Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) by Lydia Chelsea Page B

unwind.  My stomach feels so jumpy, I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat, but I choose a steak with seasonal vegetables.  Although I’m only sixteen years old, I’m given both alcoholic and non-alcoholic choices for beverages.  When I start to ask Ritter what the drinking age is on Concordia, I bite off the question just in time.  A local would know that. And anyway, I’ve just remembered that he told me you are legally an adult at sixteen. I pretend my choked off words are because I’ve changed my mind and say, “No, wait, I’ll have the lemonade.”
    Ritter pokes in his own choices and resumes his conversation with Scuva.
    Melayne looks over at them and makes a snoring noise that reminds me of Jake Armadice, and I feel bile at the back of my throat.  I rise too quickly, startling everyone.  Scuva and Ritter rise also, an old-fashioned gesture which might have charmed me if I wasn’t so eager to escape.
    “Sorry,” I call over my shoulder.  “I just want to wash my hands before lunch.”
    Thankfully, the cleanse is actually in the direction I’m facing. I hurry there.
    I stare at myself in the mirror, breathing in fours, until the room feels less likely to fall in on me. I can see in my reflection that my eyes look less wild.  I think of Mina and envy rises like more bile in my throat.  God, I’d love to be her right now.  To just settle into this place that seems to be my fate and embrace that doors are melds and everyone has tattoos called Idix (Idixes?) and that two tubes decide everything I will ever consume for the rest of my life.
    I’d like to know what all of these secrets are between them, why Melayne and Scuva looked so strange when Ritter introduced me. Like they knew me.
    I am well aware that every minute I spend in this room looks odd.  How long does it really take to wash hands?  I wish, suddenly, that I’d thought to bring my bag with me.  Then I could put a new outfit on and justify every minute spent staving off another panic attack.
    I needn’t have worried. Melayne is occupied with her logger when I return, much like people on my Earth are obsessed with their cell phones.  If she’s registered the length of my absence, she doesn’t show it. As I sit down, she puts her logger on top of Scuva’s along the inner edge of the table and smiles at me.
    “So, Davinney, we were just talking about how long it’s been since we’ve seen Ritter, much less had him over for dinner.  Would you be up to another dose of us tomorrow night?”
    I blink.  I don’t know which answer Ritter would prefer.  I just want to go back to his keeping where I can be alone or at least safe from the emotional landmines I keep stepping on. I’m saved from having to answer as a man dressed in ordinary street clothes and a waist apron brings our food.  As he sets my plate in front of me, Ritter looks my way.
    “That’d be fun, right?”
    “Sure,” I agree, spreading the paper napkin across my lap.
    As we eat, Melayne tells me about a trip they took to a place called Ancia, which I gather from her description is something tropical and beachy.  When she shows me a few pictures on her logger, I think it looks like a marketing photo for Bora Bora, with their thatched-roof, overwater bungalows.
    Somehow, I manage to relax.  We’re eating and having easy conversations that I can follow about things that are universal: vacations and family.  When Scuva asks what our plans are for the rest of the day, Ritter says we’ll probably finish poking around here in the district before refreshing ourselves at his keeping. He says we’ll probably spend the night in.
    And that’s exactly what we do.  I choose a fresh outfit to put on and put the rest of the clothes away, which reminds me I wanted to ask him about how money works here and how much I owe him for the clothes.
    When I find him, he’s standing in front of the mirror in the cleanse, just staring.  He doesn’t notice me, so I back slowly away, the