11 011

The wind picked up, showering us with an icy seaspray that I tasted, salty, on my lips. I felt paralysed, pulled in two directions at once with no way out. The logical part of my brain was telling me that I couldn't agree to date a guy - and an alien - I'd only known for two days. There was too much I didn't know about him, too much complication. It would be a bad bet, and I was sure I'd lose in the end.

But the other part of me, the part that tingled at his touch and felt like it could drown in his eyes, wanted in. Sure, I'd had boyfriends before, but this was different. It was like a compulsion. Even against my own reasoning, I still couldn't shake the urgent need to be close to him. I was inexplicably drawn to him, and he, despite having seen the raw, ugly inside of my soul, still wanted me. I was terrified that if I allowed logic to take over and said no, that I'd never get another chance like this in my life. That if I didn't dive in now, I would live with the regret for the rest of my life. Buddy's eyes were still locked on mine, each of us searching desperately for the answer. I opened my mouth, unsure of what I was going to say until the words came out.

"Okay." I said it quietly, as if I was too unsure to say it with any more volume or conviction. I watched Buddy's eyes widen momentarily before I added, "But, we need to take it slow. I barely know you and... there's a lot we need to sort out before we can go public."

Buddy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," I said, smiling at him, still in disbelief at what I'd just done, "that we need to have a story to tell people when they start asking where my boyfriend is from."

A smile spread across his face. He looked like a kid who just opened the best Christmas present ever. He reached out suddenly, wrapping me in his arms and pulling me in tight against his chest. After a moment of surprise, I relaxed into the embrace, putting my arms around his waist, breathing in his scent. I felt safe there. We stood like that for a few moments, until Buddy broke the silence.

"I guess," he said, talking into my hair, "that we had better come up with that story."

We broke apart and started walking along the beach again. The sun was setting in earnest now, and the evening was washed in deep oranges, pinks and purples. I was on a high, feeling free and alive and capable of anything.

"First thing: you need a name." I took my phone out of my pocket to start taking notes.

"I have a name."

"I know, but you need a real one. Buddy is more like a nickname."

"I like it. You gave it to me."

I laughed. "You really are the sentimental type, aren't you?" I thought for a moment. "We can still call you Buddy. A lot of people prefer to be called by their nicknames. But you do need a full name in case anyone asks."

I studied him, trying again to make out what kind of ethnicity his features looked like.

"Let's say your surname is something really generic like Lee. Do you have any preferences for your first name?"

"Maybe Daniel?" He suggested.

"Nice. Common, basic. Right, so you're Daniel Lee, but everyone calls you Buddy. Age? Date of birth?"

"Same age as you." He said.

I grinned and wrote down a date of birth a few months before mine, then deleted it and made it a few months later. After all, he was only a few days old at the moment.

We kept walking and talking, writing out a brief and basic biography for him. We eventually decided that his father's side was Chinese, and his mother's side was English.

I explained apologetically that in Cobbett, unless you looked like the average English settler next door, you'd always get asked about your ethnicity. We agreed that he'd moved down here to get away from the city, and, keeping partly to the truth, that we'd met at the gallery through my work, but we decided to pretend we'd first met a few months back. I didn't want Lena knowing I was dating someone I'd known less than a week.

"Okay. All the basics are sorted, but there are still a lot of practical problems. You don't have any kind of ID. Without ID you can't work, get a phone, rent a place..." I rubbed my hand over my face, my head beginning to ache at the thought. "I have no idea how to work that one."

Buddy frowned too, thinking hard.

"It was much easier being a beetle," he said finally, his brow still creased.

Laughter burst out of me, though I realised he hadn't been trying to be funny. After a confused moment, he smiled and chuckled too, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.

"By the way, you never told me what other species you've been. Or how many other species you've been. Or how old you really are," I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I never really kept count," he replied. "I've been many different species, but always animals. Usually..." he looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. "Usually insects, to be honest. Spiders, ants, beetles, moths... They're the main ones. But I've been a fox, a rabbit many times, a possum, many different birds..." He trailed off. My eyes were wide. "We don't really mark age, or the passing of time. It was just never something of importance to us. I couldn't even estimate my age for you. I had no concept of age until two days ago."

He shrugged. "And anyway, all that time, all those other lives... they haven't given me any human maturity. All of them were lived by the instincts and nature of an animal. They didn't exactly prepare me for being human."

We walked in silence for a minute. I was trying to process all of this, and trying to work out why something was squirming uncomfortably in my gut. Something had raised a red flag, but I couldn't pin it down, couldn't quite locate it in the swirling contents of my brain. I shrugged it off eventually, figuring I was just reeling from the alienness of his revelation. That thought prompted another question.

"So your species - the Family, you called it - are you from Earth? Or from... you know. Someplace else? Another planet or something?" It still felt strange to speak so casually about such bizarre things.

"I couldn't say," Buddy responded, head tilted quizzically. "I have no memory of being anywhere other than this place, but that's not to say we couldn't have come from somewhere else. When in our light form, we travel as light, at the speed of light. It would be entirely possible for me to travel into space, and to other planets... But I think we are here because there is life here. Life is what we are drawn to. It's our purpose," He stopped abruptly, almost mid sentence, and stopped walking at the same time. I paused, and was about to ask what he meant when he looked at me and grinned.

"Can we get dinner together tonight?"

"Ah, that..." I said, thinking. I couldn't afford to eat out tonight, but if I took him home for dinner, he'd have to meet Lena. I weighed up my options quickly. He'd changed immensely in the last day, becoming exponentially more human. It was a risk, but we had to try. "Okay, but you need to come grocery shopping first. We need to buy some ingredients."

We turned around and started walking back toward the car. I hadn't realised how late it had gotten. The sun was right on the horizon, almost kissing the earth goodnight.

"Well, leave the ID stuff with me. I'll have a think about it and come up with a plan. But for now," I said as we reached the car and wiped the sand off our feet, "you're Daniel Lee, my new boyfriend."

Buddy grinned at me over the top of the car, then we both climbed in and made our way back into the centre of town. Grabbing a trolley, we walked side by side through the aisles, throwing a few veggies, noodles, and drinks in. It felt so normal and natural, like we were any random couple hanging out together. We joked and laughed together, chatted as we waited in line at the checkout. It was how it should be. I felt like I was walking on clouds. I hadn't done anything to deserve this kind of pure, unadulterated happiness. It felt almost criminal to be so perfectly content. Sure, we had plenty of problems we needed to sort out, and a lot of hurdles to jump. But here, in this moment, they didn't matter. I was with the right person at the right time and for once in my life, everything just seemed to be falling into place, and I was completely okay with that.