He went for a brisk jog in the morning. When he arrived home, his legs burned with oxygen rich blood. The perspiration of his body saturated his jogging attire. It had been awhile since he had jogged three miles, but he wanted to have a lot of energy for that night. He jumped in the shower and with a smile on his face thought about his date later that evening.
“What to do for lunch?” he asked himself. It didn’t take him long to realize that a fresh salad was the logical choice. What, after all, would be the point of an invigorating jog if he were to slow himself down with something heavy? He enjoyed the drive to the farmer’s market just a few miles from his house. It was going to be a good day, he repeated to himself constantly thinking of the beautiful woman he was going to see later that evening.
The April sun high in the sky showered down in warm streams through the sun roof of his car as the breeze cut sharply and quickly through his thick brown hair. The air was crisp, fresh, and clean as it was drawn into his nostrils and filled his lungs, expanding his chest with the positive outlook that he had started the day with. The smell of warm leather tickled his olfactory senses and danced with the scent of wild flowers from the outside making its way through the windows, which he rolled down to invite the day inside his car.
He stepped out of the car with a spring in his step, confident in everything but especially the fact that not a single thing could deter him from the perfect date that he was to have in a few hours. The vendors smiled at him as he picked the vegetables, nestled in their wooden crates. Dollars rustled between his fingertips as he made his transaction and was well on his way back home until a fragrance beckoned back to a lonely stand in the corner.
There was a small girl whose big brown eyes and sun tanned face stood still; thick, dark hair ending in two pigtails on either side of her small head almost as if she were waiting for him. The stand was small and simple and wasn’t overflowing with its wares. It was nothing special, but it caught his eye nonetheless. The warm spring sun baked the fragrances and magnified the smell of freshly cut flowers from the little stand. He walked over and asked the little girl how much. She told him and he took a bouquet of daisies. “Now!” he said, “Now, the date will be perfect!”
It had taken him longer than usual to muster up enough courage to ask her out. He wasn’t sure why it was but it was fun trying to figure it out. Was it her beauty? The sparkle in her green eyes that seemed to gleam, seemingly, just for him? The hair that waved like a tiny auburn ocean sitting perfectly on her head? The way her rose colored lips would curl at the corners and reveal a smile that seemed to shine for his eyes only? Or was it her voice that swam in the air into his auditory canal as smoothly as silky milk pours into a tall glass? But it was done, and his worry dissolved into relief and quickly grew into confidence as he walked back to his car, vegetables in a bag, and flowers wrapped delicately with paper.
When he arrived home, he fixed his salad and ate it with great gusto. He placed the flowers in an old vase he filled with water and kept it in a cool area of his apartment to keep the flowers from wilting. The rest of the day was spent relaxing. He read a book, cleaned up the clutter in the apartment, and even sorted out the mail, something which had not been done in quite some time. But then it was time to get ready.
His suit was pressed and wrapped over his shoulders and around his chest like the paper around the daises he had purchased. He took his favorite tie and tucked it underneath and tied, for the first time in his life, a perfect Windsor. The comb slid effortlessly through his thick hair and he put on his navy blue dinner jacket. He took the flowers in his arm and smiled at his image in the mirror hoping that she would enjoy his presence as much he knew he would enjoy hers.
When arrived to the restaurant he had to take a deep breath. The cool night air was drawn into his chest through his nose in along breath. He could smell the cool moisture rising up from the grass before it became dew. Somehow, he was more nervous now than when he asked her out. He told himself that everything would be all right, that the date would go just as planned. As he got out of the car, he could feel the beads of perspiration growing on his brow, the beating of his heart causing his temples to pulse rhythmically. He could hear the blood rush through his arteries until he closed his eyes and breathed deeply just one more time.
He opened his eyes to see her at the bar, beautiful and perfect from that distance. She was smiling and talking to someone else that he couldn’t see. She got up from the bar stool and kissed the mysterious stranger on the lips and wrapped her arms the tall man. As for our hero, his date never even noticed that he arrived let alone abruptly left. Nobody noticed. There was no evidence of his presence at the vicinity at all except for the bouquet on the bouquet of daisies scattered helplessly on the sidewalk, petals on the ground.
