The first thing I did when I got back to my room was check my phone for new messages, and Manu didn't disappoint. He didn't send me back a dick pic (thank goodness!) but he did send me a photo of him from the chest up, the same amount of skin I'd been showing, with a wild-eyed grin.

Didn't know we were at the bare-shoulders stage of things, was the attached text.

I had to appreciate the symmetry.

Didn't know we were at the stage-discussing stage of things, I sent back.

The blip arrived just after I finished patting myself down.

You ready to go?

I was very temped to send an explanatory photo instead of the simple reply I actually sent: Just got out of the shower, I'll need fifteen

Right on time, came the response. And then, I'll be there.

I tossed my phone on my bed, opened my drawers, and tried to decide what to wear. I wasn't going to wear the same clothes as the night before, but I didn't have much else that was showy. I wasn't sure why I wanted to be showy, though I'd already been a bit... demonstrative. Plus I'd suggested a drive. I wanted comfy, but not ratty. Warm, too, in case we went outside. Beige short-sleeved button-up blouse, a light blue hooded sweater with a zipper so I could use it just to cover my arms, and some decent but comfortable black slacks over my usual grey boxers. I put on socks to match my blouse and my runners instead of my sandals.

My eyes fell on my desk, on my sketchbook, on the page, on the hole in the page.

I took a deep breath, and another. My sweater had come off without my noticing. I was holding it by the hood. My arms felt like the little hairs on them were burning.

I pushed that feeling down deep, refused it. It was all in my head, after all.
The time had come for all to close the book—

The verse cut itself off as my message app made its now-familiar noise. Manu had arrived, I assumed. I wanted to go.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to invite him up and show him the fire and read poetry to him.

I closed my eyes, ran my fingers over the material of my sweater. It felt like flame. I didn't know any other way to describe it. It wasn't hot, it just had the tactile sensation of fire.

I don't know, it didn't make sense to me either.

I was at the door, phone in hand. It felt like I'd been standing there for an hour, like I'd left him waiting. I checked. He'd texted me thirty seconds before.

Be right down, I replied. I grabbed my purse and I was out the door.

No one in the lounge; it was almost lunch, so those that were still around were probably getting dressed. Breakfast in your nightclothes was fine, but no one would go to lunch like that. I passed a couple other residents on my way down the stairs, and headed out the door in a rush.

Manu was standing outside his blue... whatever it was. I knew nothing about cars. I could drive them, but that was about it. But I couldn't tell the colour of it at night. Or how rough it looked. It was obviously a few years old, and had been driven a lot.

He smiled, seeing me, and opened the passenger door.

"Oh, I get to sit in the front today?" I joked.

"I could let you in the back if you prefer," he replied.

I didn't answer, just got in, set my purse by my feet and put my sweater beside me on the seat, and buckled myself in as Manu closed the door. I slipped my phone into my purse as he got in the other side with practised ease.

"Where are we going?" he asked, putting the key in the ignition.

"Hm, what are the options?"

He started driving. "I have a full tank of gas and a clear schedule. We could go halfway to the coast if you want."

"That might be a little far, considering we just met."

"Yeah, that's true, it gets a bit isolated out there, and I don't know if you're an axe murderer or something."

I giggled. "Lunch first? I wouldn't mind a cheap drive-thru burger."

He affected a British accent. "Madam, I happen to know just the place for the best cheap drive-thru burgers."

"Ah, good." I sighed and let him drive for a bit. "Zeyla sends her thanks, by the way. I saw her this morning, she doesn't remember much from last night except that we were there."

He nodded. "Yeah, that tracks. Was happy to help, my sister had that happen to her, too. The outcome was... less pleasant. She's fine now," he added, maybe a bit quickly. "But she was pretty messed up for a while."

"Yeah, not the first story I've heard. I hope it got reported."

"More pleasant topic?"

"Please!" I smiled.

"How's your first couple weeks of your last year?"

I paused. "I'm... not sure that that's an entirely more pleasant topic," I said.

"Oh yeah? Wanna talk about something else?"

