As you exit the building and enter the parking lot, he asks if you’ve heard of the cicadas and you say no. He says they’ve been underground for 15 years now and that’s one the longest periods of time that they’ve ever hibernated. You jokingly say that you are here now and maybe you’ll bring them out. You wink at your new friend, it’s time to start over.

You started to realize how different your world could be with someone like him and you started to feel the first flickers of love. It’s a different kind of love than you have ever felt before. It’s slow and steady, but it’s also a love that only seems to grow. In fact, it’s grown to the point that you are ready to reveal your secret, the secret that you’ve been keeping for 2 years.

You feel scared, you know that your life is about to change. You take a deep breath and tell Daniel everything.

It’s Sunday morning and you are arriving at the diner for your shift. It’s a hot summer day and the church crowd is thinner than normal. A few of the other servers are sent home early, but you volunteer to stay.

This is when it happens. You only have one hour left on the clock, when he sits in your section, the diner is half empty by now, but his presence seems to take up the entire space. He’s relaxed but extremely observant. There’s an alertness to his posture and eyes that you have never seen before.

You can tell that he is not local, you wonder where he came from.