You can’t blame a girl for wanting a bit of spice in her life, officer. That’s really how it all started. I developed a taste for lying when I first told a boy that my father would have him sent to prison if he didn’t stop tugging on my pigtails. I was exhilarated with the power and the attention that instantaneously followed a lie leaving my lips. Every woman does it. My appetite for the attention just happens to be harder to satiate than most others.
When I was a teenager I would tell people that I was being raised by my bodyguard, that I actually was royalty. I would tell them that my upbringing was meant to be that of a normal person so as to relate to the common man. Why? It actually got me a few free rides. People, for whatever reason tend to sympathize with the rich and powerful. I earned as many friends as I did enemies in high school. I started the lie in my sophomore year and it wasn’t until someone’s jealousy drove them to follow me all the way home to find out the truth. Or as I like to call it, “a boring lie.”
College was an interesting time for me. Nobody knew anybody. You can walk down any good-sized campus in the country and you would be hard pressed to find ten individuals that all knew each other. As a compulsive liar, you couldn’t ask for a better scenario. And, might I add, lying is so much easier when you’re a woman… especially in college. In fact, I don’t think lying was all that necessary if I wanted to manipulate the boys.
Sure, getting the smart ones to do my homework and the popular ones to improve my reputation was great and all, but I needed something more substantial. Money. Plain and simple, I needed more money. At first I would start off slow, going to fraternity poker nights and using my wile and cunning to build up the pot and clean out all of Greek row. I then went to the local sports bar and began hustling at the pool tables. Unfortunately, I got greedy and attracted the wrong kind of attention. And that bar is where I got arrested for the first time. That would explain that blemish on my record, officer.
You might be asking yourself how I got myself out of jail being so far from home and without any cash that wasn’t submitted as evidence. Well, if you keep reading that report you’ll see that I was assigned to a P.O. named Fred Heflin. Heflin? Can you believe he actually used his real name? I mean, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like the name of a parole officer. The truth is that he didn’t work for the police after all.
Fred, it turned out, was actually a recruiter for a very covert branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was one of those branches that everyone knows is there, but never really talks about. We handled a lot of black ops stuff. You know all those good spy movies? A majority of those were written by my colleagues trying to make an extra buck.
Anyway, Fred heard of my reputation. He heard about my insatiable appetite for a bit of spice in my life so he offered me a position as an agent. It was good money for something I loved to do anyway, so I jumped at the chance. Two years later and I’m actually up for a promotion. There’s one problem. Fred said that it would involve murder. He told me that the guy had it coming. That the mark, or target, sold drugs to kids and raped young girls. And I should mention that he was parading around as a champion of the people. He was an elected official, a congressman for God’s sake.
But I couldn’t do it. As much as I felt that he deserved to be taken out, I didn’t see myself as a murderer. I went so far as to track the mark and but a top of the line sniper rifle. It was cold up on the roof, but I knew that I wouldn’t be caught. Nobody would pay any attention where I was located unless they were looking for me. My finger trembled as it curled behind the finger guard. All I had to do was take aim and squeeze back.
Nobody told me his family would be there; the family that he hides behind and puts on a pedestal to make it look like he was a huge family man. I couldn’t do it in front of them. A human life is a life and I’m just not brave enough to take one. Even if it was spent degrading more lives than he was promising he could help. I told Fred the next day that I couldn’t take the promotion. It just wasn’t in my blood.
So you can see officer, there’s no way that I could be the one that killed your partner. Your partner was a good man. He had a beautiful wife and two darling children. As you mentioned earlier, he volunteered on weekends at homeless shelters, coached his son’s little league team, and even helped his daughter sell cookies for her Girl Scout troop.
I may have been a suspect in one of his investigations on the attempt on the Congressman’s life but that doesn’t mean anything. I told you that I was the first person hired to get rid of the guy. Like I said, the government wanted that man dead and it was going to happen with or without me. I know that you did some digging and found that I happened to be one of the young girls that scumbag raped, and that my brother overdosed on the drugs that he sold. That’s one of the reasons Fred picked me for that particular mission, but I’m no murderer. Ask Fred. I’m just a girl looking for a bit of spice in her life.
The room was cold all over with the exception of the aura of heat that emanated from the corpse and the murderer looming over it. The victim, Randall Kane, was a large man. His size alone would confound any detective as to the true size of his assassin, Stan Digory. Stan breathed slowly and heavily, the blood collecting around his feet in a hot sticky puddle. He breathed the sour air that stank of rust and flesh, closed his eyes and felt his head pulse with blood. Each artery branching throughout his body expanded and contracted with the rhythm of his tired heart.
