Tomorrow

Tomorrow he’d begin again.

Nyi put down the vidphone still in his hand, the words of the Employment Office echoing in his ears. He got the job, thanks to no one else willing to work with Kephri. Taran Graves, Kephri’s agent was to go over the details at 10am tomorrow morning in his office. The office was on the seventeenth floor of Hunter Central. Finally, tomorrow morning he would see Kephri again, after all these years.

And this time, no matter what it took, he was not letting him go.

He didn’t know what to feel. Relief? Triumph? Or just the same mix of desperation and determination that still kept him going, day after day. Kept him from doing more permanent harm to himself. Couldn’t find Kephri, couldn’t fix everything he had done wrong, if he was dead. Even if sometimes he was so tired he just wanted it all over. No more nightmares, no more insomnia, no more having to mainline coffee just to stay upright some mornings.

Nyi padded into the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror, the feelings of disgust and revulsion at his image old friends come to greet him. He took notice of the dark circles under his eyes, the greasiness of his golden skin, all things that would have to change starting tomorrow. But he was good at hiding now, good at lying, at pretending to be what he was not. He would need to be cheerful, to be snarky and smartass right back at anything Kephri would throw at him. And most of all, patient. Nothing would be fixed in a day, in a week even. Kephri will try to get rid of him, will belittle him, try to leave him behind.

Because he doesn’t know the truth. A truth that Nyi might not ever be able to tell. But he doesn’t need the truth to fix his mistakes. He just needs this one chance. To be in Kephri’s presence again, to be able to talk to him again, maybe even befriend him. Even if it’s only as a stranger. For that was his only salvation.

Tomorrow he’d leave this self-induced purgatory. Tomorrow was the first day in the true life of Nyi Keene.

“Tomorrow.”