“Kenzie’s in finalsss,” quipped Becca or Stephanie or someone. Kenzie held a blink a second longer to hide the eye roll from being visible.

  They were so happy for me, or at least doing a good job of pretending to be happy for me. Why couldn’t I be happy for me?

  The pairing brackets weren’t even sexual. Explicitly at least. Everyone knew if you paired in fabrication long enough, it was basically required to start doing it eventually.

  I murmured something about how it meant nothing unless the practicals also went well. And they never did. At 23, I had gone through enough placements to know how it would go.

  “Our colony has the best fabs,” another girl said, thankfully breaking the attention away from me. What an exasperating thought. If that was actually the case, humanity was dying off within a few years. I needed to believe that there was something more beyond our desert roving ship.

  There were bigger roving ships and even some permanent settlements in the sand dunes that the remnants of human beings kept to. Two decades and a dozen alien species had warred across the surface of earth and for control over the resources buried within it.

  “Solstice dock is coming up,” Becca said, nudging me under my ribs.

  “Ouch,” I responded grumpily, trying to indicate I didn’t want to talk about it, but the other girls held onto the topic. How fun the parties were, how good it felt to stretch out in bigger spaces, and how much hotter the guys were from other ships. That was a lie, they were all the same. Okay, sure some of them were more attractive on the outside. Taller, better faces, more muscled, but it was the same problem that awaited her when the finals round started in half an hour. On the inside, they all had the same problem. Or maybe I was the problem, but I couldn’t change the way I felt when my mind intertwined with a guys during co-creation. If I didn’t score so highly in mental potential energy, MPE- they would have stopped putting me through the matchmaking years ago.

  “It feels like its been yearsss,” drawled Becca and I scoffed out loud, falling for the bait and getting a devilish smile with raised eyebrows.

  “It will have been exactly one year, like always,” I answered, angry at myself for getting roped in.

  “Ah, ah- last year the festival and dance were all cancelled,” Becca defended. Well, she was right about that. The settlement had been attacked by multiple waves of Erestrians. The alien drones had not done much damage themselves, but detonating multiple EMPs to ground them had fucked the infrastructure. Each of the attendant colonies had spent nearly the entire time with their own people.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She was right, last year had been pretty lame. The understanding showed on my face and she was quick to capitalize on it.

  “Seeeeeee, I’m right,” Becca said. I sighed in defeat and poked a turkey sandwich around on my plate as if changing the angle I was looking at it from would magically entice me to eat it. It was important to eat before fabricating with another person, but all I felt was dread. Maybe if I didn’t eat, my MPE would be weaker and the thing that always happened, wouldn’t happen this time. I relaxed my pout and permitted myself a small amount of relief. I would not force myself to eat this.

  “Kenzie, you’re already so skinny and you’re not gonna eat, right before a fab?” Cindy said, coincidentally passing by our table at that exact moment.

  “Fuck off Cindy,” both Becca and me said in unison. She continued walking past, shaking her head as if it was merely for my own good. Whore. Unfortunately, she was too good looking to have much of a good comeback about her looks, but god was she a bitch.

  I felt Becca’s eyes on me and I bent over my drink to play with the straw with my tongue, pretending not to notice her.

  “...You really should,” Becca began and I had to force myself from seeing red. I stood up immediately, cutting her off and went to empty the sandwich into the trash, but I didn’t sit back down after. I walked stiffly to wait outside the finals room. I would be early, but I didn’t want to be mad at Becca. I wasn’t really upset with her. I wasn’t even that mad at fucking Cindy. Okay, she deserved it, but normally she couldn’t get a rise out of me. I stopped in the doorway of the bathroom on the way, seeing Cindy fiddling with her makeup in the mirror. I wanted to turn on a dime and be anywhere, but here. There were two problems with that though. I didn’t want to give Cindy the satisfaction of thinking she had gotten to me. She had. And I really needed to piss. Like really badly. Fuck. Where was Becca when you needed her? I mean yeah I ditched her, but I was having a hard day okay. I steeled myself and walked past Cindy to the furthest bathroom mirror from her and stared at my reflection, rotating my head left and right as if I was touching up myself.

  “It’s good you’re making an effort for once,” Cindy said, voice dripping with condescension.

  “I know, Cindy. Some of us have such a high MPE, we just sort of stumble into finals,” I spoke in the bitchiest tone I could muster and added a sarcastic pout to go along with it.

  “That must be so hard, having all that potential,” Cindy said making air quotes with her hands for emphasis.

  “All that’s left is making someone actually like you,” Cindy continued and then turned to leave, but I was completely enraged. I was either yelling or crying. Better be yelling.

  “I’m gonna take a massive shit and everyone would like it more than you,” I screeched at her before turning back to my reflection and seeing my face red with anger, breathing heavy.

  The others did like me more than her, well at least the girls did. But my issue wasn’t really the male candidates liking me. They liked me enough. At least before mental sync… No, I wouldn’t let Cindy psych me out. I felt determination come over me and I marched out of the bathroom. A few steps later, I remembered I had skipped the whole point of the bathroom, but I felt Cindy’s gaze on the back of my head, so I kept moving towards the finals.