I was leaving Far Horizons later than I meant to.
Not because I’d been dithering - though there had been some of that - but because leaving had turned into a small committee decision. Lakshmi noticed that I had plans of going out - unaccompanied - first. Her eyes narrowed as I was walking through the halls in my new kids’ jacket. Randi looked up from her phone. Josie actually stood, blocking the doorway that led from the waiting room out to the exit with her body, in a way that was casual enough to pretend it wasn’t deliberate. The three young women had all been lounging in the seating area, with patients gone. Aubrey, meanwhile also noticing me trying to exit, didn’t move from behind the reception desk, but just watched me with that quiet, measuring concern she’d developed lately.
“You don’t have to walk, Squirt,” Randi said, speaking first, “It’s not even a question. We can drive you.”
“It’s less than a mile to the coffee shop,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I want to walk.”
Lakshmi frowned. “You fainted today,” she countered, "You still have a bump on your forehead.”
“I know.”
“And you’re still recovering,” Aubrey added, not unkindly but with less patience than the others, “You didn’t nap at all-”
“I know,” I repeated, gently this time. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t argue. I just stood there, small and upright, hands at my sides. “I need to do this.”
Shanette entered, from a side access doorway.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Squirt thinks he wants to walk to the coffee shop by himself,” Randi offered, “He’s meeting Missy there.”
“Hmm,” Shanette hmm’d. Obviously she was in agreement with her friends: this might not be a good idea.
There was a pause. A recalibration. The girls all shared a look. I could feel it happen - the way the room subtly reoriented around my insistence, the way concern didn’t vanish but shifted shape. They knew, in their own way, what was going on between Melissa and me today.
Lakshmi exhaled through her nose. Randi, again, was the first to speak. The mouthpiece.
“Fine,” she said, “But you know you can’t do it without taking a mask.”
Aubrey was already reaching into a drawer. She produced a pale blue surgical mask sealed in plastic.
“It’s got enough of our perfumes in it to get you there, to the coffee shop, to her,” Josie said, “But I don’t know if it’ll last all night. You’ll need her, or to make it back here to one of us.”
I hesitated. For half a second, my stubbornness flared. This is exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to push back against. But my body answered before my pride could. I thought back to how I felt in the forest yesterday, away from her pheromones, and just the memory brought back a hollow tightness behind my eyes, the familiar edge of nausea that came when I’d been without them for too long.
I took the mask.
“Thank you,” I said, and started to unwrap it. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful but the ignominy tinged my voice with something I didn’t like.
Lakshmi stepped forward, finished unwrapping the mask, and adjusted the straps behind my ear without asking. It was quick, efficient, maybe a bit indulgent for my tastes but she wanted to make sure I’d put it on right. I huffed, perhaps a bit petulant, but my shoulders dropped a fraction as the strong scent hit me - the same manufactured pheromones that filled the building, but more intense. Warm, grounding, like a memory I couldn’t quite place.
“Text when you get there,” Josie said.
“I will.”
“And if you feel weird-”
“Or unsafe-“
“I’ll stop,” I promised, “And call. Or turn around.”
That seemed to satisfy them, mostly. Josie moved aside. The door opened. Light from the atrium spilled in, brighter than I’d expected.
Outside, though, once I made it out the main entrance, it was dark. The world, with the city skyline in the distance, felt different than it had that morning, when Lakshmi had driven me in. Not hostile. Just…big.
I pulled the mask down, to start my walk. To see what I could manage without it. If I could manage.
The sidewalk sloped gently downward, parked cars stretching ahead of me. Traffic on the road ahead hummed. Somewhere a siren rose and faded. The air felt colder to me than it actually was, thick with late-day moisture and exhaust and food from a nearby truck. The smell of it turned my stomach. Without the building’s carefully controlled atmosphere, everything felt louder, closer, more insistent.
The entire world outside Far Horizons, as I began my walk, felt alien. I’d been so fixated on the way I measured up to the girls that I didn't pay much mind to how I was measuring up to everything else. Cars. Mailboxes. Garbage cans. The world was so much bigger, so much more imposing, and I couldn't go five steps without a reminder. The metal piping of that bike rack was thicker. The sidewalks were wider.
By the time I’d gone half a block, my thoughts went back to my stomach. The nausea crept in for real. I stopped, leaned one hand against a parking meter. “Jesus this stinks,” I groaned, bemoaning my plight.
I pulled the mask back up over my mouth and nose.
The effect was almost immediate. The world didn’t soften so much as recenter. My breathing evened out. The dizziness receded to a manageable distance. Still, I hated how much relief flooded me.
Just a walk, I told myself. You’re just taking a walk.
I kept going.
As I moved farther from the office, I became aware of eyes on me. Not staring, exactly - more like glances that lingered a beat too long. And it wasn’t because I was wearing a mask. A woman jogging, waiting at a crosswalk, looked down at me, then away, then back again, her expression unreadable. Two schoolgirls laughed as they passed, one of them nudging the other and whispering something I didn’t catch. I adjusted my child-sized jacket, aware of my size - or lack thereof - and I remembered what was waiting for me at this journey’s end: nearly seven feet of her. If I felt small out here, it was nothing compared to what I would face when I got to the coffee shop.
I thought of Melissa.
Not in images, at first, but in gravity, in the way my steps were seeming to align themselves toward her without conscious effort. I had the knowledge that whatever happened next would matter - not just to our relationship, or to the version of myself I was trying to keep intact, but to other people as well. Potentially lots of other people.
Flight. Capitulation. Partnership.
The words came back to me uninvited as I walked, lining up like signposts I couldn’t ignore. Each one pointed in a different direction. Each one was an option, and I had to pick one. And I was, right now, headed to the coffee shop to talk with possibly the most physically powerful person that’d ever lived. So, yeah, I began to feel a little anxious.
Okay Jay, try to keep yourself calm. This is Melissa. She’s not going to harm you and you’re never going to find a more gorgeous or caring girl. Just remember. She’s not a monster or a thing. She’s a person and she’s actively working to be better and keep you safe.
By the time the coffee shop came into view, my pace had slowed. I had tired. This was more walking than I had done in a while, and my strides were short. But there it was, finally.
New Corinth Cup sat on the corner just as I remembered it: wide windows, chalkboard sign out front, a small cluster of tables spilling onto the sidewalk - they kept them there, even in November. I could see movement inside, and warmth and light and people. One person in particular…
I slowed a bit more. I stopped. I considered turning around.
I didn’t.
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