Page 44 of Control

After the night was over and I went home, I didn’t feel how I thought I would feel about the experience. I smiled and listened to my favorite music as I drove back to my little apartment that I shared with a roommate back in San Antonio. I remember stepping out of my shower and thinking about how it all went down. I remember lying in bed and looking up at my ceiling and thinking to myself “maybe I could be with a woman. Maybe….” I knew if I were to ever end up in that situation, that woman would have to be almost perfect for me. She had to be someone I could seem myself with long term, possibly for life. I thought to myself that it would be alright if I were as picky with women as I was with men. I’d never had a problem attracting guys and I always had choices. With women though, it was different. I’d never really given the idea a thought and after I got married, it never came back to me. That was until….

Hey,” I said to Reyna after several minutes of them talking. She looked over to me and smiled, relieved that I was alright and apparently unharmed by our unfortunate run in with the trolls. “I need to talk to you. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What’s that?” she asked. I took her by the hands and pulled her away from the others. I led her further into the room and onto the dance floor which was centrally located in the club. As we walked, dozens of eyes were on us and more started watching as I led her. I wanted to make this something special for her and not just a random occurrence. I wanted it to be grand and something that others would be able to see and remember. Once we were in the center of the dance floor, others respectfully gave us a little extra room and backed away.

“Reyna,” I said, making sure I turned the music down in my HUD. I pointed to my ear to make sure she was doing the same. I took a couple of deep breaths and looked to the dance floor for moment, trying to build up the courage I needed to get out all I wanted to say to her. After a few seconds of trying to figure out the best way to say it, I took the most direct approach I could. I looked into her eyes, took her face into my hands and said it. “I’m in love with you.”

Her eyes grew and her expression turned from contentment to astonishment. I could tell I had caught her off guard. It wasn’t my intention to do this. I’d only spilled my guts in so few words to make it easier on both of us and to keep myself from going on some rant that would eventually end up being nothing more than a tossed salad of words that made little to no sense.

“I love you,” I said, her face telling me she was still processing what I’d just told her. “I love you and…I…I never stopped thinking about you.” I could feel my eyes beginning to blink more and more, my nerves hitting me like a truck and causing me to get an unintentional rush of adrenaline. “We all evolve over time. We…become something else. Our…experiences change us without us even knowing it. I watched you change…and I know you changed me. You’ve become something more and I…I want you to know just how much you mean to me.”

“Ana,” Reyna said in a lower tone, her voice quiet and rattled as if she were unsure if what she was experiencing was real. I pulled her to me and wrapped my arms around her, wanting nothing more than to feel her body against mine. I felt her arms come around me which sent me into shivers. Her fingernails pressed into my skin and I could feel her body temperature rising. Her heart pounded in her chest as did mine.

“I watched you change,” I said, tears beginning to well in my eyes. “You’ve become so much more. You’re my heart, my reason for existing. You’re my rock, my best friend…and the one I’d give everything up for. Everything….” With that I pulled back from her, lightly pushing her away from me much to her dismay. I could feel her wanting to pull me back but I resisted her. I looked her over one more time, the emotion running up and down every inch of her face. “You deserve this.”

I lifted my fingers up to her forehead and lightly touched her, the warmth of her skin penetrating my fingertips. I pressed my fingers into her and said a single word: Butterfly. I dropped my fingers from her forehead and took several steps back, knowing what was coming. Reyna stared at me for a few seconds unsure of what I was doing, and I stared right back. I felt the eyes of the entire room look to the two of us. No one knew whats as coming except me. All of the time I’d had as a title holder was about to end. I’d made my decision and knew it was the right thing. I gave it to her willingly. I knew she deserved it far more than I did. She was, without even trying, once of the most wonderful people I’d ever met in my life. She saved me that day when I unexpectedly went down that spiral. She stayed with me as I sobbed and fell apart. She kept me close to her during all our encounters and always made sure I was comfortable, taken care of. Safe. No matter how wild or insane or sleeping lives were, I always felt as if I had someone I could put all my trust into. She was the one I’d been longing for all my life. Without trying, she drew me in and made me realize I could be the best version of myself every single day.

