Lightning Kissed

  LUCENT FEMALES SHALL NOT TAKE LABOR-INTENSIVE JOBS.

  Good thing I put a return receipt on all my emails to her.

  Then again, I always knew where she was, so it wasn’t really a surprise that less than two hours after she’d arrived home, she’d opened my email.

  I’d skipped the fall semester of college for one specific reason—Colby. I knew why she’d broken up with me after years of dating. And really I couldn’t remember a time, other than right now, when I wasn’t with her—whether in my mind or body. I had to do what I could to fix myself so she wouldn’t continue trying to protect herself from me.

  We’d met at Westminster Elementary. She’d given me her peanut butter and jelly sandwich after I realized, at the stark white cafeteria table, that I’d forgotten my lunch at home. I’d offered her half, but she’d been content to gnaw on celery sticks. In second grade, while we lined up on bleachers, prepping to sing ‘Greatest Love of All’ to our parents at the end of year assembly, I’d reached for her hand behind the row of students in front of us and she squeezed mine back and smiled a front-toothless smile.

  In the fourth grade, I had trouble with division. Mrs. Peabody lined us up along the chalkboard and made us call out the answers to her drills. And when it got to my turn, I always answered wrong. Clayton Brown called me stupid at recess and before I knew what was happening, Colby had clocked his chubby chin until he was out cold underneath the metal monkey bars.

  And when we were twelve, under the boardwalk at Surfside Beach, where our families vacationed together every summer, I pressed my awkward lips to hers. She’d tasted like sunblock and salt.

  I knew everything about her. During the summer, beads of moisture broke out on the bridge of her nose before her forehead even thought about sweating. She clipped her fingernails down to the quick out of some asinine fear that she would scratch herself while flashing. Her hair was the color of dry sand sprinkled with wet sand. And when I ran my palms along the length of the backs of her thighs, she moaned my name.

  On my eighteenth birthday, I’d pulled her aside after the family birthday dinner and revealed my secret—I could flash just like her. Not the distance and certainly without the flair. But I could do it.

  And the next day she’d broken up with me—that was two years ago.

  After some time in Spain, I’d decided to go to New Zealand but not for vacation—for practice. I’d been practicing in all kinds of obscure places—the pyramids of Egypt, the catacombs of Paris, the drug tunnel between Mexico and the United States, and in all that practice, I realized a few things.

  Number one: not only could I travel in the underground tunnels, but I could also travel between them and everywhere else. Last month, I’d gone from Chile to Vancouver in one straight shot—no sweat. Number Two: the more I traveled, the more my flash depleted, until it was nothing more than a shot of lightning. Number Three: I had another talent, other than the seeking and the flashing. That’s what I was here to research.

  This was a talent that even the all-knowing Colby was ignorant of.

  The records of our species were kept in a cave at the peak of Mount Cook on New Zealand’s South Island. At least, that’s the only one I knew of. Rumor was, there were plenty more in various parts of the world, not to mention countless digital copies, but again, this is the one I thought I could gain access to.

  And there was that little issue of The Resin. I’d discovered a pack of them in Spain, plotting and planning on catching Lucents and handing them over to the Escuro for cash—the answer to the Lucent Synod. There were two on my tail since I left Madrid. Of course they had to fly by plane since they could no longer flash, so I was always one step ahead of them—or three.

  My new gift was coming in handy.

  Why they wanted to catch us, I didn’t know.

  Maybe it was all just an over-bloated case of jealousy or revenge.

  My phone rang. It was my mother, one of the few people who knew why I was here.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “I’ve just heard from Sable. She and Colby will be in Belize for the weekend, and we’ve decided to join them. Do you want to come? You’ll have to travel by plane.”

  “She doesn’t want me there, Mom. There’s no reason to go.”

  “God forbid you come to see your mother.”

  She laughed after her statement but it was laced with a twinge of truth.

  “Ok Mom, I’ll be there. It will give me a chance to conduct an experiment of sorts.” We spoke in rhymes and riddles sometimes, since we suspected most of our phone calls were monitored.

  “Excellent, I’ll let Sable know and we won’t tell Colby.”

  “Friday?”

  “Yes, we are arriving in the afternoon. Dinner at seven at the regular spot.”

  She referred to the Red Ginger on the Ambergris Caye beach, our favorite in Belize, but such was one of the things we didn’t discuss over the phone.

  She hung up and my stomach performed its typical acrobatics at the thought of seeing Colby again.