From Earth, with Love

Maybe this year Valentine’s Day won’t be the disappointment Maryanne expects; especially if the alien commander admiring her from afar has anything to say about it.

Valentine’s Day sucks. It always has. Especially for a socially awkward woman. Leave that woman alone, bitter and angry after the death of her husband, and it only gets worse. Her husband was the only one who ever understood her, the only one who ever cared. Probably because of his own social ineptness, but that’s beside the point. He’s gone now, and that’s not the worst of it — there’s a bit of lying by omission surrounding his death. And doesn’t that just piss her off!

His long inactive email address is the only outlet she’s got. So, she floods it with her messages of frustration, messages of anger, and messages of loneliness. Messages that clearly show she’s given up, that she no longer even makes an effort. Little does she know, though, her letters to her late husband have been received.

Oh, not by him. They’ve been intercepted. His position as a scientist with SETI put him on the radar of some very secretive, very surprising, very unexpected people. One of them in particular feels her words as he reads them, and makes it his priority to be sure that only he receives them. He wants more for her than simply learning to accept her situation in life and move on from her grief and anger. And if he has his way, he’ll be a part of her healing, and ultimately her happiness. But first he has to manage to survive a political coup, a revolt so to speak. It’s a necessary confrontation that hopefully will save not only her, but her entire world.

Maybe then she’ll see him and accept him without fear. A lonely alien can hope, can’t he?