Displaced - Book One of the Alternate Reality Series

Chapter 6

"She's cheating on me," Eric said, not realizing that he just answered Arvin's question, not evening registering the question when asked.

A few minutes earlier, Arvin waited for Eric in Sunrise's 3rd floor lobby. While seated, he detected faint emanations of agony, and quickly traced the data back to Eric. The occurrence stunned him, because while data readability increased after spending time with the same source, it never happened this quickly.

Arvin wanted to analyze how this occurred, but he decided against this. Instead, he followed Eric into his office, where they both sat, then he inquired about the anguish.

"Cheating on you?" Arvin followed. "Are you referring to your wife?"

Eric just now registered the question, along with his answer. He sat upright. "Girlfriend. She's my girlfriend, not wife. Sorry, I just..."

"You just seem rather distraught."

"Yeah. I guess I kind of am."

Eric's data streams tried to shift away from this topic, tried to escape its dark claws, only to suffer capture after every attempt.

From Eric's perspective, he considered various areas of discussion, only to drift back towards the thoughts that demanded all his attention.

Arvin finally broke the silence. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Eric shifted uncomfortably. As Arvin's therapist, he shouldn't talk about it. But how woefully he fulfilled his role couldn't be more apparent, so some minor venting couldn't hurt. "Well, my girlfriend and I have been drifting apart for a while now, but over the past few months, I've come to suspect her of cheating. I gathered as much from subtle clues, but yesterday, when I came home, a found a men's shirt that wasn't mine." He rubbed his neck. "This is all just starting to wear on me. She's been my one source of comfort during this two-year downward spiral, so that's why these suspicions are so awful."

Arvin nodded. "And if you find out that she is being unfaithful, what then?"

Eric stopped rubbing, then crossed his arms and leaned back. He didn't have an answer, oddly enough. Come to think of it, he never tried to verify his suspicions. After all, he could've easily asked Kim for the answers, answers that he wanted, right? "I don't know. If I found out she was cheating, I'm not sure what I'd do. Maybe I feared the outcome so much, I didn't dare consider it."

"And now that you are?"

Eric eyed the floor between them, between his business casual shoes and Arvin's robotic feet. "I suppose I'd just accept it."

"Accept it?"

Eric refocused. "At that point, what else could I do?"

"So you're saying that if worse comes to pass, you'll survive?"

Now Eric smirked.

Life after his worst fear. How interesting. It was a life where existence had kicked his reproductive organs so often he couldn't feel it anymore. At that point, nothing else could hurt.

"Well," Arvin responded, "I suppose it all depends on how you look at it."

Eric's smirk evaporated. "What did you just say?"

Arvin smiled, and not only because Eric's spirits had lifted. True, he appreciated Eric's data outputs regaining color, but mostly because this dissipated the dark webs, allowing for more precise reading.