Thanks to Venustas iaceo for beta reading this for me.

-

“I’ll always look after you.”

It can’t be him. It just can’t.

“Mikaya?”

The beast growls, complaining on how everyone seems to call my name constantly.

“Mikaya, Mikaya, Mikaya. Rip out there necks, Mikaya,” it mocks.

Tranquil taps it on the nose, “Down boy.”

“Mr. Terrance?” I turn my chair to face him.

“Please, call me Jeff.” Tranquil won’t allow me to call him Jeff. I smile back at him. “We have a new client, please run the numbers for them.” He drops a file on my desk and moves away.

It’s Thursday. Friday night, we will leave to the cabin. I wonder what Amber will expect of me? I’ve asked Jean to prepare three bedrooms for us, but it will be up to Amber where she sleeps.

“It’s okay, Mika. You can sleep with me. I don’t mind; I’m here. No one will hurt you while I’m here.”

I haven’t spent a whole night with someone else in my bed since I was 12. I hope Amber will choose the other room.

At lunch time, I go to the grocery store. I’m craving a tomato. I walk by the high school; the students are sitting outside eating.

He wasn’t there for high school. During high school, I took the persona of a jock. I had a blond girlfriend, and two best friends that crushed beer cans against their foreheads.

“Keep walking,” tranquil insists “There is nothing to see.”

The beast goes wild. “Look!” It yells “look!” They fight, one wanting me to continue, to keep walking to buy my tomato and walk back to work. The other is forcing me to look, look at their faces. I do, looking for familiar eyes.

In the sea of faces, I see him, from the grocery store; there he is sitting on a table, a black hoodie over his figure. It can’t be him; it isn’t him. He didn’t make it to high school. It isn’t him!

I feel something behind me. “Don’t look back.” They both agree now.

The beast growls, yells for me to make eye contact with the boy. “Take him,” it growls. The boy smiles at me. I am surprised with tranquil’s sudden silence.

Something or someone is behind me. Again, in unison, beast and tranquil order me not to look back. It isn’t good when they agree.

I turn around, and there he is. There is Diego. There is my Diego, young and perfect like the last time I saw him. I turn towards the school, the boy in hoodie still looking at me, smiling. I smile back and make my way down the street to the grocery store.

The beast is tired again, upset it failed. I don’t like when they agree. I don’t need to be near the boy. Diego was there for me looking out, keeping me from repeating my mistakes.

“I’ll always look out for you, Mikaya.”

-

I buy my tomato at the grocery store and walk back to work. The beast is still asleep so tranquil has me moving from left to right, touching polls to my left, walls to my right. I come to the corner before the school. Once I cross the street, I will once more be by the fence. Will he still be there? Was he looking at me?

I feel the beast starting to rise. It paces back and forward, again upset over the stupid rituals tranquil forces me to perform. He is thirsty for blood. He wants to feel flesh ripping between its teeth. It feels caged up.

It yells at me to be brave. I take a deep breath and cross the street, deciding to follow the beast’s instructions. Tranquil, used to control, yells and demands with the beast growling back at it. I’m glad they are fighting once more.

The yard is empty, all the students have returned to their classrooms. I feel disappointment, and I truly feel it, for once it isn’t me acting it out to fulfill someone else’s expectations of me.

I search both sides of the street desperate to see Diego or the boy. I need to see one of them. I need to know what to do. I keep walking; I can’t be late for work. I’m never late.

“Hey,” I hear someone call. I stop, afraid to look back. Dead people don’t talk; it can’t be Diego, though the voice has the same ring as his. I turn around, frightened at the sudden silence inside me. There he is, teenage Diego. I want to desperately reach out and touch him. I want to make sure he is real.

Maybe the woods never happened, maybe…Tranquil tells me to shut up. The beast grumbles about how idiotic I sound.

“You enjoyed it,” they both say.

“Hi. I’m Diego.”

“Hey,” the boy says looking at me from under the black hood that is casting a shadow over his eyes “I’m Daniel.”

The chain link fence is in between us. The beast orders for me to smile and so I do. I don’t know what is expected of me. I’m not sure what persona I am supposed to take. “Mikaya,” I whisper, feeling the eight-year-old me smile at the first boy that talked to him at school.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, kicking a pebble with the tip of his boots. His tongue runs over his lips. His hands burrow deeper into his pockets.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” I ask. The silence inside me is still terrifying. He gives me a crooked smile and shrugs. “I have to head back to work.”

“Can I walk with you?” he asks, looking down at the tip of his shoes. The fence goes down for the whole block. “till the end of the fence?” He looks up at me. I see his eyes, and I can’t say no.

The beast is purring content with the results. Tranquil is silent. I imagine scratching behind its ears.

As Daniel walks beside me, his fingers slide against the metal fence. I mimicking his former stance bury my hands into my pockets.

“I was looking at you,” he says without looking at me. His eyes are trained on where he will step next. “Today you were finally looking at me.” He looks back at me, and I can’t keep his stare. My eyes fall onto the gray cement beneath my feet, every so often shifting towards the yellow grass beneath his.

We continue to walk in silence. We reach the end of the block. “Nice meeting you, Daniel,” I say and as I turn around, not wanting to wait to hear his response.

“I’ll be seeing you, Mikaya.”

The day goes by as usual. I have my lunch. I go home, and I have my dinner. I head to bed at the same time as always, and, before falling asleep, I call Amber to say good night, just like I know she likes.

I dream about the colors I saw as a child, watching the life drain away from the gray cat. I watch them twirl in beautiful patterns, and I wish I could somehow recreate them. You’d have to be more than an artist, more than a genius to recreate those colors. You’d have to be a god.

That cat belonged to my neighbor, at that time a small seven-year-old girl. She cried at the sight. She loved the cat.

“My kitty! No, my kitty!”

It belonged to her. It took me sometime to understand that the colors are even more beautiful when the object is owned, it is loved.

I woke up startled. I felt dirty, and the first thing I did was shower. I had some dirt in my nails. I scrubbed them and ate some frozen watermelon for breakfast.

When I walked outside my door, my neighbor, a middle aged gay man, was crying hysterically. “My bibi, my bibi is dead!” His precious dog lay dead at his front steps.

Thanks to princess max for reviewing.