I shimmy up a tree in front of her house and then softly scrabble onto the roof and crawl to her window. I softly knock. She's on the computer. She turns around at the noise and an expression of shock turns to a grin as she rushes over to meet me. She opens the window. "What are you doing out there you goofball?" She smiles, but then stops once she sees I'm not.
"What's up?" she says.
"I need to talk to you." I say quietly. "And no one can hear us." I glance over at the door.
"Yeah," she says softly. "No problem." She quickly moves across the room and clicks the lock.
"What's going on, Emmy?" she says, sitting down on the bed with me.
I try to put what's happening to me in words.
"Ever since I was little," I begin, "something in the world has always seemed…wrong. Like everyone else seemed happy and only I could tell that the world was backward or messed up or something. I get this feeling like…like there's something better out there. Maybe not better, but at least realer. The world had always turned its nose up at me. And the few blessings I have…well, I'm always afraid of losing them to this weird feeling."
I hold her hand tightly.
"And I finally found out Sherin," I say, staring into her eyes, "That I wasn't wrong."
Sherin looks at me. I can tell she's confused, so I continue.
"You know Trinity? The famous hacker?" I say slowly.
"Yeah." She says, with a half smile. "You talk about him all the time."
"That's the thing Sherin. The amazing thing. I met her today."
"Trinity?" Sherin says, her eyes widening. "How? Where?"
"The other day, she hacked onto my computer, and basically told me my life story, like she knew about me somehow, better than I knew myself. And she told me she had answers," I say, my voice now heightening with excitement. "So today, I met her."
"Where?" Sherin gasps.
"In Sacred Heart. You know, down the block?"
She nods, and I relay the story of the confessional booth to her, and then I tell her about meeting Trinity downtown.
"Wow." Is all Sherin can say. She takes my hand. "Why didn't you tell me about this before? About how you see the world?"
"I didn't want to bother you with that." I say gently. "When I'm with you…It's like it's the only time when I'm not thinking about how strange and wrong the world feels."
She smiles. "I love you." She breathes, and I kiss her gently.
"I've got to get home." I say. "My parents don't know I'm gone."
"Alright." She says, "See you later."
I wave as I back out the window.
I slide down the shingles of her roof and then jump into the soft grass below. I wrap my jacket around me and dash to my house. While I'm still pretty short, I can run fast when I need to.