I watched her as the lights in the room went out with the exception of a single spot light that shined down on her from above. As it slowly dimmed, her nameplate began to spark and grow brighter, the letters slowly becoming the brightest thing in the room. A light electrical hum filled the air and slowly but surely, a small but growing set of butterfly wings sprouted behind her. She looked up and watched her own nameplate grow brighter and lifted her hands to her face as the glow hit her. Eventually her wings grew so large that more and more people on the dance floor began to back away. With a strong and steady gust of wind, her wings drew outward as if ready to take flight. They flung back inward which produced another physical gust of air that blew my hair back and could be felt throughout the club. Everyone in the room began to gasp as they realized what was happening. Reyna was becoming more than she could have imagined. She was evolving.

Her nameplate began to shift back and forth between a bright white and a golden yellow, matching her two favorite colors that she almost always wore. It grew larger and more sparks began to outline what she would then become know as: The Butterfly. Her wings once more thrust back and then forward, creating another gust. With a burst of white light, I watched the energy overtake her, her eyes locking with mine as if she realized what was happening to her.

She fell to the ground as the lights on her nameplate settled, the sparks finally subsiding. There for everyone to see was her new nameplate and title. The room stood silent as they watched her on the floor, a faint white glow emanating from her dark brown skin. I stood there motionless, not wanting to draw attention to myself so she could have her moment. I watched her carefully lift herself from the floor, her legs a wobbly, but growing steadier with her attempt to stand. I felt the other council members step behind me and watched as Reyna evolved into one of them. She lifted her head and opened her eyes, looking directly at me, her metamorphosis complete.

We stared at each other for a silent moment. I could feel everyone taking in her visage and the voices of those around us began to grow as the news of a new title holder being crowned was quickly spreading. Cris, Giff, Mustafa, and even Caster all rushed past me to be by her side, congratulating her. Still, Reyna stared at me, her face stoic and unflinching. More and more people approached her and yelled out words of congratulations, encouragement, and praise. The lights had not come back on.

Mere moments after her transformation was complete, I could feel myself growing tired, weaker. I looked down at my hands and watched them lightly shake in front of me. I looked back up to Reyna as she stepped to me but then stopped short. She looked up to my nameplate as it began to flicker. Slowly, the color from my name began to fade until it turn back into the basic, default white, the red, blue, and purple draining out of it completely. The font size began to shrink and the words below my name, The Lotus, began to fade away until they were no longer there. As Thaddeus had told me, my title was now gone, me having just willingly given it up to someone I felt deserved it far more than I did.

“No,” Reyna said in a quiet voice as she realized what was happening. She stepped closer to me and I put my hand up, asking her not to come any closer. The other council members looked back to me and saw that my title was gone from my nameplate and gasped. I continued to stare at Reyna, my eyes still filled with tears. My time as a council member, as title holder, as “The Queen,” was over. Lethargy and an overall feeling of weakness took hold of me, but I managed to keep myself upright. The others stared at me for a moment and then over to Reyna, all of them quickly figuring out what I had done. I’d done what was simply not thought possible. I’d passed on my title to someone else without regret. Reyna, I knew, would do a better job than I ever could. “Ana…why!”

I smiled through my tears, a mix of happiness, love, and heartbreak all coming out of me at the same time. I fought to catch my breath and many other eyes that had been trained on Reyna suddenly turned to me. A collective gasp filled the room as they too then realized what I had done. I’m glad they did. I wanted everyone to know that I gave it all up so that it could go to someone far more worthy. Someone that could make a real difference.

“Why!” Reyna cried out from a few feet in front of me. “Ana, why did you do that! How! Why!” She began to cry angry tears, perhaps feeling that I did it simply because I was in love with her. I knew she would react this way. Her emotions were raw and the energy she felt pulsing through her body was possibly too much for her in the moment. I watched her ball her hands into fists and pound them on her legs in disbelief. She and everyone else in the room was so enthralled with what was playing out that they didn’t see Ronnie and a few of his cronies quietly slip into the room. He’d obviously been watching the streams of the occurrence as word in Aurora often spreads quickly. No one else saw him step closer to me, but I knew he was there. I knew he was getting exactly what he wanted. He wanted to see me crumble into nothing. He wanted to see me fall. Without turning my head, I spoke to him.

