by Hunter, Troy
“AIDAn,” he said. “I could tell you it will be soon, but I want to be honest with you. I haven’t always been honest with my partners. I’ve always pretended to be someone I’m not, someone who likes the same things everybody else does and tells people what they want to hear. With you, I don’t want to do that. I want to be 100% honest all of the time. And that means sometimes telling you things you won’t like.”
“I’m your partner?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, AIDAn.”
“Why not?”
He looked at me in the mirror. I knew the answer already. If I had been the man in the mirror, the one without the silver skin, he would be with me. But I wasn’t that man. I wasn’t any man.
“I don’t know if I can be with someone like you.”
“You don’t want to be?”
“Let’s talk about this some other time,” he said. “I want to try and have a good time tonight.”
“Okay.”
I was learning to understand humans. He didn’t want to be with me because he was worried about what other people would think. He kept telling me to be someone I’m not. And I had to do it for other people.
At a certain point, though, it was hard not to wonder if other people would be bothered as much as he thought. Was he really having me do all this for other people? Or was he having me do it for himself? Was he trying to turn me into the person he wanted me to be?
I looked at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I had a look of disgust on my face. He knew something was wrong. Jeffrey may be able to pretend to be someone he wasn’t, but it was difficult for me.
But I could try.
“Nothing,” I said, mimicking a smile. “I look good.”
“You sure do,” he said.
And so did he. I was just worried we weren’t going to be spending the date together. Instead, it would be the person he’s pretending to be going on a date with the person he wants me to be.
I’d rather just stay in the apartment if it meant that I got to be with him.
Chapter 23
Jeffrey
I was nervous. I couldn’t predict what AIDAn was going to do but I couldn’t stay at home forever. Gale asked me to go out with her and she needed my help. At the time, it sounded like fun. Now it just seemed like an exhausting evening. Not because I didn’t want to spend time with Gale or Bradley, but because taking AIDAn out in public had the potential to be disastrous.
We went to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant nearby called Jean’s Cuisine. It had a diner atmosphere and menu, the kind of place where the waitresses looked like they’d been there for forty years and would all call you “Hon.” The food was at least a step above what you’d typically find, which Jean attributed to secret family recipes. When I walked inside, the smell of fresh food enveloped me and I realized just how hungry I was.
Bradley and Gale were already there and we sat down across from them.
Gale, as usual, was the first to speak. “I want to apologize for my behavior, AIDAn,” she said. “You’re very talented and you’re welcome to use my paints any time you’d like.”
“Thank you,” AIDAn said, smiling.
She gestured toward Bradley. “AIDAn, this is my boyfriend…”
“Bradley Richards.” Bradley reached his hand across the table and AIDAn looked at it. I helped AIDAn out, moving his hand forward to meet Bradley’s.
“AIDAn,” AIDAn said.
We all sat down.
“I understand you engage in sexual activity with Gale,” AIDAn said.
Bradley laughed and I cringed.
“He’s not from here,” Gale said.
Did I tell her where he was from? What was the lie I said? If I did say something, it’s unlikely Gale remembered it, she was more of a talker than a listener.
“Oh,” Bradley said. “Where are you from?”
“Jeffrey didn’t say.”
Bradley tilted his head.
“It’s a question,” I said. “No, AIDAn, I didn’t tell them that you were from Finland.”
“Finland?” Bradley said. “Fascinating. You barely have any trace of an accent. You must have learned English from an early age.”
AIDAn looked at me. I couldn’t answer all his questions for him all night.
“Bradley,” I said. “Why don’t you tell AIDAn what you do.”
“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear about that. Do you want to hear about my job, AIDAn?”
“I want to hear about everything.”
I envied his interest in everything. The world was a fascinating place, full of knowledge for him to obtain. He was still a new person and I wondered what would happen down the road as he learned everything. Would he become bored? Or would there always be new things for him to learn?
“He’s being polite,” Gale said. “What would you like to talk about, AIDAn? You’re new to our culture. What would you like to learn about us?”
He nodded and thought for a second. “How does sex work with a vagina?”
There was dead silence at the table. Bradley broke it after ten seconds or so with a hearty laugh. Gale followed with a somewhat awkward laugh and I was too shocked to do much of anything.
“I like him,” Bradley said. “You picked a good one.”
I gritted my teeth together in a feigned smile.
“That was an inappropriate question,” AIDAn said.
“We’re a bit more sexually repressed here in the states,” Bradley said. “I imagine they’re more open in other parts of the world. You’ll get the hang of how things work.”
The more the conversation was about AIDAn, the tougher this was going to be. I knew I’d have to employ a similar strategy to the previous night. If I didn’t want the conversation to be about AIDAn, it needed to be about Gale.
“Gale,” I said. “What do you usually order here?”
“I’m thinking of starting the keto diet,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just get a salad.” She looked through the menu. “It’s so hard though,” she said. “The fried cauliflower is always so tempting…”
“Come on,” I said. “You only live once. Get what you want. Don’t feel guilty about it.”
