I arrived home and immediately went to my office desk drawer for a cigarette. I didn’t smoke as much as the other people in my circle, but I usually carried one cigarette on me in case things got stressful or if I was spending time at a bar. I purposely didn’t have one on me today to ensure it wouldn’t accidentally fall out of my jacket and be noticed by Skyla. It was only 8:45 p.m., but I was exhausted. I felt like I might have done something wrong at Coney Island. Skyla gave me such an odd look when she was asking about “sensations” and I had no idea what she meant—it must be an L Glow thing. I sometimes felt small tingles in my spine from being nervous, I supposed, but I doubt they were similar to what she was talking about. I could reach out to my D Glow instructor to ask about it, but I knew I couldn’t trust him not to tell my father what I had asked, and then my father would know what I was up to. I couldn’t really trust any D Glow. I rummaged around for my silver lighter in my coffee table drawer and gave up, settling for a cheap one I had found in another coat pocket instead. I lit the cigarette and slowly inhaled.
I had to admit, Skyla took me by surprise—I enjoyed my day with her. In fact, time flew by. I had completely intended for that kiss to happen, of course, yet I didn’t intend to feel the way I did about it afterward. It was like I had been put under a spell; I couldn’t get her out of my head, and now I felt torn. Was I really capable of hurting someone so sweet? Do any other D Glows struggle with this? I didn’t recall ever hearing anything from any D Glows about emotions getting in the way of a turning project. I suddenly felt embarrassed and like a failure, and there was no one I could talk to about it. At least I stayed on track with the Romero family cover story. In this life, Mom was from France and Father was from Spain. Although we really did go on vacation to France, it was to visit my father's side of the family. The sound of my phone buzzing jolted me out of my thoughts.
“Hello?”
It was the concierge.
“Mr. Romero, Mr. Tyler Chang is here to return your keys. Shall I send him up?”
The concierge knew exactly who I was. He worked for my father, but he knew to call me Mr. Romero until he was told otherwise.
“Yes, that's fine,” I sighed.
I didn’t feel like going through an inquisition right now. The elevator door opened into my apartment and in bounced Ty, full of energy like always.
“Dude! I didn’t actually expect you to be home yet, but I saw my car next to your parking space in the garage so I thought I’d better come up and meet the lady!”
“I can’t bring Stella here,” I said coolly. I stuck my cigarette between my teeth so I could take off my blazer. After throwing the blazer across my leather armchair in the living room, I took the cigarette out of my mouth and exhaled, blowing smoke toward his face.
“Whoa, rough day?” Ty asked, not bothered by the smoke. He knew I didn’t smoke that often.
“Not rough, but tiring, I guess. I had to constantly be on my guard and make sure I didn’t slip up and do anything stupid, like order alcohol or say any dark words—you know, stuff like that.”
I didn’t share that I was also feeling conflicted inside and highly stressed out. I regretted telling Skyla something truthful about my childhood. She probably shouldn’t know that I went to France as a kid. What if she got curious and started looking up some of the information I mentioned? There were a number of LeBetes living in the region I described. She could put two and two together. I had substituted a farm for the vineyard my grandfather owned at least, but the stories about the different foods I ate and the horseback riding were true.
“Oh yeah,” Ty said nodding. “But it's only like nine. Why are you home so early?”
“The date started early,” I retorted defensively. “What's your excuse?”
“Mabel asked me to take her home and I thought it was a hint for something more.”
He set my keys on the counter. I shook my head and smirked. Ty was always in trouble with the Normal ladies. “Did you get slapped again?”
“Pretty much,” said Ty, laughing. “Well, man, you look like crap. I would stay and have a smoke with you but I think I’ll take off. I’ll get date details from you later.”
“Thanks,” I said appreciatively.
I dug his keys out of my jacket pocket and handed them to him. Ty didn’t quite understand women, but he at least knew me well enough to know when I wanted to be left alone.
After the elevator door closed, I took one last drag of my cigarette and snubbed it out in the silver ashtray my mom had bought me when I turned eighteen. I threw myself across my white leather sofa and thought about my situation. Sitting up abruptly sometime later, I figured I must have dozed off because I stared, wondering where I was, until I realized I was on my sofa. I looked at my watch, which read 2:00 a.m. I had been dreaming about Skyla—she had been given a note from a light agent warning her about me and was absolutely devastated. She was crying while I tried to run to her but failed, and I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t mean to hurt her.
That was it. I decided right then I needed to break this off. I could tell her I had to go on a work trip and just cut it off before it got more serious. That eased my mind. I grabbed the throw blanket on the side of the sofa, pulled it over myself, and fell back asleep.
