She was the gentlest creature I think I’d ever met. So calm and fragile. And she had been stranded inside the ship for so long. “Dad,” I asked, holding his hand like I was half my age. Wishing I still was. “Did they still have lights on inside the ship? While they waited to open the door?” “We think so, Aly. At least most of the time.” “Good.” We showered for a long time at the NASA tent, and then when we got back home, we showered again, hoping that by some miracle our shampoos and bodywashes would somehow soak through our skulls and into our brains and turn us back into innocent teenage girls. When we got back to our room, Brynne asked if she could sleep in the room with me and Rachel—it was late and she didn’t want to be alone in her room with Coya. Not tonight. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said, knowing that this was exactly what the stupid RAs would have wanted me to ask. They’d be all into us expressing our feelings in order to process what happened.