Time seemingly slowed down behind his eyelids, but rushed to catch up with itself as he opened them. The light rushed through his pupils with such great force that his irises struggled to keep it out. Stan’s heartbeat quickened as he turned his head and caught a glimpse of the clock on the mantle. His wife would be home in two hours.
“I have to get rid of the body,” Stan uttered the words through his clenched teeth. He planted his feet into the floor and clumsily dragged the body of Randall Kane across the kitchen floor. The heels of Randall’s shoes streaked pink ribbons onto the linoleum like some morbid candy cane. Perspiration began to bead across Stan’s forehead as he saw the mess he was creating. He ran into the bathroom and tore off the plastic shower curtain. They were out of garbage bags.
“I’ll tell her I slipped and tore the curtain trying to hold myself up,” he said. Stan was amazed at how clearly he could thing. The bitter taste of bile fought its way to the back of his throat at the sight of all the blood, but he forced it back down into the depths of his gut. He laid the shower curtain on the kitchen floor against the glass door leading to the backyard and heaved the bloody lump of a body onto the center of it. Stan was very careful to wrap the shower curtain around the body so that it no longer resembled that of a bloody corpse.
The glass door slid open and a red handprint can be seen on the glass and the sunlight shone through it like a grotesque stained glass window. “I’m going to have to clean that up later,” Stan thought to himself. He dragged the body around the back yard and dropped it by the fence. Two streaks in the wet grass were wet with the blood of the victim. “I’ll just hose that down afterwards,” he had everything figured out. Stan peeked outside the gate and saw no neighbors or passersby, but he did see Randall’s car untidily parked in the Digory driveway.
“Once I get it in the trunk of his car all I have to do is have it towed away.” So far, so good. Stan lifted the creaking latch to open the gate and dragged the body towards the car. Suddenly he heard the rustle of footsteps among the tumbling leaves in the street. It was Stan’s neighbor. Stan could feel the blood rush from his head and the strength of his arm sapped into the atmosphere. The neighbor just stood there for an eternity and Stan couldn’t move not knowing if he was seen. Almost as if his lungs had the capacity to control themselves, Stan’s breathing slowed to a stillness that could only be matched by the breathing of the corpse. Just then his neighbor turned slowly towards him. He had been spotted!
“No, not now,” he prayed, but to whom Stan didn’t know. But instead of an incriminating look of condescension, the neighbor simply waved. Stan forced a smile through his lips and forced his cheeks back, hoping the gesture appeared genuine.
“Did you need help there, Stan?”
“No! I’m good. Thanks!” The weight of the body was pulling Stan’s shoulders towards the earth.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve got it. I appreciate the offer!” The sunlight made the contents of the plastic shower curtain begin to reek of sulfur and rancid meat. Again, the contents of Stan’s stomach clawed its way to the back of his throat. One large gulp forced it back down his gullet.
Finally, he had reached Randall’s car, but relief was not there waiting for Stan. He reached into the sticky mess inside the shower curtain and pulled out the car keys that had the appearance of marble from the trickling blood. By this time the corpse had stiffened enough to make stuffing it into a trunk a rather difficult task. Determined, Stan forced all of his weight into the bloated stomach of the corpse. There was a sickening crack as Randall Kane’s body was forcefully wedged into the compartment.
He went back into the house through the backyard careful to take care of the stripes of blood on the grass with the hose. Stan went through the back door and made sure to clean his bloody track every bloody step of the way. The house echoed with the squeaking of the glass doors being scrubbed clean so that not even a cloudy residue of the cleaning agent that removed the blood would remain. Stan was so careful and mopped up every inch of the kitchen’s linoleum floor.
The receiver clicked as Stan lifted it and dialed the number of a random towing company. “There’s a car in my driveway and I don’t know whose it is. I’d like for it to be taken away, please. Twenty minutes will be perfect.” He was beginning to think he could get away with it all. He scrubbed the floor, every fraction of every square inch so that no evidence could be seen by the naked eye.
