Can You Sit Down?

After finally calming down from her hysterical laughter, something clicked in Natalia's mind, "If you think about it, it makes sense now."

"What makes sense?" Alexis asked in a vacant tone.

"Mr. Zadoc is from planet C-31. And as he is a resident of C-31, he must have been using the cell phone which is similar to ours. And in order to chat using the soulmate app or do whatever else, isn't it obvious that both the parties need to have the app. Why was I so stupid earlier?" Natalia was able to connect the links and she was pleased to have reached this logical conclusion.

"That means if he had access to this app since its release, he must have known about me for years." Both Alexis's and Natalia's eyes widened in realization.

Natalia narrowed her eyes while facing Alexis and spoke her mind, "Why I am getting the vibe that Mr. Zadoc wasn't in that street out of pure coincidence?"

Alexis scoffed in disbelief and questioned, "You mean he was stalking me?"

"Anything is possible at this point." Natalia shrugged off her shoulders and glanced away from her friend.

Alexis opened her Soulmate app in a defensive way, "You know what… I'll ask him directly and prove you wrong. Why would he do such thing as stalking? And even if he was stalking me then why didn't he come out and save me from Judy's beatings?"

"Oh! You're already taking his side now huh? Betrayer…" Natalia folded her arms and pretended to be grumpy.

"Shut up, Nat!" Alexis hushed Natalia and then proceeded to reply to Vorian's message.

Alexis: Hello! Vorian.

(An immediate reply came from the other side as if Vorian had been staring at his cell phone this whole time waiting for a reply.)

Vorian: Thank the light! You replied! I thought I scared you off.

Alexis: Sorry! for deserting you earlier.

Vorian: Apology accepted!

Alexis: I heard that you saved my life. I'll forever be grateful to you.

Vorian: Anyone would have done the same. I couldn't just leave an unconscious girl lying on the street.

Alexis: You mean you didn't recognize me immediately? I am just curious because you must have seen my picture in your Soulmate app.

Vorian: Yeah, I did see your picture. But I only recognized you a bit later.

Alexis showed the text messages to Natalia, "See! He didn't even recognize me when he found me unconscious. He just happened to be on that street." Alexis was showing off that she was right about Vorian.

"Yeah, whatever makes you happy!" Natalia still did not want to accept that Vorian found Alexis by pure coincidence. Just then Natalia heard the sound of someone entering the house, "I think Melissa is here. I'll go and say hi." She wanted to give some space to Alexis who had finally found her soulmate. And after giving a little nudge, Alexis had found courage to chat with Vorian. So, she thought it would be best to let them continue chatting.

(After not receiving any reply for about a minute, Vorian thought that Alexis ran off again.)

Vorian: You aren't upset because I didn't recognize you immediately, are you?

Alexis: Nooooo! Why would I be upset with you? Natalia was here and I was talking to her for a bit.

Vorian: Oh! The girl in the bath robe right?

Alexis: Hahaha… Yeah, that's her.

Vorian: She's scary. If I hadn't done as she had asked, I'm afraid she might have smacked me.

Alexis: Haha… you're right. She actually might have.

Vorian: But I'm glad that you have such a faithful friend. Not all are as lucky as you.

Alexis: Yes, she's the only friend I've got, but she is enough.

Both of them were smiling ear to ear as they were texting each other. Vorian's happiness was beyond measure. After two years of waiting, Vorian finally met his soulmate, and right now he was chatting with her. His excitement knew no bound so he asked, "Hey! Can I project you, if you don't mind?"

Alexis was confused as she did not know what he meant by that. "I don't know what that means. I saw the project option in my app but don't exactly know what it does."

Vorian thought to himself, "Right! Earthlings aren't yet acquainted with the Soulmate app." And then he explained about the "project" feature to Alexis in simple terms, "It will project our holographic video in real time. We can talk with each other as if we are in the same place. You don't have to agree with me if you feel like I'm out of my line."

Lexi's heart skipped a beat when he said that they could project each other in real time. She had just seen one picture of Vorian and she wanted to know how he looked in real life. But the thought of seeing almost-real-him made her nervous; still she was not going to say no to his offer. "I would love to see how that feature works. What do I have to do?"

When Vorian read this text of Alexis, he almost jumped with joy. He smirked and pumped his fist in the air and texted back, "I will send you the project request. All you have to do is accept it. If I send you the project request first, I'll be in your room or wherever you are at that moment, of course virtually. And if you send it to me, you'll be in my place."

"Sounds quite simple. Okay! You'll be sending the request first?" Alexis quickly stood up and glanced at the mirror in her room. When she was scanning her room to see if everything was in place, the project request came from Vorian. Her cell phone was vibrating and displaying the message:

"Vorian is requesting to project himself. Do you accept?"

As soon as Alexis accepted the request, Vorian appeared in front of her. Alexis was expecting to see either animated or bluish version of him like she had seen in the movies, but she was taken aback when she saw a life-like version of Vorian. If he hadn't said that he would appear in his virtual form then she would have thought that he was real. Vorian had black side-swept tousled hair with trimmed beard of the same color. She guessed his height to be about 6 feet 2 inches. He had well-built body like that of an athlete. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt and one could easily see his toned biceps. And even when he was wearing a simple trouser, Alexis could have sworn that she had never seen another attractive man like Vorian.

Alexis was wearing a simple yet elegant night dress made out of silk. The baby pink dress had full length sleeves and its length extended up to her knees. And when Alexis stroked her delicate fingers through her auburn hair and smiled at Vorian, he felt like he was in front of a goddess. He just kept on staring at her without saying a word.

Alexis noticed that Vorian also had emerald green eyes. "We both have the same eye color." She smiled as she maintained a constant eye contact with him. Her words were like music to his ears. "Most of the Celinians have the same eye color as mine, there are rarely some others", Vorian finally broke off the staring contest and uttered a sentence in his deep voice.

"Celinians?" Alexis repeated not quite understanding the meaning of that word. "We call our planet Celine. Thus, Celinians", Vorian replied as he moved closer to Alexis.

"Oh! I just knew it by the name C-31."Alexis blushed and thought that she might have sounded stupid to him. But almost as though he read her mind Vorian said, "Well, can't blame you. Most of the inhabitants of other planets know each other's planet by the code name."

Vorian was now standing right in front of Alexis and was giving a mischievous smirk to her. She looked petite in front of his huge body and had to strain her neck up to look at his face. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought Vorian could hear her heartbeat. In order to ease the tension, she pointed to her bed and asked, "You wanna sit down?" Then she thought for a while and asked another question, "Umm… I don't know how this works. Can you sit down?"

Vorian bent down a little towards Alexis's face and shoot her with another question instead, "Well, what do you think?"