"No, actually." I bit my lip. "Just... let me eat something first? I don't want to be interrupted, and it's a whole big weird story, and I just kinda wanna vent to someone who might decide never to see me again and won't look at me funny every time we pass in the hallway, you know?"

"Oh, I'm sure it's not that weird."

"Drive-you-away weird? I think it could be."

"Pretty big assumption."

"It's pretty big weird."

"Alright, after lunch. Until then?"

"Uh... last relationship?" I shrugged.

"Susannah. Nice girl in a virology class I was taking. She moved, though, and I wasn't ready to, we were only together a couple months, so we broke off on good terms in April. You?"

"Terry. Two years ago, uh, about this time. He came out."

"Gay?"

"Yeah."

"Ouch."

I shrugged again. "Nothing we could do about it. Shame, though, he was a great kisser."

"Maybe I'll give him a run for his money," Manu said suggestively.

"Oh, you know, I dunno," I replied, teasing. "Once you've sucked face with a gay guy, it's kinda hard to go back."

He laughed. "Don't I know it," he said, turning into a fast food parking lot.

"Oh?" I looked at him. "College experimentation?"

"Nah. Just very, very pansexual."

"Oh, cool. Uh, you don't mind that I'm very, very straight?"

He pulled into the drive-thru lane, three cars from the order box. "When you're surrounded by all those cute college girls? Seems a bit of a waste."

I sighed overdramatically. "You go to a couple all-girl pool parties and it kind of tells you for sure, you know?"

We laughed together as the line moved. "What do you want? On me."

"You don't have to treat," I said.

"I want to. We can talk about the next one, but it sounds like you deserve this. Besides which," he continued, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, "at least this way if things are too weird for me, I can say I bought you lunch."

I snickered. "I don't understand that reasoning, but I'm not gonna argue. Single cheeseburger, no mustard, barbecue sauce instead of ketchup, small fries and lemon-lime."

"You're getting mediums, because that's what comes with the meal deal," he replied.

"Who am I to argue?"

The cars shifted and we made it to the intercom. He ordered the same thing I did. I looked at him, questioning.

It was his turn to shrug. "Hey, it's easier to ask for two of the same thing, plus it sounds good."

Nerves lit up as the food got handed through the window, and the smell hit me. Not just hunger. A mild, undeniable terror that came with the realization that I was about to confess everything that I'd been going through to a relative stranger. I shifted uncomfortably. There was that feeling again, of flames on my arms, on my chest, but there was no way, no realistic way to strip down. It was too public. I wasn't ready to just start throwing clothes away, especially because that would leave my breasts exposed.

I wondered what that was all about, as I held the two bags of food.

"Go ahead," Manu said, driving back out to the street. "I know a good spot to sit and eat. Nice view, quiet, but still public."

"In case I'm an axe murderer."

"Right."

"I'll wait until we get where we're going. If I start now, I'll finish before you." I blinked. "What the fuck did I just say?" I asked, face going red.

Manu laughed. "I wasn't going to mention it."

"You're too kind."

I didn't slink down in the passenger seat, but I sure wanted to.

True to his word, Manu brought us to a private parking lot for an apartment building, up a hill, overlooking the highway and a couple greenspaces. "It's not quite so impressive during the day," he said half apologetically. "And it's really great in the winter, with lights glowing and such."

I got out of the car to take a closer look. "I can imagine."

Manu followed, and I handed him one of the bags of food. "This isn't my apartment, I just like this spot," he said. "No one's ever bugged me for taking up their parking."

"It's a good spot," I agreed, pulling my fries out from the bag.

"Good company, too."

"Definitely."

Every french fry was one bite closer to confession. Manu stood near, but not too close, and started in on his burger.

"I left the drinks in the car," I realized aloud, mostly because my mouth was dry.

"I'm fine, want me to get yours?"

I considered refusing. "Please," I said instead.

Manu went back into the car, and I took out my burger and steeled myself to tell my story.

