“I hate this.”

“Everybody cries their first year. These emotions are so impossible. We’re all children for a bit, whether we intended that or not. I used to tear up every time I saw a pretty sunset. The taste of peanut butter would sometimes do that, too.” She patted the top of my head, then trailed her fingers gently through the lock of hair I always kept tucked behind my ear.

“Such pretty, shiny hair,” she noted. “Every time I see you it’s shorter. Why do you keep it that way?”

Already in tears, I didn’t feel like I had much dignity to defend. Why claim that it was easier to care for, as I usually did? After all, I’d come here to confess and get help—I might as well get on with it.

“It bothers her. She likes it long.”

She didn’t gasp, as I half expected she would. Kathy was good at her job. Her response was only a second late and only slightly incoherent.

“You… She… she’s still that… present?”

The appalling truth tumbled from my lips. “When she wants to be. Our history bores her. She’s more dormant while I’m working. But she’s there, all right. Sometimes I feel like she’s as present as I am.” My voice was only a whisper by the time I was done.

“Wanderer!” Kathy exclaimed, horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad? How long has it been this way?”

“It’s getting worse. Instead of fading, she seems to be growing stronger. It’s not as bad as the Healer’s case yet—we spoke of Kevin, do you remember? She hasn’t taken control. She won’t. I won’t let that happen!” The pitch of my voice climbed.

“Of course it won’t happen,” she assured me. “Of course not. But if you’re this… unhappy, you should have told me earlier. We need to get you to a Healer.”

It took me a moment, emotionally distracted as I was, to understand.

“A Healer? You want me to skip?”

“No one would think badly of that choice, Wanderer. It’s understood, if a host is defective —”

“Defective? She’s not defective. I am. I’m too weak for this world!” My head fell into my hands as the humiliation washed through me. Fresh tears welled in my eyes.

Kathy’s arm settled around my shoulders. I was struggling so hard to control my wild emotions that I didn’t pull away, though it felt too intimate.

It bothered Melanie, too. She didn’t like being hugged by an alien.

Of course Melanie was very much present in this moment, and unbearably smug as I finally admitted to her power. She was gleeful. It was always harder to control her when I was distracted by emotion like this.

I tried to calm myself so that I would be able to put her in her place.

You are in my place. Her thought was faint but intelligible. How much worse it was getting; she was strong enough to speak to me now whenever she wished. It was as bad as that first minute of consciousness.