Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 75: Café Rendezvous

Joshua

Being back in Grand Junction feels like walking through a dream. A strange dream, in which everything is the same, yet just slightly different.

I sit here alone at a table outside this café, watching the people pass by through my shades. Restlessly, I tap my phone against the tabletop. To these people, I'm utterly unremarkable. They don't care about who I am or what I'm doing or who's after me. I'm just another guy getting a mid-day coffee.

It's kind of hurting my brain.

I sit forward and flip open my phone again, just to give myself something to do. No new messages. Not that I expected any. The last one stares back at me, stamped six minutes ago.

Ethan: On my way.

With a snap, I shut the phone and shove it into my pocket. It's 10:27 now. Three more minutes and I'll have to leave, whether Ethan shows up or not. Though I really hope he does.

It's only yesterday that Sundo and I made it back here via public transit, and we've been busy ever since. From procuring the meteorite map to packing at Rebecca's house, there's been no shortage of the preparations we've been going through, all while trying to be relatively inconspicuous. Speaking of...

Unable to resist, I rub my hand up the back of my new haircut again just to feel the strangeness of it. I'd been the one to suggest it, since we're back where we could be recognised more easily, but I'd still been apprehensive about letting Sundo go at my hair with a pair of scissors. Uneasily, I'd let him convince me, however; so once we'd gotten back to his borrowed home, he sat me down on the kitchen counter and went to town.

He's taken a lot off the sides, though he left all the curls at the top at my request. It's an uneven sort of undercut, but the more I have it, the more I think I like it. It's a little thing, but at least it's something.

"I like the new look," a voice says from behind me, startling me back to the present. "Almost didn't recognise ya, Malone."

"Ethan," I gasp. I drop my hand from my hair and start to my feet, turning heel so quickly, I almost knock the chair over.

Actually, I do knock it over. Ethan stumbles forward to catch the back before the thing clatters to the concrete. For a second, I'm caught staring at him as he looks up at me, similarly frozen.

It's... Ethan. Undoubtedly Ethan, with his jean jacket and its world of pins of all sorts. With his freckles and his bright eyes and...

He winces, grasping a hand to his chest. His cracked rib.

Uneasily, Ethan straightens, putting the chair to rights with one hand, the other still pressed to his side. I swallow with sudden difficulty. Inches from me, he stands there, one hand still resting over the back of the chair by my side. His nose is crinkled with a touch of pain, but there's something else entirely in his eyes as he looks at me.

So many different reactions war in me, catching in my throat in a tongue-tied lump, and I'm struck dumb by the sight of him. Sundo had warned me this wasn't going to be a good idea, but there was no way I could understand what he might mean until now. I had to contact Ethan before everything.

He's my best friend.

At least... he was.

Ethan's mouth is pressed into a firm line as he looks me up and down, and I can't tell what he's thinking. For a tense eternity, we just stare at each other.

"You've always looked better without shades," Ethan says finally, and he reaches up pull them from my face.

Without them to hide behind, the pain contorts my face in full view. Ethan's eyes search mine endlessly, before he steps forward and wraps me up in a tight embrace. I'm overwhelmed by a relief so powerful, it almost knocks my knees out from under me. Fiercely, I hug him back, as much for support as to just hug him.