There was nothing left to be done, he thought to himself, until he stood up and realized that there was blood on the soles of his shoes. Stan left pink footsteps following his moves around the kitchen floor as if some spirit watched over him. Just then he heard footsteps slowly approaching the front door.
“It can’t be! She’s early,” he wondered how his wife could possibly be home early. “She hadn’t even left work yet. She couldn’t have left early, not without calling me.”
Panicked, Stan threw his shoes into the sink and a rag onto the floor. He scrubbed the footsteps of blood with his feet while reaching with his hands in the sink to wash the blood from the soles of his feet. He could see the shadows of two legs stopping just in front of the door. “I need more time,” Stan whispered to himself. “That can’t be her, not yet!” And with that the mail fell through the mail slot. Never has the falling of bills and advertisements on the hardwood floor been such a beautiful sight to Stan. “It was just the mail man.”
But there was only half an hour left. The tow truck had finally arrived and had taken away the car of the recently deceased (its owner neatly packed in the trunk). When Mrs. Digory arrived, she wondered why a car had been towed from the front of the house. As she opened the door, an unusually eager Stan greeted her with a hug and a kiss.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“I just missed you today is all. Can’t a husband miss his wife?”
“That’s sweet, but I’m talking about that tow truck. Whose car was that?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I had it towed.”
Mrs. Digory went to the bathroom to freshen up.
“Honey, why is there no shower curtain in here?”
“Oh! I had a horrible spill today. I slipped in the shower and grabbed onto the curtain and ended ripping it off. I’ll get a replacement.”
“You slipped? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. I’m perfectly all right.”
“You’re a horrible liar, Stan,” she replied. She gestured to his right ear where there was a spot of dried blood caked into a chalky, brown spot.
“Oh, that…” Stan could feel the blood rushing from his temple, his face tightening, his hands growing cold and clammy.
“I don’t see a cut anywhere, but you were lucky this time. Next time you need to be more careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Mrs. Digory walked to the bedroom and began changing out of her work clothes. Stan told himself that he had gotten away with the perfect crime and no one would be the wiser. He gave a quick glance at the backyard and kitchen floor and saw no immediate signs that would implicate him of any wrongdoings.
“By the way, Stan?” the woman of the household asked.
“Yes, honey,” he answered, still scrubbing away at the most minute details to rid the house of any traces of Randal Kane’s blood.
“You said that you had some big problem that you had to work out today.”
“That’s right,” he responded, “It was a huge problem.”
“Well, did you take care of it? I was hoping to go out for dinner tonight.”
“Yes, actually,” Stan smiled to himself, “In fact, I took care of it just before you came in.” What Stan didn’t tell her was that the problem actually had just been towed away moments before his wife pulled into the driveway.
“Welcome to the holographic universe or ‘holoverse.’” It’s the first thing you hear when you log on for the first time. The novelty wore thin after the first week. In fact, it was a rite of passage to hack your way around the programmed greeting. More of the advanced hackers just replaced it with their own welcome, some more vulgar than others. The future had finally arrived in the form of this fully immersive experience of the web. The process was simple. Buy yourself the holo-box and after connecting to the internet step inside and wake up in the holoverse. A few years and lawsuits from legitimate claustrophobics later, some companies developed the sleek holo-suit.
People on the inside live the life that they were too afraid to live in the real world. Subsequently, the holoverse has grown to become the most wonderfully horrific place built by mankind. But the particular story that is about to be told does not concern a talk of the arguably legal dealings and ambiguously ethical acts that are a regular occurrence in the holoverse. This is a simple love story between Aaron Rostand and Tricia Andrews.
First Date
Tricia was always nervous on first dates, but a part of her was glad that avatars didn’t sweat. She wrung her fingers and her eyes darted around the room, looking for her date. She fidgeted with her hair, a nervous habit. Tricia had programmed everything on her avatar just perfectly. Her curly golden locks fell to her shoulders. The elegant, black dinner dress that was impossibly expensive in the real world was a next- to-nothing line of code in the holoverse. She wore a string of pearls designed to look like the one that her mother gave her on her sixteenth birthday. When her mother and father met for the first time, Tricia’s mother was wearing those same pearls, and Tricia secretly hoped that there was some sort of magic left in them, even if they were just a digital version.
