~ Luca ~

The streets here were smoother. Nothing like Los Angeles. As Luca coasted past the suburban homes, he found himself already longing for LA with its concrete beaches and crowded boulevards. The overpopulated air gave him a steady background to lock onto. Here, it was too quiet. Too many gaps in his vision.

He used his foot to propel himself faster. His skateboard sent out a gravelly roar and for a moment, his sight cleared.

Luca had every intention of obeying his parents that morning. He was supposed to be on his way to the high school, but they never said he wasn't allowed to take the long way there. Who knew how many secret doorways this sleepy neighborhood was hiding?

But after skating around for about an hour, the only lights he could see were predictable and nothing new. Stuffing his hands in his denim shorts, he coasted down a hill.

He was going pretty fast. Enough to feel a wind tunnel throw back his thick, pink curls. His skateboard threatened to catch too much air. Someone on the sidewalk shouted at him to slow down.

Luca yawned out of boredom.

That was when beads of technicolor began to abruptly sparkle in his periphery. It was enough to make him bend his knees and turn down the street that curled around the new source of the light.

Luca came to a stop and scrutinized the area. A heady aromatic cocktail of caffeine, condensed milk and warm dough emanated from it. From what he could tell, there weren't a lot of people in the building. So what was up with all of the offworld activity?

Luca hitched his skateboard off the ground and went to investigate the shop.

It turned out to be a gold mine.

He had never seen anything like this before. An actual menagerie....

Was that the word for it? But really, who cared? There were just a lot of damn animals.

A giraffe, miniature and green, drifted past his shoulder. Luca watched it stride across the air as if it wandered an invisible, vast serengeti.

He couldn't help but laugh. Who else knew? The owner had to. The few customers present were completely ignorant of what was going on right under their noses.

Luca had so many questions and no clue where to start.

How about you buy a drink first. Duh.

Luca came face to face with the barista, who he suspected was annoyed with him for taking so long. He was going to ask if they had any recommendations, but stopped short when he saw their light.

"Whoa."

It was knotted, swollen and buried deep, as if they had swallowed a fallen star. The subtle smell of lip balm layered over maple syrup made him assume that the star catcher was a girl. He waited for her to say something to confirm his suspicions, but she didn't say a single word. Her light, however, rotated faster and faster, generating a circuitry of lights throughout the rest of her.

A constellation blossomed just under her eyes and Luca was sure that it was the most spectacular thing he had ever seen.

"You're glowing."

Seconds later, the girl was gone. Her coworkers fell into a brief state of confusion. One of them managed to get him an order of the daily special.

Later, when Luca was sitting alone with his drink, taking in the cafe's unique phenomena, another waiter approached him.

"Hey."

Luca wasn't sure if the guy was talking to him or one of the customers nearby.

"Asshole."

Yep, definitely him.

He turned and opened his eyes wide. He heard somewhere that it made you look innocent and confused.

"Did you say something rude to that barista earlier?"

Luca shifted his eyes to the left first, then to the right. "Uh, I don't think so."

Usually, Luca tried to be truthful where he could, but this guy didn't even react to the miniature tiger that was hitching a ride on his shoulder. How could he begin to understand the idea of a digested fallen star —

"Look, whatever you've got to say to her, just keep it to yourself from now on."

He stalked off before Luca could get a word in. The tiny tigers that floated by his ear roared their tiny indignant roars at Luca before following the grumpy waiter back to the register.

Fine by me, Luca thought. Now he didn't have to explain anything. The hard part was hearing the baristas talk about him like he wasn't there. There was, unfortunately, no way they could know that his ears worked so well.

"Michael, chill." The voice of an even tempered twenty-something. "You can't say that to customers, dude."

"The guy's a freak." Tiger guy. Michael. "He said something really fucked up to Blaire. Why else would she take off like that?"

"Maybe she had a feminine emergency." A girl. "It happens, you know."

"Yeah, man." A mouth-breather. "Like, what if she's pregnant?"

"Shut up, Gus."

"Shut up, Gus!"

"Gus, shut the fuck up."

Luca wanted to laugh, but he knew it would have drawn some very unwanted attention. It might even get him kicked out of the cafe for good this time. That's happened to him before. More than once.

New city, new leaf.

Luca drank the weekly special – jasmine milk tea judging by the taste – and kept his mouth shut. When he was done, he decided that was enough excitement for the day. It was time to go make his parents happy.

Luca skateboarded to his new school and asked the front desk where all of his teachers were located. Then he asked someone if they could show him since it was a big building and he didn't want to risk getting lost.

He stopped by to see all his teachers. Only one of them had gone home early. He told the ones he met the same thing.

"Hey. Name's Lucas. Don't call me Luke. Ever."

They usually said something like "Okay. Nice to meet you, Lucas. So you're new to the area? Do you have any questions about the class?"

To which he then replied, "Uh no. I just stopped by to be, like, transparent or whatever."

"Oh. That's good. I'm glad you're letting me know early on. What is it that you struggle with?"

Shit. This is where things got a little awkward. Not always, but it happened more often than he liked.

"Oh no. I'm actually pretty decent in this subject. It's about my disability."

They paused. They always pause. Because it's the moment when they try to figure him out.

Luca decided to save them the trouble. He cut right to the chase. "I was born blind."

Once again, he could feel their growing confusion. He could hear them thinking, But kid, you don't look blind. You literally rode here on a skateboard –

Luca went on, "I can handle big stuff as long as it's close enough to me. Shapes of buildings. Outlines of people. Stuff like that."

He didn't explain how he was able to get a read on these things. It was a rare adaptation and people almost never believed him whenever he went into detail.

"It just takes me longer to do my work and stuff. I do everything at home because I don't want my peers to treat me differently if they see me reading braille and stuff."

That at least was something no one questioned.

"So then, your peers are not aware of your condition?" The teachers would ask. "Are you sure that's what you want, Lucas?"

Luca didn't hesitate.

"Yeah. I want to keep it that way."

Some of the teachers were cool about it. The ones who weren't tried to not let it show.

"Things are just easier that way," Luca said. "In the past, my teachers thought I was being lazy or disrespectful if I wasn't working on their stuff at the same time as everybody else."

The English teacher, who Luca visited last, was the only one who asked, "I hope you're not opposed to verbal discussions around the reading material."

He shrugged. "Depends on the material."

The teacher chuckled. "I think you're going to fit in here just fine, Lucas."

On his way out, the lady at the front desk asked if he had signed up with the new student mentor program. Luca lied and said yes, but then she said, "Hmm. Lucas Brighton . . . I don't see your name anywhere on here. I'll add you to the list."

Great, just what he needed – some dork there to chaperone him around all day, helping him "make friends" and "learn the ropes" of high school.

"Ma'am, I'm a senior. I'll be okay, really."

"Oh, it's no problem. We do it for all the new students. Besides, it's only for a week."

Lucas forced himself to smile. "Thank you."

A week?

"You're welcome, sweetheart. See you tomorrow."

An entire week. No personal space. He could always skip...

No. Remember. New city. New leaf.

Luca Brighton repeated the mantra to himself as he skateboarded home.