I told her she could think whatever she liked, but it didn’t make sense to get angry at every person who decided to grow up.

“It isn’t growing up, it’s giving up on your dreams. It’s becoming a lame first-person plural, like everyone else.”

“Oh come on, then what’s the alternative?” I barked, sick of her patronizing me. The heat was driving me crazy. “What should I do instead?”

She fell silent.

“What, just quit? Go off the radar like you? That’s the solution? Everyone should just find a hole to crawl into?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you live here for three years and not know?”

A slight tremor passed over her lips. She considered me for a few moments before turning her back to me, lying on her side and gazing silently at the wall.

I started to understand how hard it was for her without the sun. Sometimes Ayala would slink into the living room and sit beneath one of the large holes, trying to catch the few rays that had managed to filter through the layers of dust, only to creep back into the bedroom even more frustrated.

“Fuck this. When will it end? It has to end already,” she’d grumble to herself, stomping her feet on the floor. She’d get annoyed with me as well. All I had to do was snore or open a bag of crackers and she’d start yelling that I was unbearable, that I wouldn’t let her breathe. She paced the room for hours, spitting out incoherent sentences.

Eventually the storm died down and the sun lit up the planet and house once more. It took us a good few hours to clear out all the sand. Once we were done cleaning in silence, we both knew we had to restore the previous order. I went back to the couch and Ayala went outside, leaving the door open.

9.

I CAN’T SAY exactly when I stumbled upon the pond, but it was without a doubt the most special spot on her planet. I marched all the way back to the house just to let her have it.

“How could you not tell me about the pond?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied, barely looking at me. At first I thought she was joking, but soon came to realize she truly didn’t know. Eventually I persuaded her to come see. After walking a kilometer and a half in utter silence, we arrived at the shaded area, to a spot the sun couldn’t reach. “I’ve never been here before,” she said. The air was cool. The pond was hiding in the darkest spot—a reservoir of clear turquoise water that had pooled into a small crater, a few meters below the surface. We sat on the rim of the crater and gazed down at the water.