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+7 812 549 67 69
Stratt typed the number without a real thought behind the process. A habit formed in lonely late nights. She had never expected to grow close to any of them, but Ilyukhina especially had caught her by surprise. She only managed to catch herself as her finger hovered over the button. Only then did the devastation set in.
Everyone had assumed it was Grace she brought to bed. In reality it had been her. Grace was a companion— her closest friend, she missed him of course. She was sick to her stomach every time she thought about what she'd done to him. But Ilyukhina was…what? An object of lust? They hadn't been close enough to consider anything more than that. And she was always going to be the one who sent Ilyukhina to her death, leaving the other woman no chance of falling for her. She had just gotten bold in her final days to booty call her boss.
And stupidly Stratt had fallen. Hard. Had called her nearly every night leading up to the launch. Using the excuse of getting off just to hear her voice and listen to her crack the cheesiest, raunchiest jokes as she touched herself in exactly the way Stratt told her to. Because who would've imagined someone as jaded as Eva Stratt would fall for a bright-eyed young women who's smile brought joy to any that witnessed? Certainly not Ilyukhina herself.
It was fine, she was never going to find love anyway. It was only a matter of time until they found out what she'd done— until the very people who gave her power began to look down upon her for how she used it. And there had been no one else to send. They were already on the backup a foolish crush wasn't worth humanity's extinction.
Stratt had almost laughed upon receiving that text. Only Ilyukhina could boil down something so devastating and Earth-shattering (or rather saving Stratt supposed) to such a mundane messaged. Her heart clenched as she read on.
It had been avoidance more than anything that last time. Stratt hadn't been able to bring herself to respond to that confession. Or rather had needed to stop herself because if her fingers had touched that keyboard she would have told her she could stay. That she couldn't bare the fact that Earth was going to loose the sound of her laughter. That no matter how dim the sun got it would not compare to the light that she had taken with her. Instead she resigned herself to never really having Ilyukhina. Never spending a real night with her in her arms or in her bed. She hadn't deserved it anyway.
Stratt was a strong women. She had made countless ruthless decisions with very little mercy, why did one girl have the power to make her so weak? Why was she more hung up on the loss of a fling than the closest friend she'd ever had?
Maybe it was all the unknowns. With Grace she knew wher they stood. She knew she'd done the unthinkable and that if he ever remembered he would hate her. Stratt would never know how Ilyukhina felt for her— for better or worse. And that plagued her. What could they have become? What of what they'd shared was real? Would she still have perused her in a world where she wasn't staring death in the face or was Stratt simple convince? She should have asked. She should have at least gotten to know if she was grieving a lover or an obedient hook-up.
Tears blurred her phone screen. Stratt sighed, frustrated with her own weakness and closed her phone. She placed it upside down on the bedside table— unable to look at it any longer.
She'd done an awful thing. She'd done the only thing she could. It was the trolly problem to the worst degree. Loose her best friend and the girl she'd started to fall for or let the world end…it wasn't a hard choice. She'd never hesitated. But that couldn't stop the regret. The world was going to see her as a murderer when this all came out and they were right to. They would never know of her affection for the Hail Mary's crew. Hell— she even missed Yao and she'd barely known the man. They would never know what she sacrificed.
Stratt closed her eyes and brought Ilyukhina to the forefront of her mind. It was an easy picture to conjure— she'd spent the last of the projects meetings staring…memorizing her. Her square jaw and wide dark eyes. The dimples that showed themselves with even the smallest of smiles. Her ugly clothes that she somehow had the utmost confidence in. Stratt had always been one for appearances— for looking professional at any give time and yet Ilyukhina's mismatched graphics tees and patterned skirts had endeared her. Not that everything she wore was awful. Her yellow flightsuit suited her quite well. Yellow was her color, it had a way of making her look as if she were glowing.
Maybe Ilyukhina was up there somewhere as haunted by Stratt as she was by her. Maybe her coma dreams were filled with visions of a love she left behind. Maybe she was dreaming of those things Stratt could not bare to let herself— of a life they could have built together in another world. Or maybe she'd never think of Stratt again. Maybe she was already dead. There was no telling and thinking about it would only lead to devastation. She needed to put it out of her mind. In a matter of days everything would go public, someone would come to arrest her, she'd spend the rest of her life in prison. All while the girl that could have been hers saved Earth and the stars.