“Are you happy now?” I said in a low, quiet voice while still looking at Reyna. I then snapped my head over to my right and looked Ronnie dead in the eyes, my face still flushed and wet with emotion. “Did you finally get what you want?” I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room turn and look to Ronnie, his eyes “smiling” in their own sadistic and “alpha male” way. “This is what you wanted…right? To see me fall? This is what you and Four Buttons and the others all wanted?”

“You have no idea,” Ronnie said to me in that cruel and abusive way male spouses make their passive aggressive statements to their wives. A way I am all too familiar with.

“Well,” I said, not caring about the way he was speaking to me. “Here I am. Just plain ol’ Ana. No more Queen. No more Council member…no more Lotus.”

“As you should be,” he said which caused Mustafa to start toward him. I turned to Mustafa and put my hand up, asking him to stop and he did. I knew if I didn’t, Mustafa would have potentially caused him very serious harm and I didn’t want him to get into any trouble over me. “And soon, no more anonymity.” I tilted my head and turned back to Ronnie. I looked into him, his prideful arrogance on display for all to see. He’d been wanting to see this sort of thing happen to me and he was getting it.

“You want more?” I said to him, knowing he didn’t want to just see me fall. He wanted to humiliate me to the point of utter despair. I felt myself take a step toward him. Although I was surrounded on all sides by people, more still pouring into the room by the second, I felt as if it were just me and him. It was a moment I knew would eventually happen between us, given his incessant trolling of me and the others, but I didn’t know it would be that night. I could tell Ronnie had stopped caring about the fact that he was definitely not on his home turf. Still, more of his trollish friends carefully filed into the room and walked over to him, each of them smiling in their own prideful way.

“You can’t hide anymore,” Ronnie said to me. “We all know you’re just some fucking loser, probably still living with your mom.” The irony of his statement wasn’t lost on me.

“Yeah,” I said while still staring daggers at him. I turned to sarcasm because at that point, I had stopped caring. “I guess you really got me there. Maybe I should go wake mommy up and tell her the bad man is making fun of me. You think that will make this all better? You think I should just out myself right now? That way you won’t even have to wait for the data encryption to be cracked.”

“Like you’d fucking do that,” he said to me. “You’ve always been a coward, hiding behind your whore avatar.” I took another step toward him, my mind directing my HUD to produce a standard internet browser window. I slid it to the side for the moment. “Not for long though.” I mockingly nodded my head at him, having already made up my mind on what I was about to do.

“Well then,” I said, closing my eyes for a moment and taking in a very deep breath. “Let me surprise you!” With those words, I turned around and reset my focus on the internet browser in my HUD. With a few more commands, I began broadcasting my HUD display to the entire room, letting it float in the air above me, setting it to auto rotate so everyone could see it as clear as day. “You really want to know who I am? Do you? Fine.”

Using my thoughts, I had the browser go to one of the most popular social media sites in the world - Facebook.com - and brought up the login page and said “I guess if I’m gonna be exposed, I might as well just come clean.” I felt my voice began to shake as I laced it with anger and rich sarcasm. Through my bitter tears, I forced my mind to type in my login information as well as my password which was still hidden by asterisks. I could hear the crowd in the rooms begin to talk, some of them yelling, asking me not to do what they realized I was about to.

“Ana!” Cris and Reyna both yelled out. I ignored their pleas and stayed focused on what I was doing. There was no way to stop me then, short of forcing me to log out. Knowing this, I half expected Thaddeus to step in and stop me, but he didn’t. I clicked enter and the website logged me in. In a couple of seconds, my real life personal profile page loaded up. I clicked on the About Me link and loaded the page. On the screen, all of my personal information that I had given to Facebook came up which included my name, current city and state, and previous places of employment.

“There!” I yelled to Ronnie while looking back at him. He stared at the display with his mouth open, apparently shocked that I’d actually done it. I had exposed myself not only to him or the nearly thousand people now in the room, but also to anyone else who was watching the game stream live online. “Are you happy now? That’s me! That’s my real name. Liliana Escarra. Born in November of 1987.” I turned my head back around to the massive browser window displaying my personal information and continued. “Oh! Right! You wanted to know what I looked like, too. Well then! Let’s see that also!” I brought up my photo page where I’d kept a few hundred photos that I’d taken and posted over the many years I had on the site which included pictures of me, my family, and a few friends.

“Ana stop!” Reyna yelled.

---