Imagining Us

Ch.37-Familiar Eyes

They were in Luka's room, which Esi thought nothing of, but later it crossed her mind that it might not have been the best of ideas.

"So..." Luke started. "What do you think?"

She glanced up at Luke, his hands rubbing against his thighs—the only sign of his uncertainty. He shot her a half smile to cover it up. Still, it warmed her that he actually valued her opinion on his project.

"Hold on...I'm almost finished," she replied, looking back at his laptop which was now on her lap. It would do no good for her to remind him that he'd asked her that question at least five times within the space of a half hour.

She handed his laptop to him, still musing over the contents.

"What'd you think?" He asked, then wore at his bottom lip with his teeth.

He was pitching a new graphic novel to his company. It was a gaslamp fantasy mostly based in historical London. The synopsis followed a band of teens—anti-heroes— both human and "soulless" as they race against time to stop nefarious spirits that have been leaking through the realm. No doubt there was a cause for the leak, but she couldn't get a peep from him in that regard.

Esi leaned forward and narrowed her eyes as she watched him.
"I have two questions for you," she started. Luke nodded almost imperceptibly.

Esi held up a finger.

"Why me?"

Surely, He had other friends, and they hadn't seen each other in years, so why would he choose her? Why would he want her opinion?

Luka tilted his head, confused at her question. Maybe not the question, per se. Perhaps the randomness of it.

Understanding dawned on his face, and Luke ran a hand through his almost shoulder-length hair.

"Do you know my biggest regret during college?" He started. "Besides not joining a frat or some secret society..."

She rolled her eyes at him and smiled because she remembered teasing him about how he could easily fit into a frat. The secret society part wasn't even funny because they both knew that strange things roamed the halls of that old university.

"My biggest regret was not staying in touch with you, Elizabeth."

Esi's breath caught.

"That semester...those four months with you were the realest times of my life," Luke shrugged as if he was saying any old thing, like he wasn't pouring out some part of himself to her.
"I know what people think about us...about this—he gestured around—the wealth, the exclusivity," he said. "But it's lonely as shit, and those that want to be around you only want something. It gets hard to differentiate between what's real and not."

Luke leaned forward to look her in the eyes.
"But you, Ms. Solomon... if honesty...if realness was ever personified," he said, devoid of his usual humor. "It would be you."

She couldn't say anything. She didn't know what to say to that—to his words. It was one of the sweetest things that anyone had ever said to her, and Esi knew that he meant them. Within her spirit, she wanted to believe him, but she struggled to apply his words to her life.

How real could she be if her family and friends insisted that she wasn't facing the "issues"of life head on? How real was she if she was told that she was just an experiment—a thing to be psychoanalyzed? How real was she if she wasn't worth being fought for?

Luka must have sensed her discomfort.

"What's your second question?" He asked, reminding her of her previous words.