RHODA

  I’m not going back to Earth.

  Partly because my son Filly bonded a mirka named Georgia, and that makes him different. He’ll never fit in at the Methodist church preschool now, and I’m okay with that. But I can’t take him back to a world and a father who won't understand or celebrate him.

  Earth is nothing like where I am now—Shurwinn. I’m impressed by everything I see here. Like Pitch. He's obviously different but has a place here, so that means my son and I can find a home too.

  I’ve already been talking with my attorney about the child custody agreements, and it’s looking good. My ex-husband, Mike, has made no communication attempts, even though we’ve been gone for more than two weeks!

  So, it’s obvious that Filly’s dad cares nothing about him, and I imagine that now we are out of sight, my ex has moved onto whatever else will hold his attention.

  That makes me think I’ll have no problems getting full custody, and I know it'll be better for Filly to grow up with people in his life who actually care about him. Unlike his father.

  The other reason I’m not going back to Earth is I’ve learned so much from Peydran and Ren’s stories that I see the whole scope of my life differently now.

  I was hoping to grow my business Wyoming Wild and spread off sphere, using connections in the Trade Guilds to expand. But now that I know more of what’s going on, I’d much rather downsize than upscale.

  The Trade Guilds sound like a den of vipers I want to avoid.

  I’m not sure where I want to settle, but I can learn the herbalism of any planet and adapt my skin care line. It’s quite nice to consider a fresh start, and I think I can begin anew, heal, and leave the misery of my marriage to Mike behind me on another world.

  Oddly, these Known Cosmos Books are helping me do just that. I’m crazy about them because the two men who wrote them took what could have been rote history and made love stories out of it, and I am a rabid romance reader.

  First, I got to read Peydran and Ren’s romance, which was adorable, and all I wanted was to jump back in time and read graphic novels with them. So nerdy and lovable!

  Plus, the music. How could I not fall in love with Ren? He sang to his husband all the time! Magical!

  Then we got the full, behind-the-scenes true love story of Ryst and Nayth Nova-Carmidee, and whew! It is HOT. Combustible is too gentle a word! Those two set the sheets on fire (and the closet, and the walls, and the doors, and the hotel roof), and I couldn’t get enough!

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Then I found out at the very end of Book 2 that it was Ren, a 100% gay man who wrote all that spice, and I’m like: Oh. My. God. Now I need to go back in time and kiss him because some of those chapters were a public service to women everywhere.

  So why did these two men write love stories at the end of their lives?

  They could’ve done something else with the material, but they didn’t. They chose romance.

  Why?

  Romance doesn’t get much respect.

  Oh, it gets readership, yes. It’s the number one selling genre, but it’s often the butt of jokes. Which makes zero sense because people love to read it. Though they hide in secret to do so, humans gobble down love stories more than any other class of fiction.

  Is that why Peydran and Ren chose romance to communicate whatever it is they’re trying to say? Because it’s popular, but scoffed at?

  Or was it something more?

  I’ll just say my part: to me, love stories make every bit of difference in the world. If you’ve ever been hurt or lonely—and let’s acknowledge that every single one of us has—then you’ve wondered: “Can I find a place to belong? Is there someone I can be with and feel like I’m okay?”

  A well-written love story helps us find that belonging. We see two people. They meet, they struggle, they find their way into each other’s hearts, and by the end, they stick together.

  And that’s a satisfying ending that we can cling to when we feel lost and alone. It heals something inside our souls to hope that it can happen to us, so we aim for it and keep reading.

  I think that’s why Peydran and Ren chose romance: to show us how to heal the human heart.

  Because nothing about their stories was easy. Ryst’s journey began in the hospital, and Peydran had surgery too. Then together, they figured out how to help cybernetics patients and wounded people who needed them.

  They made a difference, and I think the people that came to them in droves found healing that was more than bone deep. It was of the heart.

  That’s why Peydran and Ren wrote the Known Cosmos series the way they did. To show us that getting better isn't just about what we do with our bodies; it’s about what we do with our hearts.

  You already know the journey I’m on because you read it in Discordant, so maybe you can see the similarities between me and Ryst. I understand what it’s like to marry a man and then find out he’s not the charmer you thought he was.

  Having your trust betrayed like that scars something in your soul so deep you never wanna try again. I’m still not sure how to heal from it, to be honest, but I’m trying and hoping that someday I’ll have my own story of a love from beyond the stars.

  Because isn’t that what we all deserve? To be known? Seen? Understood? And loved?

  I also think it’s interesting that Ryst Nova’s first husband was a cybernetics surgeon, a fact I might not have noticed if it hadn’t been for Sam’s “Mafia Mom’s” short story.

  The father of the twins she used to babysit was a cybernetics surgeon, just like Ryst’s first husband, and neither of those guys seem like good men to me.

  What does that tell me? That all surgeons are terrible people? No, I can’t make that generalization. Obviously, we need people to do the operations they do, and it makes a big difference that we have augmentation for amputees.

  But I can’t help noticing the dark similarities in those two men, and I find that disturbing. It’s something I’m going to keep watching for as I read.

  Maybe Peydran drew attention to it because he himself went through cybernetic surgery and then hacked his system, giving him mental control of wireless tech. And once he’d done that, what did he do?

  He hid it.

  He was scared that if people in power found out what he could do, he and all other augments everywhere would suffer for it.

  That tells me a lot about what Peydran Madrano thought about those in power: he didn’t trust them one bit. If anything, he feared them. It’s a tiny theme in these books, but a recurrent one.

  Neither Ryst Nova nor Peydran Madrano trusted those with power.

  I’m not going to forget that.