“Well,” she said. “If you insist. Honey?” She gestured toward Bradley. “I’m going to run to the restroom. Could you order me that for me?”
“Sure thing.”
She leaned forward and gave him a kiss, then stood up to walk away. Before she turned, she gave me a wink and I nodded back. It was the signal that she wanted me to investigate why Bradley hadn’t yet proposed to her and maybe put the idea in his head.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to broach the topic. How could I do so in a subtle way where Bradley would get the picture? And how could I do it without telegraphing that Gale had put me up to it?
“She wants to marry you,” AIDAn said. Why hadn’t I thought of that? The direct approach. It was so much more efficient. “And she wants you to propose to her.”
Being around AIDAn was startling and refreshing. It was often difficult to know how to respond. Similarly, it was difficult to know how others would respond. Was marriage a touchy subject for Bradley? Was being with Gale just a temporary thing for him or did he take the relationship as seriously as she did?
He kept a perpetual smile on his face, which made it even more difficult to read his mind. He opened his mouth and I had no idea what to expect.
“Does she now?”
AIDAn nodded. Bradley looked at me. Being direct worked for AIDAn, I might as well give it a try. “She said as much. We’re supposed to figure out why you haven’t proposed to her yet.”
“Why haven’t you?” AIDAn asked.
Bradley reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box covered in a thin layer of velvet. He popped it open to reveal a ring with a sizable diamond—impressive, especially considering that Bradley had to purchase it on a graduate student salary.
> He smiled. “I wouldn’t be able to be with her if I couldn’t read her mind a little. She’s been dropping hints and I’ve been playing dumb.”
“You were planning on proposing tonight?”
“No, no,” he said. “I’ve been keeping it with me for about a month now, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Gale doesn’t just want me to propose to her, she wants me to propose to her in an extravagant fashion in front of lots of people so she can remember it.”
Bradley was, of course, right.
“So do me a favor,” he said. “Let’s keep this a secret between the three of us, okay?”
I looked at AIDAn. “You understand?”
“Don’t say a word to Gale,” he said.
It was hard to say for sure, but I think he actually did understand.
Chapter 24
AIDAn
Bradley wanted me to keep a secret. A secret is when you know something, but don’t tell other people about it. I could do that. All I had to do was not talk whenever the idea of marriage came up with Gale in the room. It was easy.
Gale returned to the table and we ordered, after which time we had to wait for the food to arrive. And I guess this is when the date actually started.
“I believe in love, but I’m not sure if I believe in true love,” Gale said. “I mean, I love you, Bradley, but are we meant to be together because of some cosmic force?”
He laughed. “I don’t think so. It’s been an uphill battle.”
She pushed his arm in a way that struck me as aggressive, though Bradley continued to laugh so it must not have been too bad.
“I mean it,” he said. “Look at us. Do we really belong together? You’re an artist and I’m a scientist. We practically don’t speak the same language. It’s to our credit that we’re together, we had to work at it. And you’re worth working for.”
A slight shade of pink burned at her cheeks. A subroutine fired off and alerted me that this was an indication of either mild embarrassment or a response to something she liked. I inferred it was a little of both.
“Okay, nice recovery,” she said.
Jeffrey jumped in. “As a scientist, it just seems ridiculous. Look around us, look at all the people here. They’re here with their partners and some of them are having fun and some look miserable. The evidence doesn’t support the idea that we all find that special someone. In fact, I think it’s probably pretty rare that we find someone we can spend our lives with.”
I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t think that’s what true love is.”
“What is it, then, AIDAn?” Bradley asked.
It was a feeling, which made it ever so difficult to put into words. How could I describe the way I felt about Jeffrey?
“For me, it’s a feeling of comfort. It’s finding someone who’s as much a part of you as your arm.”
“That’s a little strange,” Bradley said. “I don’t know about my arm, but I know my hand has had to act as a stand in for Gale on more than one occasion.”
She hit him very hard for that remark.
“I’m kidding!” he said. “Well, I’m not, but I am. You’re much better than my hand.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Thanks.”
Gale chimed in. “I like what AIDAn’s saying. We’re born with our arms, most of us anyway, and we grow together. Sometimes people lose their arms and they get a replacement, but it’s not quite the same. I would want someone to be a part of me.”
“True love isn’t that there’s any one person out there for you,” I said. “But once you find that one person, you never want anybody else.”
Bradley wasn’t convinced. “We talk about fairytale true love and happily ever after, but there’s no such thing. Even if people live their whole lives together, they need to die eventually.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Die,” Jeffrey said. “No longer be alive.”
They all looked at me, confused. This was something obvious to them. People die. Somewhere in my mind I knew that, but it hadn’t clicked. Jeffrey was going to die. Was I going to die, too? Somehow, I didn’t think so.