Aaron hadn’t been out on too many dates. He knew much more of the holographic world than the real one and he was hoping it would not show. At first, when he hacked into his avatar to alter his appearance, his aim was to maintain more anonymity than the average person who logged on. It gave him a sense of confidence to hide behind that façade. He was just trying to do the right thing the day he met Tricia. There was an unspoken etiquette that hackers followed, and to hack into a novice’s avatar to access her bank notes was a serious taboo. Aaron stepped in and saved the day. They were smitten with each other and decided to go out on a holoverse date.
“Hi,” Aaron whispered as he approached her from behind.
“You startled me,” she said as she turned around.
“My apologies, Tricia,” Another simple hack hid his anxiety behind a charming smile, “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” her voice was just above a whisper. Her eyes were fixated on the ruggedly handsome face of his digital counterpart.
The young couple was completely oblivious to the time melting away as the date progressed, each hour ticked away as quick as a minute. They were like old friends meeting each other for the first time in that holographic room.
“So, tell me, Aaron,” Tricia queried, “How does a man as good looking and charming as you stay single? I find it hard to imagine that you can’t have any girl you want.”
“I’m afraid that’s just how it is,” he replied, “and I’m not all that good looking. Besides, I could ask the same thing of you. You can have any guy you want. Why did you agree to go out with me?”
“Well, I figured I owed you for one. Those guys trying to hack into my account would’ve gotten away with all my cash if it wasn’t for you.”
“I certainly hope that’s not the only reason.”
“Okay, so I was attracted to you. Is that wrong?”
“I’m not used to it is all. Every once in a while a girl feigns interest but it’s just to mask their true motive.”
“Which is?”
“That depends on the girl. I’m a hopeless romantic, what can I say?”
“That’s not too shabby a hubris, if you ask me.” Tricia reached her hand across the table and held Aaron’s in hers. Her fingers curled gently around his hands and a shiver shot down his spine as her soft pink fingertips pressed against his palms. The sensors on Aaron’s holo-suit had never deceived him so well before. He was so lost in the moment; he could swear she was actually holding his hand. Suddenly, the face of Aaron’s watch begin blinking red.
“Damn!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“I have work early in the morning and I’ve got to get to bed. I wish we could just stay here.”
“Me too,” she said, smiling at him, “I can’t believe we had been talking all night!”
“It was worth it. I hope we can do this again sometime.”
“We should,” Tricia took out a piece of paper and wrote something down on it. She folded the paper in half then in quarters and tucked it into Aaron’s jacket pocket. The message sent itself as an e-mail directly into Aaron’s account. To log off, users of the holoverse have to enter a space analogous to a phone booth in the real world. The brain perceiving itself in one world and all of a sudden finding itself in another can be quite dangerous. Before he logged off, Tricia grabbed Aaron’s arms and pulled him away from the booth and kissed him gently on the cheek. She bit her own lip as she smiled at him.
As he returned back into his room he slowly took off the holo-suit with a large smile on his face that he could not hide. He jumped back to his computer to check his email. “Call me” was all it read with the number and her signature on the bottom. He shut off the computer and the reflection of his true self, smiling idiotically, stared back at him from the computer monitor. The large smile quickly faded from his chubby face, which he leaned forward to hide his second chin. He was disgusted with the face that looked back at him. A part of him felt guilty for letting Tricia believe that his avatar wasn’t reprogrammed, but Aaron felt there was no other way to keep her if he didn’t persist with the lie. He hated being this selfish.
In Person
A year had passed. They met often online, called each other on the phone all the time. It had gotten to the point where one could not get through the week without seeing the other. But nothing could prepare Aaron for what Tricia was about to ask.
“Can we meet?” she had wanted to ask that for the past month or so.
“I’d love to meet. You know that.” Aaron couldn’t think of an excuse not to meet. A part of him actually did want to see Tricia in person, but he wasn’t sure how that would play out. He coiled back, hesitant to show enthusiasm and failing to convince Tricia of his sincerity.
“What’s wrong?” she inquired, “Don’t you want to finally meet up in person?”
“I’d love to. I’m just nervous. That’s all. I’m not sure if you’d like me in real life. I’m different here in the holoverse.”
“We’ve been seeing each other for about a year. We’ve talked on the phone. I think it’s time.” She took her hand and gently placed it on the side of his face. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay…” Aaron whispered, “Okay.”
