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“You don’t behave like a girl when she’s in love.”
“Maybe because I’m not a girl,” she tells him. "I haven't been one for a good long time now."
He thinks about that, and quietly says, "Then show me how you feel the way a woman does. And make me believe it."
The challenge hangs heavy in the air. For a moment she imagines herself guiding him out of the chair and supporting his weight as she takes him into her jet, all the way to her room at the back, and gently laying him down on her bed, being for him the woman she claims to be.
But Sonri will not be guided. Under any circumstances. Ever. And she wonders if maybe this is not entirely her fault. Maybe he’s partially to blame for this invisible rift between them.
With no other way to prove her teelings, she reaches forward with her own hand, pushes the hair back from his face, then leans in, giving him a powerful kiss. She puts the whole weight of their relationship and all their built-up frustration into that single superheroic kiss. It should be enough to say everything she can't ... but when she pulls away, she feels his tears on her cheek, and he says:
"If you wanted me with you, you would have built a ramp.”
Back inside, Connie lies on her bed in the dark, the moonlight painting cold bars of light across her bed. She’s angry. Not at Sonri, because he’s right. It would have been nothing to build a ramp to her jet. She could have done it in half a day.
But what if she had?
What if Sonri really could be with her in every possible way — and what if the shark on her arm truly did have a mind of its own? Rhonda attacked him — she tried to force herself on him, and he must have been looking at that damned shark when she did it. He said it didn't bother him, but it bothers Connie enough to keep her awake night after night. Because what if when they were alone together, in the heat of that passionate moment they both wanted — what if she lost control? What if that hand held him too tight, tugged him too hard-what if it hit him, and hit him again, and again, and wouldn't stop? And how could she ever truly be there with him if all she could think about were all the things that arm had done, and all the things it still might do?
And what about his own arms? His hands? Connie would trust those hands with her life, so why doesn’t she? How has she become so paranoid? She loves Sonri. She does. She’s told him so. So why doesn’t she trust him to come into her jet?
No, she knows why. She does. She’s felt eyes on her body, even if the eyes aren’t Sonri’s. She knows she’s attractive. She knows that her jet is, almost, forbidden fruit to everyone in the Graveyard. And again, she trusts Sonri. She trusts him to respect her space for what it is. Hers. Theirs, someday. But not today. Not yet. Because she’s not sure.
Connie’s been sure of many things in her life. Like that Rhonda would kill her if she had the chance. But then she didn’t.
Connie’s sure that Sonri would never even think of forcing his way into her bed. But… what if he does? What if being in the Akron AWOL’s room becomes too much for him? Too tempting? He could realize how far she’d let him go, because she loves him. He could seize what little Connie still has for herself — her chastity, if nothing else — in the darkness of her jet, where no one else goes. And what could she do about it? She wouldn’t push him away. She wouldn’t hit him. She’d let him hurt her before she hurt him.
Better not to let it happen.
Better to make sure he’s never that close.