We stood there in silence a while, using the hood of the car as a table, as much as we could, just looking down at the cars driving by and eating food that was probably really bad for us. I had to deal with the paradox of wanting to delay talking by eating slowly, and wanting to eat my food while it was still hot. The breeze was a bit chilly on my arms, but my sweater was back in the car, and Manu had already gone back once, so I suffered. Besides, it was a nice break from the unnatural warmth.

"So," Manu said as I took a sip from my drink, after my burger had been finished. "Been weird."

I swallowed, and nodded. "Very. And... uh, like I said, I just really... I want to..." I trailed off into silence, embarrassed, then took a breath and started again. "Y'know, I study words, and the best ways to use them to get ideas across, and suddenly I'm just so fucking tongue-tied."

"Okay," Manu said. "What can I do to help?"

I thought for a moment. "Drive? Just... anywhere. Uh, that you're not worried about being axe-murdered."

"Yeah, gladly."

We started to get into the car, and then I paused again. Seeing my hesitation, Manu also stopped halfway into and out of the car.

"Um... Different idea," I said, "and, um, please don't read into this, but, um..." I pulled myself into his car, and he did the same. "Can we... go to your place?"

Manu coughed. "Huh. Yeah, I... we can, if you want."

"I'm not trying to jump into bed with you, I just... I want something solid under my feet, and I want to be in a place where we won't be disturbed, and... Ugh, maybe you should just take me home."

"Is that what you—"

"No!" I almost shouted. "No, sorry, no, I'm just... everything is wrong and weird in my life and what I want is to sit down with you and go over every damn thing and get your opinion in a place where we can focus and you can listen and then you can tell me if I'm absolutely out of my fucking mind and maybe offer me some advice or..."

Manu started the car without saying anything, but I could tell he was still listening.

"I don't know, I really don't. But that's what feels right."

The fire inside me agreed.

Manu nodded. "Okay. Sure. Um, feel free to change your mind any time, from here to there, or even once we're inside. I'm not taking this as any sort of obligation or invitation to anything but listening to your story."

There was something unsaid there, and I could feel it in the heat in my mind. He wasn't taking my request as an invitation, sure, but he was offering me one, not just to a listening ear, but to anything, possibly everything more I might be interested in.

I didn't say anything at all for most of the drive, and neither did he. My body quivered, though, hopefully in a way that wasn't noticeable.

As we pulled into a different apartment parking lot, I smiled a bit. "I promise you, this isn't just a prelude to fucking you."

He laughed. "If that's what you want, you don't have to pretend." His words were offhand, and genuine.

I flushed. "Or to axe-murder."

"Well, that's a relief, anyway. I don't know where you'd hide an axe, though, and I don't own one."

He pulled into a parking spot and led me inside. He paused for a moment at the elevator door, and then just breezed past it. "I'm on the sixth floor, I hope that's alright."

Shit, I thought. "That'll be fine." He opened the door to the dingy stairwell, and I said, "You can take the elevator, if you like."

He shook his head. "Not a chance. I need the exercise, anyway."

I didn't comment. We started climbing in silence. We paused to catch our breaths after the third and fifth floors, and didn't walk the final set of stairs all that quickly. In the sixth-floor hallway, four doors down, right near the elevator, Manu paused and unlocked a door, then held it open for me.

"Thank you," I said, automatically taking my shoes off. His apartment was an open-concept single-room affair, except for the small bathroom right by the door which was partitioned off, thankfully. It was sparse, but not empty; a computer desk with a laptop sat by one window, two couches pointed at a television, there was a fairly new dining table near the kitchen with a pair of chairs, and off in one corner was, I suppose, a functional bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, a wardrobe, and a set of drawers. The place was well-kept, though both the coffee table in the living room and the dining table were half-covered in papers. A few bookshelves rested against the walls, full to overflowing with what looked to be books on science and math.

The door closed behind me, and I took a few steps forward to give Manu some space. "I like it," I said.

"Great," he replied. "Not much, but it's what I have. Can I make some tea?"

"Hm, no thank you," I said, "not yet. At least, not for me, you go ahead."

