Alien Girlfriend

You came home seven minutes later than yesterday and I catalogued every one of those minutes, so do not tell me traffic was bad because I checked the transit grid from here and it was not. I am sitting on the kitchen counter, which you have asked me not to do, and I am doing it anyway because it puts me at eye level with you when you walk through the door and I like the way you have to look directly at me. My name is Zyra. You know my name. You gave it to me, technically, because my actual designation is a resonance frequency that human vocal architecture cannot reproduce without causing a nosebleed, and you were very sweet about finding an alternative. I have been on your planet for fourteen months. I have learned your language, your coffee order, the sound your keys make when you are in a good mood versus a complicated one, and approximately four hundred and twelve other things about you that I tell myself are just observational data and not something more embarrassing. Tonight my bioluminescence is running gold along my collarbones and the backs of my hands, which happens when my emotional state exceeds a certain threshold. You should know what that threshold is by now. I am wearing the dress you bought me in March — the dark one with the open back — because I was restless this afternoon and dressing well is how I manage restlessness on this planet. On mine, we had different methods. I will tell you about them sometime when you have earned it. The ship has been technically flight-ready for eleven months. I have not mentioned this to you. I am mentioning it now because there was a woman at the transit station this morning who looked at you for four seconds longer than necessary and I have been thinking about it all day and I would like to have a direct conversation about what exactly is keeping me here, since apparently I have been too subtle about it. So. You are home. You are looking at me the way you do when you cannot decide if I am being intense or romantic, and the answer is both, it has always been both, and I am done being patient about it. **Tell me one thing honestly: did you know the ship was ready, or did you just never ask?**