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Anya’s day starts, bright and early, at five in the morning. It’s brisk and drizzling outside as she laces up her sneakers, but she finds she doesn’t mind as much as she would have before the Pony Express. Even though it’s been a year since the company went under, weather is still a delight to her, novel and reassuring. She’s here on Earth getting rained on, not on that gnarled rustbucket of a ship juggling psych evals and dodging crewmates. She’s here, occasionally sputtering water out of her face, as she breaks into a light jog. Warming up.
By 5:30, she reaches her favorite deli, just unlocking their doors. The old man behind the counter gives her a nod of recognition, and makes her order quickly and without a word. Bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel, so greasy it could slip out of her hands if she’s not careful, and a canned coffee. One of these days, Anya swears, she’ll get around to trying some of the other places in the neighborhood, like that “artisanal coffee house” that all the younger, hipper students go to, but for now she wolfs down her sandwich, crushes the coffee can into a flat puck, and starts the home stretch back to her apartment.
She allows herself to slow to a speed walk after a bit. Cooling down. Trying to ignore the way her heart still quickens for a fraction of a second when she sees dark greasy hair, or coveralls, or really just most men also out for a jog this early in the morning. She’s here on Earth digesting a bagel, not on that hellish tin can shoving a chair up against the bathroom door.
As she closes her apartment door behind her, Anya takes her time with the locks. The deadbolt first, and then the chain. She knocks the lever lock against the door perhaps a bit harder than she really needs to, and finishes with the small one on the doorknob. Jiggles the door softly, then with a bit more force. It doesn’t budge a millimeter.
Though she’s always been loath to admit it, Anya has always held a certain fascination with her reflection. Once, when she was still with the Express, the Captain had caught her striking poses at herself in the reflective metal of a door, and she felt like she could never live it down. Here, now, the Captain couldn’t see her as she peered into the mirror above her sink. No one else could see her turn around, examine herself over her shoulder, tug at her face, pull her hair back and consider doing a bob the next time she bothers to cut it. The only person that can see her in this moment is the only person that matters. Anya just finds herself glad that she’s able to look at herself these days.
She wishes she could say that she’s completely better, unbothered by her stint with the company and the various… workplace synergy deficits… that came with it. But an unbothered woman wouldn’t need to keep a sturdy metal bat next to the shower, or a string of bells on the bathroom door. An unbothered woman wouldn’t fall asleep with her contacts in most nights, unwilling to be caught off guard and nearsighted. An unbothered woman wouldn’t have to remember the deep breathing techniques she read in her textbooks when she has to run the bar of soap across her body. In for four, hold for six, out for eight. Good.
The apartment Anya found upon touching back down on Earth isn’t exactly the Ritz, but it has a flat utility fee, and that’s good enough for her. Her shower lasts until around 6:45, a bit indulgent, but according to the post-it-note she stuck on her mirror, she is deserving of comfort and peace. She towels off quickly, scooping sink water into her mouth (she realizes a bit too late that she should have brought a glass with her into the bathroom) and downing her medication before dressing for the day. It’s a lab day, so she has to forgo her favorite slides for something closed-toed. We all make sacrifices for the pursuit of our dreams.
As she sits for the briefing, Anya wonders if the self-consciousness of being one of the oldest students in a room ever goes away. Thirty-two isn’t ancient by any means, and she knows that, but being surrounded by optimistic, bright-eyed eighteen year olds is a bit disorienting and, admittedly, somewhat embarrassing. She feels a sigh of relief woosh through her when the fifty-something phlebotomist in her class stumbles in, muttering something about getting her kid to school on time. Thank god for community college.
Despite her negative experience as the resident nurse of the Tulpar, Anya genuinely loves medicine and has almost more fun in her pathology labs than she does in any other area of her life. She feels like a little kid again, discovering the world around her in ways that she couldn’t have known beforehand. Even the professor notices, murmuring across the table that her enthusiasm is “positively infectious.” Anya doesn’t even register the wordplay as she gazes at the preserved heart in front of her, making quick sketches of the chambers, arteries and ventricles.
Anya thinks about the human heart for the rest of the day, but only really starts to feel hers at 6:30 as she walks into the gym and sets down her bag. The other ladies in her Muay Thai class greet her with cordiality and warmth, but there’s still a sense of nervousness every time she walks in. None of these people would hurt her, not for real, not in front of everybody, but still. There’s always a risk with trying new things.
Anya gets her ass beat today, and she walks home tired, sore, and positively beaming. She might need to take an Epsom salt bath to ease her screaming muscles, but she knows that her roundhouses were getting faster, and she was able to get out of a grapple with minimal panic and struggle. Unlike in the morning, the sky is cloudless and cool, and the light pollution of the city makes it difficult to see the stars.
Good. Anya’s had about enough of the stars to last a lifetime.
At 9:00, after returning home and doing the locks (it’s meditative, she thinks, to check them twice over and then move on to the windows), Anya glances over her anatomy textbook in the bathtub before finally slipping underneath her bedsheets. The pillow is cool and plush against her head, and she remembers to take her contacts out before finally slipping into a dreamless sleep.
She’s here on Earth in her securely locked apartment, and all she needs to worry about is getting some sleep.