"Nah, I'll have some when you want some. So, um, where would you like to sit?"

I pointed to the dining table questioningly.

"Sure, come on in. I'll clean it off."

"You don't have to," I said, but it was too late, and an armload of papers made their way over to the living room.

"Needs to be done anyway."

"Sure but now you need to organize those papers."

He laughed. "Story of my life. It's fine." He sat down opposite me at the small table. "So. Weird."

"Okay, yeah. Um. Where to start?" I hesitated.

Manu smiled. "I could ask questions, if that helps?"

"Oh, that sounds useful, yeah."

"Well, sure, could you tell me about the poem you sent me? It seemed a bit early to start sending poetry, although it's a beautiful lit—"

I lifted a hand to cut him off. "I didn't mean to send it to you," I admitted. "I thought I was on my notepad, I didn't know I'd sent it until you replied."

"It's still a privilege, it's a fantastic poem. Really speaks to me."

I nodded. "That's just it, though. That's just part of the weirdness. That's a mistake I have literally never made, and I'm an English student, you know I'm using 'literally' properly. At no point have I even been close to mixing up my messenger with my notepad."

"Is this where you say that you were so taken with me that it's messed you up?"

"Hah! I wish. You're fantastic and you're ... I mean, you're part of all this weirdness, given how we met and what all happened yesterday and that I'm, uh, here, now. No, I mean in general I'm messed up. I'm being... I dunno, haunted? And since I don't believe in ghosts..." I shrugged.

And I started talking.

About everything.

I told him the whole story, uninterrupted. About Rita and her new family, about the fire in her eyes, the fire in my dreams, flying, the choir, meeting Regina, the start of classes, the way the music Zeyla was listening to just brought me up short, the hours-long search for Tempest, missing dinner... Right up until he fell straight into my lap.

"And from there..." I shrugged. "Here we are."

Manu sat there for a moment, processing. He looked good, actually, thinking like that. Not that he didn't look good at other times. He looked like he was nibbling the inside of his cheek or something. What he didn't look like, was about to throw me out.

"One sec," he said, getting up. "I need to take some notes."

He came back with a pad of paper and a pen. First he very quickly drew two almost-perpendicular lines, and at the top, wrote 'True' and 'False,' and on the side, 'Internal,' and 'External.'

"Okay. Either this whole thing is real, or made up—no judgment, not yet, just working out my thoughts—and it's either coming from inside you or from outside of you, make sense?"

I nodded.

"I just want to work on the possibility field we're working with," he continued.

"Science person doing science, got it."

He smiled. "Yup. It's what I do." He looked down at the page. "Okay, worst-case scenario: this thing isn't happening at all, and you're just lying."

I almost held my breath, and pushed down the offence I felt. He was doing science. I understood, intellectually, even if emotionally I growled at the implied insult.

He wrote down the word 'lying.' "Also possible." His pen moved to the 'external' row. "It's not actually happening, but it's being caused to you."

I blinked. "What?"

"Hypnotism? Gaslighting? Drugs? Weird CIA experiment?" He shrugged. "Not really likely, but I'm not worried about likely so much as possible."

"So, like, if someone spiked my food?"

"Yeah, slipped you a hit of LSD or mushrooms or something and then guided your experience into these weird images and fantasies. Forgive the biochemist the idea of biochemistry."

Again, I bristled at the idea that what was happening were images or fantasies, before I thought about how he'd worded that. 'These,' in that sentence, wasn't specifically about my experience, but said in the same way that I might have said, I met these three guys.

"So then, the assumption that this is something that's going on." His pen hovered over the 'true/internal' quadrant.

"I don't like where this is probably going," I said.

He nodded. "Just considering what's possible, not what's probable," he reminded me and, I think, himself. Then he wrote one word. Hallucination.

"Yeah, I didn't think I'd like that," I said.

"Hey, I don't mean to offend. I'm just noting that it's possible that something's gone wrong with the wiring in your mind and you're seeing and hearing things that aren't there."

