Keo Bonus Story: Daydreaming Again (female MC)

The gardens in Leas hold a particular kind of welcome at sunset. Everyone hurries to be nowhere, children’s playful shouts echoing louder, parents’ conversations growing more animated, the vendors at the edges of the parks selling more fruit and drinks than they have in the past hour. Like everyone is soaking up the last light of the day, hoping that if they live brighter and louder it will continue, and their fun won’t come to an end. And when the sun rebels against their wishes they shrug and laugh and invite their friends home for dinner, carrying on beneath the moon instead.

I love this place. I’ve never understood why my mother was not content with my being here. Why she let me go but warned me, that place is a part of your journey, not its destination. As I sit here under a palo tree taking in the sound of life and the smell of sandy earth, I wonder, not for the first time, if she was wrong.

My mother named me for a place I’ve never seen. A place she’d never been, and one my father had no interest in discovering. I asked her why, when I was old enough to realize it.

You will know when you see it, she told me. I didn’t understand.

I still don’t. But I try to imagine it anyway when I sit here under the endless sky, looking up and imagining that perhaps that is what it’s like, endless and blue.

“Hey.”

I turn my head and find MC standing beside me, hands slung over a low-hanging branch as she looks down at me. “Daydreaming again, huh?” The corner of her mouth turns up, and the glow of the sunset colors her lips a shade I’ve never seen.

“Yes,” I reply. I hesitate, unsure what else to say in greeting. Everything that comes to mind feels inadequate, a feeling I’ve grown used to over time.

“Okay, well... I was wondering if you wanted to come get dinner with me,” she says, a light flush rising in her cheeks as she says it. She looks away, and I hide a smile.

“Where are we going?” I ask, standing and brushing the dirt from my legs. I nearly collide with the branch, I’m so distracted by her presence. I reach out to grab it, rocking it an inch away before I can hit it and I see the way MC’s eyes follow the motion, from my hand and up the line of my arm. The same way I suspect she'd noticed my gaze on her mouth. I look away, clearing my throat.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” MC says after a moment, letting out a chuckle that dispels the sudden tension in the air. I nod, unsure why she'd think I would ever turn such an invitation down. “I was thinking the cafe a few blocks over. They do a dinner menu once a week now, and I’ve been wanting to try it.”

“Lead the way.”