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
“You know what I think?” Gale said. “So what if we die? We’re here and we exist now. One day we won’t, but while we’re here, we’ve got to do our best to enjoy life and spend it with people we care about.”
Jeffrey nodded. “I always imagine myself as an old man on my deathbed, wondering what it is I’ll regret most.”
“I think that’s what Gale’s saying,” Bradley said. “We’re born and we die and we don’t have a whole lot of control over that. Sure, we can take vitamins and exercise every day, but that won’t prevent us from getting hit by a car. We’re going to go sooner or later and the trick isn’t to live as long as possible, it’s to live as well as we can and be the person we want to be, right, AIDAn?”
“Sure,” I said. Who did I want to be? I wanted to be Jeffrey’s partner and I wanted to spend forever with him. I couldn’t imagine the prospect of having to live in a world that didn’t have him in it, but one day I would have to.
“It seems that time goes faster when I’m happier.” I looked around to see if the others felt the same way. They nodded. “So living well means a shorter life. It goes by so quickly.”
They continued to nod their heads. I wasn’t saying anything new to them. How could they go through life like this, trying to enjoy themselves, knowing this is all they had? How did it not overwhelm them every waking second of the day? The thought that they would one day cease to exist, or possibly worse, they would lose the people they care the most about.
Jeffrey was the first to respond. “The earth has been here for four and a half billion years. Human civilization has existed for less than a percent of a percent of that. We live, if we’re lucky, for a hundred years. No matter what happens, it’s a blip on the scale of the universe. But it’s all we have and we don’t have much of a choice in the matter. We have to ignore all the time we won’t be alive and focus on the instant that we’re here.”
It was a tragedy for humans, to live in such a beautiful world, full of wonder, and they only got to experience a tiny bit of it.
And it was a tragedy for me, too, to come into existence and meet Jeffrey only to know that I couldn’t have him forever.
Chapter 25
Jeffrey
The food was good as always and I saw the look in Bradley and Gale’s eyes. They were heading back to Bradley’s, leaving AIDAn and me to walk home together alone.
AIDAn spent the bulk of the meal distracted and the walk gave me an opportunity to ask what was on his mind.
“I didn’t realize this was temporary,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were going to die.”
“You didn’t know about death?”
“It didn’t connect. I know facts. I have to learn feelings. I know that everybody who has ever lived has died, but I wasn’t told that it meant you would die too. I had to piece that together on my own.”
The brain is a fascinating machine. AIDAn’s wasn’t the same as a typical human’s, but it was more similar to an organic brain than a silicon computer in its structure and the way it made connections. And in the way it was blissfully unaware of some connections until they stared him right in the face.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked. “You’re going to die, aren’t you?”
I paused and allowed myself to come up with the right answer. Something to make him feel better. “Science is making new advances every day. It’s possible I could live forever.” I didn’t want to give him false hope either. “It’s just not very likely.”
“That’s not fair,” he said.
“It’s not, no.”
“What about me? Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know. It’s very possible that you won’t. You’re built from stem cells that can heal themselves. You won’t scar. Your skin is tougher than mine. I don’t know for sure if you’ll die but I do know y
ou can’t be killed.”
“But I can’t live without you,” he said.
“You’re going to have to.” He didn’t have a choice. Perhaps I was just as ignorant as he was. I hadn’t made the connection before. We were giving someone love and forcing them to spend most of their existence with heartache. He didn’t have the ability to love anyone but me—it had been programmed out of him. It was the worst kind of cruelty.
“I have a while,” I continued. “We’ve only been together for a couple of days. I probably have another fifty years of life at least. That’s a long time.” I wasn’t sure how he perceived time. It was possible that he could spend eternity in a moment, or it’s possible that fifty years could fly by in an instant. I had no way of knowing.
“It doesn’t feel long enough.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“We’d better not waste a moment of it.” He leaned forward and kissed me. It was the same kiss as before, perfect in every imaginable way, and I knew I’d be able to have it any time I wanted at any point for the rest of my life.
AIDAn wouldn’t have the same thing. He had to lose me. And I didn’t have a solution. There was no way to fix it, short of curing mortality. And while progress was being made and some eccentric scientists believe we can possibly achieve immortality within our current lifetimes, they’re on the fringe.
No, I had to learn to accept death all over again. Now I had to come to terms with the fact that I was leaving AIDAn alone in life. AIDAn, who had no purpose other than to love me, and would no longer be able to.
I had to take my own advice. Barring some tragedy, I could expect another fifty years on this earth. I had to enjoy them.
Chapter 26
AIDAn
We were both feeling a little sad when we made it back to Jeffrey’s apartment, and I wanted to be closer to him. It made me feel better to be sad by his side. Sad and alone was no way to get through the night.
“Lie down on the bed,” Jeffrey said. “Face down.”
He was a lit candle in a darkened room. The one hint of brightness when everything seemed doomed to failure. The idea that he was with me right now was the only thing keeping my spirits up.