Sarada: Prologue

            I stood fifty feet above the ground clutching the metal railing, engulfed in the August sunset. Every fiber of my body rang with the shame and guilt of the past bubbling up from within. Yet, I couldn't face the truth. It was too painful. What a coward I was.

            Though I could feel his gaze burning a hole into the back of my head, though my fingers were going numb against the metal railing, I couldn't even take one second to turn around and acknowledge his presence. Instead, I stared with tear-stained eyes, at the shimmering Atlanta skyline awash in an unforgiving orange glare.

            He pretended to cough behind me.

            I did not stir.                         

            He coughed louder.

            My knees buckled; I almost refused to believe he was there.

            “Excuse me,” he said behind me, “Don’t we know each other?”

            “Um…” I said stupidly, looking away. Why was he playing this game? Of course we knew each other. He recognized me as soon as I entered the room. He even knew that I recognized him. That’s why he followed me out to the balcony.

            “Yeah, we went to high school together, right?”

            I was glad the unrelenting sunset was there to hide my scarlet blush.

            “I’m Freddie, by the way, in case you forgot.”

            “How could I forget?” I asked in a small voice.

            “So how are you doing? What have you been up to these past ten years?”

            I wished badly that someone would join us on the balcony or that I would be whisked away into the party by the birthday girl. But no one came. Just the two of us. I had been equally dreaming and dreading this moment for ten years, carefully planning my rational responses. But now as we stood side by side suspended fifty feet above the ground, not exactly on earth, not exactly in air, all I wanted to do was jump.