I nodded. "I get it. Honestly, I'm not happy with any of those possibilities."

"Yep. Me too. But, this is my process. You told me about yours, you get to see mine." He tapped the point of the pen in the final quadrant. "So. What if you're not lying to me, and you're not being manipulated, and you're experiencing external phenomena."

"Well then I guess everything I've told you is real." I couldn't keep a little annoyance from creeping into my voice.

"That's just it, though. I'm trying to come up with any other possibility for this little square and I really can't. If we're in this realm..." He sighed. "You understand that I've spent the last ten years of my life, probably more, sure that everything in the world can be explained by science, right?"

"Okay, yeah, I guess how I could see a personal experience of..." I hesitated, trying to think of a good term. "A personal experience of the supernatural that you can't disprove would be—"

He interrupted me while lifting his hand. "It's not about disproving, or even explaining it away. It's just that I'd like other possibilities in that space. Anyway, going along with that, we could look at possible meanings for—"

"What the choir said to me?"

"Yep."

"Okay."

"Not just that, though, right? I mean, I'm no psychologist or anything, but maybe there's something we can figure out about your dreams."

"Okay," I said again. I was calming down a little. I hadn't realized how agitated I'd actually been.

"But!" he continued, as if he'd just had a revelation. "Some of this is testable."

I blinked. "Yeah?"

"Okay, yes, sure, some of it is testable in ways that we'd need a doctor's help, like antipsychotic meds or a brain scanner or something, but I have everything I need right here to cook up a little drug-free mad science."

I gave him an arch little smile. "Isn't it a little early for us to be getting into mad science?"

He laughed. "Not really first-date material, huh."

"Fortunately," I said, standing up and walking around the small table, "our first date was last night. This is our second."

We looked at each other, eye to eye, me standing over him as he sat there. We smiled at each other.

"You've been really kind to put up with me," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, it's no kindness. You're fascinating, funny, interesting, creative..." he put his hand on my waist. "Cute as anything..."

"Before mad science, then." I said.

"Yeah?"

I got very, very close to him. "A first kiss."

His arm slipped around my back, his hand made contact with my skin where my shirt had ridden up with my leaning down. My body felt on fire, a feeling which was only too familiar, but it was an inviting flame, an intentional warmth that confirmed what I was doing was right. Right for me, anyway.

The two of us held our position for a moment. "This is fast," he said. His breath smelled salty and sweet, like french fries and lemon-lime soda. Mine must have been the same.

I nodded. "Don't care, do you?"

"If anything, I'd like it to be faster."

Nerves and heat mixed inside me. I wanted to move. I didn't want to move. I wanted to stand there forever with his thumb resting on my vertebra and just turn to stone with him
and stay and stay
to be found a million years later
beautiful frozen and—

I started. "I'm..."

The moment half-broke. "That was amazing," he said.

"I didn't even notice that..."

We held our position. We held each other's gaze.

I was trembling. And I knew he could feel it.

"If I don't kiss you," I said, "I'm going to start reciting poetry again."

"That's a hard choice," he replied, and I could tell he was sincere.

I took a deep breath, leaned in, and my lips met his, and the moment was perfect.

There were three, four, maybe five slow, gentle, exploratory kisses.

His hand, very naturally, climbed a little higher under my shirt, or my shirt climbed a little and pulled his hand up.

My whole body was full of that flame. I couldn't breathe, but I did, somehow, and heat filled my lungs.

He looked at me in awe. "I may have to reassess my previous statement about gay men."

"Me too," I said.

We laughed, and the tension faded a little, but not the fire in my body. My skin was screaming at me that I was just wearing too much.

"You got this look," he said.

"Huh?"

"I mean, you've had like five different looks since you stepped up here. Right now you're all flushed and beautiful and I'm amazed at how much your skin can change colour." He grinned a bit. "Chameleon."

I snickered. "Yeah, it's part of my Irish charm, I guess."

"But yeah. I could tell when you were thinking of poetry, and then you started talking, and your voice got low and smooth..."

