Chapter 39 - Working Together (1/2)
Al and I weren't meant to be. What would be the point of telling him the truth?
He wasn't nearly as perceptive as Mariela—I had let so many things slip in front of him, even telling him about doughnuts and hamburgers and he still didn't have a clue.
I was leaving soon anyway. I had no reason to tell Al who I really was. Having one person know was enough.
”No,” I said honestly without divulging the plethora of reasons I had for keeping my silence.
Mariela raised a delicately shaped brow at me. ”Why not? I thought the two of you were close.”
”You already had your suspicions about me so it was easier to accept. I don't think he would believe me,” I replied somewhat truthfully.
That reason was pretty low on my list of Why Not to Tell Al the Truth but it was still a reason. It counted.
”It is pretty farfetched,” she admitted. ”No matter. I want to know everything there is to know about this Arizona. What kind of place produces a person like you? Is everyone there so straightforward in their words and actions?”
”Uh, no, everybody has their own personalities…I'm just like this,” I mumbled, a bit embarrassed.
Even for my world I had always been considered weird. But I couldn't deny that it would be nice talking to someone about home.
”Where should I start?”
Mariela thought about it a moment before a lightbulb practically appeared above her head.
”Oh, I know! Tell me about the political system. You are supposed to be quite the expert, are you not?”
”I wouldn't consider myself an expert…I studied politics at a university.”
Her eyes practically glowed with excitement. ”You mean women can study at universities there?”
”Yeah, most women do. My home is very different from here—women can be doctors, politicians, business owners…most don't get married until after the age of twenty-five and only then if they truly love their partner. I was single and had a job as a librarian at a school.”
Mariela was enthralled by the concept of women's rights from my world so I spent the next thirty minutes talking solely about what women were able to do there.
She was particularly interested in the fact that women could wear pants. When she found that out, she was horrified at the fashion transition I had to go through.
”You went from being able to wear soft, loose pants to having to wear cages for the first time! How horrible that must have been! I have grown used to it since I first wore one when I was about ten years old…” she trailed off sympathetically.
”Of all the places you could have woken up in, you ended up in the worst one for you.”
That just about summed it up. It was so nice having someone understand my struggles that I wanted to cry.
”You have no idea how much of a relief it is to even be able to talk about this,” I said fervently.