Page 29 of Yellow
“You’re not supposed to. Detox, remember.”
“Yeah, but I can’t even text. There’s no signal in the cabin. I think Onava must have a different provider than me, because she was able to call you.”
“Her connection is bad too,” I said sympathetically and added, “I was thinking; how about we eat dinner at the café? You know with today being Christmas and all.”
Chloe turned her head. “It’s Christmas day?”
“Yeah, the twenty-fifth.”
“Wow, I can’t believe I lost my sense of time like that. It’s really Christmas?”
“Yup, do you celebrate it?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”
“You could be Jewish or belong to some other religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. In my family it’s not a big thing.”
“Maybe the lack of Christmas decorations in the cabin is why I forgot about it,” she reflected out loud.
“So what do you say? Will you have Christmas dinner with me?” I asked in an attempt to be nice.
“Ooh,” she said with a side glance and a sarcastic smile. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
My answer came loudly and promptly: “Not in this lifetime, that’s for sure!”
Her smile vanished. Instead she folded her arms around her midsection and sunk back in her seat.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said to cheer her up. “If I meet you in my next life and we’re the same race, then I’ll ask you out.”
“Race?” Her big blue eyes pinned me. “What am I… a cow to you? I thought we were both humans.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What then?” she lifted her eyebrows. “Are you going to tell me that you’re really a shapeshifter like in those Twilight movies?”
I scoffed loudly. “Don’t be ridiculous. I meant that you’re white and I’m…”
She cut me off. “Just forget it.”
I was brooding in the car, going over all the reasons why chasing the white man’s dream would end badly. When we got to town, I parked the car, killed the engine, and turned to her.
“Listen. You might find it a small detail, but this isn’t a fucking Cinderella fairy tale. I live from paycheck to paycheck and drive a beat-up truck. You live in a freaking mansion and get paid millions for smiling at the camera. Not only are we not the same race, we’re not the same social class either. I resent people who spend their money on senseless accessories when our oceans are filling up with plastic. So, yeah, you and are I both humans, but mentally, we’re so far apart that we might as well be from different planets.”
“Geez, chill out, medicine man. You don’t have to go all Greenpeace on me. I made a bad joke. So sue me. It’s not like I actually thought you were asking me out.” She opened the door and jumped down with a loud thump and took off in the direction of the café.
I deliberately went in the other direction, but after getting some supplies in the store, I went to find her sitting alone by a small table in the corner of the café. She had her back to the door, her sunglasses on, and her head buried in a newspaper.
With a deep breath, I went to sit across from her.
“Hey.”
She didn’t speak but turned the paper, pointing to the headline.
“What is it?” I asked and read silently in my head:Niko facing life in prison. Loyal fans shocked and grieving.
My head whipped up to look at her. “They got him?”
She nodded with a grim expression and nodded toward the paper as a signal for me to read on.
