread…”