The Turing Test - [Open Novella Contest 2019 Shortlist]

8. Truth Hurts

My fingernails cut into my palms as I finally face him in the light. He looks just as I remember—eyes the color of a clear sky at noon, surrounded by rough features, like someone chiseled them out of stone. He looks just as ruggedly handsome as I remember.

Sven.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. None of the boiling heat, none of the shock, just...nothing. The rushing power I felt vanishes under his gaze. He smiles, as if he knows everything in my mind, and says one word.

"Darwin."

*    *    *

I wake with a gasp. The name rings in my ears. Darwin. What is Darwin?

I mean, I know what Darwin could be. But I don't think it's referring to the open-source operating system that Apple has been basing its product off for years. Charles Darwin? Survival of the fittest, maybe? But why would Sven want to remind me of that?

Sven. The dream melts away as reality flares like an out-of-control wildfire, burning everything in its path and leaving nothing but ashes. I sit up, trying to decipher my surroundings. I don't remember laying down; I don't even remember sitting. Did I faint? Just shut off, like a crashed program that needs to be restarted? Something so broken that it can't even run? I spin on the spot, as if looking for someone to fix me.

Is this what a race condition feels like? When two separate threads try to access the same variable at the same time, to modify or read its value without knowledge of each other? I suppose Sven is the variable, and I've just accidentally tried to access him without knowing that someone was there first.

Sven kissed someone else. The knowledge sears like a hot brand, yet I shiver and hug myself fruitlessly against the cold.

But it wouldn't even matter if I had my coat; the chill comes from inside. I gasp as I feel it take hold, starting in my heart and racing outwards through my veins until it coats every inch of skin. I shake violently, acutely aware of its hold on me, like Sven's on that woman. It freezes my lungs and suffocates me, something so intense that I want to run, even though I can't leave it behind.

What's happening to me? I wonder as my chattering teeth make the world vibrate. I stand in the darkness that has fallen since I passed out and try to get my bearings. What do I do now? Go home? That feels like defeat. Find a hotel? I have no money. Ask a friend for a place to stay? I can't bear to explain the reason, to bare my shame to the world. I'm neither smart enough, nor good enough. If I had been either, this wouldn't have happened.

All I can do is start moving. Everything is hazy, like I'm viewing the world through a thick layer of clouds—the fluffy, cheerful white kind that you look for shapes in, only the shapes I see are all ugly. Sinister. Witches with crooked fingers and gapped, evil smiles. Cloaked men who flit from shadow to shadow behind me as I walk. They all dissipate as I enter the din of the train station, but the world feels no more real.

I thank the lucky stars that I keep my train card in my pants pocket, rather than my jacket. I feel the stares as I board, everybody looking at the broken one in their midst. The defective one. The one nobody wants.

I remember the last time I sat on this train in a miserable cascade of thoughts revolving around Sven. Then, I hadn't texted him to say I would be late. Is it any wonder he ran to someone else? Why should he be thinking of me, carving a spot in his life for me, when I couldn't even set aside a few seconds for him?

I disembark at our usual stop. My feet carry me to our front door, and I hesitate. I don't have my keys. If the door is locked, I have nowhere to go. If it's unlocked, Sven is inside.