The next morning I woke up, worked out in my weight room, took a shower, and ate a semi-healthy breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, and ready-made chocolate chip pancakes with a helping of whipped cream. I’m sure Skyla would argue that it wasn’t healthy, but for a D Glow it was. Not that I would tell her, or anyone for that matter, but lately I hadn’t been eating as many sugary foods as I used to. I noticed when I did, I felt bloated and tired. I could also swear I was even gaining weight, which is not possible for a D Glow. Could I have an allergy? D Glows get allergies just like Normals. I remembered Ty telling me about his aunt who refused to check labels for soy after the doctor told she was allergic to it, and she ended up getting pretty sick. I must have an allergy, too. That made total sense—it was probably a simple milk allergy or something of the sort. I made a mental note to bring it up at my next physical.
I liked cooking for myself, but I hated cleaning up afterward. The maid only came during the week, so I decided to suck it up and clean up. I thought about what I should say to Skyla while I washed the dishes.
After I put the last dish away, I knew I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. Just get it over with.
I texted Skyla first: Good time for a call?
Yes!
I sat on my barstool in my kitchen and clicked her name off my favorites list. I had listed her simply as S in my contacts in case Ty or anyone else saw.
“Hi!” I heard her cheerful voice on the other end.
“What are you up to?” I asked.
“I’m getting some things together to donate for a fundraiser my mom is involved in.”
“Oh, that's nice. Maybe I have something I can donate.” I looked around my apartment—I didn’t really have anything I would consider giving her.
“Anything would be great,” she said.
“OK, I will look through my drawers.” I knew I wouldn’t. “I have some bad news,” I added quickly.
“Oh?”
“I might have to go out of town for a couple of weeks.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Skyla solemnly. “Where are you going?”
“Dakar,” I lied. “There's a convention going on next week and I’ll likely need to support it for work.”
“Africa! For a couple of weeks?”
“Well, probably more like a month,” I lied again.
“Gosh, that's a long time to support a convention.”
“Well, there's the set-up, the actual convention, and then all the follow-up meetings with clients,” I explained.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Well, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. We can still call each other, right?”
“Yeah, sure. Most days.” I was feeling terrible. “Hey, I’d better let you go,” I said abruptly. “I’ll let you know if I have anything to donate, OK?”
“OK…bye,” she said slowly.
“I’ll call you later.” I said this knowing full well I wasn’t, in fact, going to call her later.
I probably should’ve talked longer, but the more I talked about the convention the worse I felt. The rest of the day I was moody. I snapped at the doorman, I slammed doors unnecessarily in my apartment, and I ignored Ty's calls. Then, I did what any logical D Glow would do: I climbed into my car and drove as fast as I could in a city with stoplights and traffic to nowhere in particular.
The next thing I knew, I was in New Jersey and police sirens were sounding off behind me.
Oh, hell.
I pulled the car over. Dad will be happy.
The officer walked over to my car.
“License and registration, please,” she said in a thick Jersey accent.
I cooperated.
“Do you know how fast you were driving?” she asked. She was a serious-looking light-gray Normal with dark-brown hair pulled back into a bun.
“I’m sorry, no,” I admitted halfheartedly. “My head was somewhere else.”
“Oh yeah,” the officer said, not really paying attention as she took down my information.
“You see,” I went on to explain. “I really care about someone, but there's no way it could work out, so I need to end it. But I don’t want to.”
The officer stopped writing and looked at me. If she were a dark-gray Normal, I would’ve expected her to retort something sarcastic because I totally deserved it.
She was a light-gray Normal, though, so, instead, her face softened. “I’m still going to have to give you a ticket for speeding, but I do know where you’re coming from. Listen, I was in the same boat a couple months back. My guy and I had been dating for over a year and I noticed that we just didn’t have that much in common. It was getting stale, you know? I was, like, crazy about him, but I made up my mind to cut him loose…But you know what?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know.
“I decided instead of throwing away love to embrace it. I started watching his dumb monster truck shows that he liked, and, guess what—I like them more than he does now. My advice to you is, if you truly love this person, find a way to make it work.”
She handed me the ticket and headed back to the cop vehicle.
I sat there for a minute. That sounded good in theory, but, for one, I didn’t love Skyla, nor would I ever. Like any other D Glow, I wasn’t capable of love. Then again, I felt something that I had never felt before with her—a sense of genuinely wanting to know what she was doing, who she was with, and how she was doing; I actually wanted to spend time with her.
What was this feeling? I put my car in drive and started to head back home. I commanded my dashboard to call “S.” My car complied.
“Hello?” Skyla answered, clearly surprised to hear from me.
“Hi. Bad time?” I asked.
“Nope. Just sorting through clothes.”
“OK, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to quickly tell you the good news.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not going on that work trip after all.”