When Tricia arrived to the hotel, she decided to take a look around the city. She had never been in a true concrete jungle in all her life. The bus hissed to a stop and she climbed aboard not knowing where she wanted to go. One of the stops glittered with 3-d advertising, something only available in the big cities. She stepped off the bus and saw that it was some sort of shopping center. There were cafes and restaurants, street performers, vendors of all sorts hocking their wares, and in the distance a familiar face. She could recognize the face anywhere. Those piercing eyes, that strong chin, his chestnut hair were undeniably Aaron’s. Well, they were the qualities of Aaron’s avatar that happened to be inspired by a man he envied growing up.
Tricia’s face grew red and warm and tingly with excitement. She smiled a wide smile and ran to him, thinking he was the man she fell for. Before she could run into his unsuspecting arms a rather large man stood in her way. It was only then that she noticed the photographer kneeling down by the lights and she deduced that it was a professional photo shoot.
“Aaron!” she yelled, waving her hands. As is the nature of any man with a beating heart, the waving hands of a pretty girl got the male model’s attention.
“Are you talking to me?”
Mistaken Identity
Aaron is not typically the kind of guy to indulge in sleazy tabloid television show but it had popped up on the screen so suddenly. There was a familiar pretty face on the screen. It was Tricia and paparazzi had claimed her as the new love interest of male model and former acquaintance of Aaron’s, Guy Richards. The image was grainy but Aaron could clearly see Tricia smiling up at the smug face of Guy. Never so loudly had a heart and spirit been ripped apart as a result of an image on a screen.
“Figures,” Aaron shut the television off and couldn’t move. “She’d choose him over me. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised.” The image, it seemed, was permanently burned into his retina. He shut his eyes but it somehow made the picture of Tricia and Guy clearer. When he opened his eyes, the tears spilled down his cheek in hot streaks. He threw his body onto the couch and buried his head in the throw pillows.
The phone rang. Aaron let the machine answer. It was the voice of Guy Richards yelling over loud music. Aaron opened his eyes but still saw no reason to get up. A part of him wanted to kill Guy, but most of him still longed to become him.
“Hey, Aaron,” Guy shouted, “It’s Guy Richards! I know we haven’t talked in a while but I really need you to come down to the club!”
“What’s the point?” Aaron asked himself. Perhaps it was the masochist in him, but Aaron dragged himself off the couch and into the bedroom where he had laid out a suit in preparation for his first meeting with Tricia. It was supposed to be that night. “Screw it,” he said under his breath. He took off his shirt, ran some water, and began to shave.He’d rather have his heart broken in person.
Finally
Aaron walked to the club entrance and the blinding flashes of the photographers nearly blinded him. Fortunately, Guy saw Aaron and grabbed his arm and pulled him into the club, which was reverberating with bass heavy music. Aaron violently pulled his arm away from Guy, staring down at his old friend.
“What the hell do you want, Guy?”
“You’re dressed nicely, Aaron.”
“Cut the crap. I don’t want to hear it!”
“You don’t understand!”
“All I understand is that good things hardly ever happen to me. And when one finally does, you—YOU of all people had to take it from me.”
Aaron had never had the opportunity to stand up for himself, so he decided to create one. It was a dizzying rush. But Guy didn’t seem to fight back. Instead, he led Aaron to small quiet room in the back. The room was barely lit by a single candle on a table in the middle of the room. The glow made Tricia’s eyes sparkle in a way the holoverse couldn’t dare to dream. Aaron gasped and couldn’t feel anything below his knees.
“After that little tantrum you just threw and stealing my likeness for your avatar, Aaron, and this is the thanks I get? Well you’re right about one thing: I can’t think of another guy worthy of having something good happen to them,” Guy shut the door as he left. It was quiet and Aaron’s breath grew shallower with each heave of his chest.
“Hi,” Tricia said. She raised her hand and waved at Aaron, smiling that charming smile.
“Hi,” Aaron was lucky anything was said. He couldn’t believe that what he had been dreaming of for the past year was coming to fruition. His stomach was in knots. Somehow, his clumsy feet found its way to the table. He took his seat and he saw Tricia smile nervously at him. Tricia reached her hand across the table and held Aaron’s in hers. Her fingers curled gently around his hands and a shiver shot down his spine as her soft pink fingertips pressed against his palms. That was something that technology could never replace.
