Page 9 of King from the Sky

Chapter Six

“And you are serious?” Laura said as she sipped her café mocha after Emily told her the story about Alex. The girl was addicted to those things. It was all she ever ordered when they had lunch at Starbucks, which happened at least three times a week.

“I know it sounds insane, but for some reason I believe him,” Emily said.

“What? Did he slip you some drugs or something?”

Emily laughed. “No, but there was just something in his eyes. I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“Oh, so that’s it; you got a big crush on the man,” Laura said scarfing down some of her kettle chips.

Emily tried to concentrate on something else for a few minutes but Alex was the only thing that had been on her mind since last night. She had not had a chance to get any real sleep other than the few hours nap she had in those horrid waiting room chairs in the ER and she was feeling a bit frazzled by everything.

She was not sure why she had told Laura about Alex, but it was something that she felt she could not stay quiet about any longer; she had to tell someone or she was surely going to go insane. But she had conveniently left out the part about Alex being some sort of lion shifting creature. That would have given Laura the absolute wrong idea.

“I wouldn’t say I have a crush on him. I just noticed he was unbelievably sexy,” Emily said.

Laura looked at her sharply for several seconds as if she was trying to figure something out.

“What?” Emily asked. “Do I have food on my face or something?”

“No, I was just thinking. The reason you never went totally nuts about a guy is because you wanted a man who was wounded,” Laura said.

“What?” Emily replied.

“That’s it. You like a man just like you love your animals. You need a man who is just like a wounded puppy that you have to nurture and take care of. I totally get this now,” Laura said. “Because there is no other way that a crazy man with a gunshot to his stomach who tells you that he is an alien from outer space could capture your heart like that. I know you haven’t gone completely insane. Or at least I think I do…”

Emily could not stifle the laughter as both girls erupted, drawing some strange looks from the others in the café. When Laura put it that way it sounded so ridiculous. It was absurd. Everything about it was completely outside of her nature and the way she interacted with the world, but there was something about him. When she closed her eyes she was still seeing Alex. There was something about the man that she just could not get over; she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

And maybe it was because he had been wounded and she had a driving nature to take care of wounded and sick people. And she had seen that he was part lion so that might have factored into it in some weird, sick way as well. She just didn’t know what to think anymore.

She was glad that she had told Laura and she was certain that Laura would tell the other girls, but she was not going to mention it to any of them again unless they brought it up first, which of course they would…for the next week or so, every time she saw them. Yeah, she had started that. But it felt good to just get it out in the open and talk to someone about it.

But the feelings were still there. She knew that she wanted to find Alex. If he was still even here… What if he had gone back to his home planet and she never saw him again. She had so many questions she wanted to ask him about the universe. But most importantly she wanted to find out if she and he really fit together as well as they did in her head.

Arrgh! What was she doing? She was pining for a guy she had met for thirty minutes at the most and the encounter was beyond bizarre. Did she really see a meaningful future or relationship with someone like that if she ever did run into him again? She had always prided herself on being much more level-headed than that. She was not one of those girly girls who fell in love right away and wondered if the guy was going to call her and what she was going to say when he did. She just did not care about the social games that people played.

Of course maybe that was why she was single.

That was what her girlfriends had always tried to tell her. She was apparently pushing men that she was involved with away. But she just didn’t see it that way.

But she wanted to find Alex. She needed to find him. Unfortunately, she had no idea where he could be or even the slightest idea on how to find him.

“So, he was really hot you say?” Laura asked.

Emily smiled as she thought about him. “Oh, yeah. He was the hottest guy I’ve seen anywhere around here for a long time.”

“Wow, maybe I need to find out how to get to Mars to meet a guy like that.”

“He isn’t from Mars; he isn’t even from this solar system. I have no idea where his planet Zuha is.”

Emily had not really been listening to the words that were pouring out of her mouth or how insane they sounded. But Laura was.

She was staring at Emily with her mouth open and her eyes wide as saucers as if she had just seen a sweet ghost doing something hilarious behind Emily’s back. It took her a second, but Emily was able to replay her words in her mind and realize how stupid it all sounded.

“Oh, my God. I have to go back to work. I can’t believe where my head has been,” Emily said as she got up to leave.

“You are ok, sweetie. But you got to get the Tarzan from space out of your mind. Space aliens are no good for you!” Laura called as Emily walked away. She looked back and winced with a goofy grin that she could not help. The other patrons were staring, having obviously heard the last remark.