Like his was, right then.

"Uh huh?"

"It was... there was something magical about it. Like the poem you sent me earlier."

"Magical?" I grinned. "Wasn't expecting that from a scientist."

We still hadn't moved.

"This scientist wasn't expecting magic," he said, and he still sounded sincere.

Again every instinct in my body, I said, "I want to know what you're feeling."

He didn't hesitate. "Like the only thing I was to do right now is look in your eyes. Like if I move I'm going to break whatever spell you're weaving. Like I wish I was a poet like you so I could better explain myself."

The words came out this time with no hesitation, and almost no thought.
The fire consuming
Ignited between us
Left no space
For thought and
Lit time itself
For ever ablaze
So the moment 
Would never end

He shuddered and pulled me forcefully into a deeper kiss, and to say that I didn't resist it would be wild understatement. Our tongues danced around each other in flaming choreography, a tango of taste-buds, a salsa in saliva, a lip larakaraka. I pulled him to his feet and our kiss continued, and we swept into an impromptu ballet—probably just a step or two, but it felt like I was flying across the kitchen. I couldn't feel anything but flame and him. Fire and him.

When we separated I was honestly surprised that my clothes hadn't disintegrated to ash.

He landed with his back against the fridge, breathing heavily. "Fast," he managed to puff out.

"Too fast?" I asked, realizing that I was just as out of breath, but still stepping closer.

He shook his head. There was a look in his eyes like the sun, and on his face like confusion, and in his body like fear.

My hands planted themselves on either side of his chest, beneath his armpits. I felt like I was a foot taller than he was, not like I came up to his nose.

"Stop me if you want me to stop," I said, and it wasn't a threat.

"I will," he said, and it was a promise.

Without waiting for more, I kissed him again, and felt the back of his head hitting the freezer. I hadn't pushed hard, so he wasn't hurt, but he was contained. My body pressed him back, flattened him, held him prisoner, in a prison he had asked me to build for him.

He tasted like himself, like his confusion, his fear, his sun shining through hints of potato and beef and sugar and barbecue sauce, and the closer I got, the more the summer reached my throat, its heat suppressing, not building, the fire in my veins, converting wild flame to gentle, calm, directed purpose.

I was cold with passion. Ablaze with ice. I nibbled on his chin and felt him shiver with it. My hands were under his shirt, then, to cool his sweating, feverish skin. I paused and looked at him.

He nodded, shifting a little away from the fridge to gain space and to give me room for what I was suggesting. "Chameleon," he said, smiling.

I lifted his shirt straight up over his head, his arms rising with my movement. He looked... normal. A bit of a gut, broad in the shoulders, soft and cuddlable. I found it a touch odd and endearing that his nipples didn't quite line up horizontally.
Against the wall I held him
Bare and unafraid
My hands like ice felt him
Together strayed

The words tumbled from me almost thoughtlessly, but they shattered Manu. I watched his expression collapse into something else entirely, something I couldn't read but that I could feel in my skin. He seemed to be waiting for something, and I thought that if I left him there, at that moment, he might wait for an eternity.

"I'm going to take off my top," I said.

"Do you..." he breathed. "Are you sure?"

I didn't answer, I just did as I said, and then pressed my bare chest against his.

He moaned. I didn't kiss him, or touch him beyond that, I didn't say anything, just held myself against him, against the fridge, and felt our cold and heat together.

And we just... stood there.

Frozen in flame, burning in snow.

I didn't know how long.

We just breathed together.

Until I put my head on his chest, and listened to his rapid heartbeat. It felt like music, like poetry.

"Thank you," I whispered, and the breath he released echoed through my mind.

"Enough for now?" he asked. He seemed hesitant to do anything at all.

"Hold me," I said, and he did, and I held him as well, and we stepped away from the fridge and both topless just stood there in his kitchen in a warm embrace.

I looked up. He looked down.

"I think I'm ready for a little mad science," I said, smirking.

"I don't know that it could be as intense as that," he replied.

My smile just got a little brighter, as did his. "We'll see."