A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)

by Becky Chambers

Dex wanted to inhabit a place that spread not up but out.

Any other day, the act of going through a door was something Dex gave no more thought to than putting one foot in front of the other. But there was a gravity to leaving a place for good, a deep sense of seismic change.

Dex realized with a stomach-souring thud that they were standing on the wrong side of the vast gulf between having read about doing a thing and doing the thing.

Dex did their best to look sympathetic, which is what they wanted to be, rather than lost, which is what they were.

Habit, I think.

This was weird, and confusing, and the opposite of being alone.

I tried talking to friends, and family, and nobody got it, so I stopped bringing it up, and then I just stopped talking to them altogether, because I couldn’t explain, and I was tired of pretending like everything was fine.

“Oh, neat.”