Page 8 of The Guru: Shadow

The people here all looked as if they belonged. All the latest dresses and tailored suits from all the brand names she could not remember, while she, so indecisive she sometimes starved instead of choosing a meal, couldn’t find a dress she felt good in. So, she went for something very simple, which now made her look extraordinarily out of place. No fancy brand names,no custom fit. Nothing to catch any onlookers’ eyes. Just something that didn’t add up to her feeling of discomfort. Now, she regretted the last-minute decision she had made to prevent an emotional breakdown.

So, she wore a simple black blouse with see-through long sleeves, tucked into high-waist wide-leg black pants softly cascading around her legs. Alongside, she had decided on a pair of black loafers and a clutch, as high heels weren’t her thing at all because they made her taller than she’d like.

She kept her long, currently dark brown hair open, styled with beach waves and parted in the middle. It was the best she could do today to tame the mane of annoyingly thick hair and keep it in check. The makeup she chose kind of plastered her skin, but it was a protective mask between her and the rest of the world, although she kept it light and simple. The black-rimmed, round glasses she usually wore out of the same reasons resided in her pocket, just to not add to the overall uptight impression her outfit must give.

The sole reason she was so late was the time she needed to conceal the fresh scars on her arms. It took her four layers and a lot of fixing powder until the traces of her loss of control were securely hidden.

Between all the colorful dresses, she looked like a widow coming from a funeral; she sure felt as much. The alien in the room. It always pinched her in her stomach – the everlasting feeling of being different, somehow even disconnected. Never really fitting in. Always having to put on a mask. Like now. To survive this evening, she had to put on a mask, something just as exhausting as existing these days.

Just go home. Get a book, escape into a different world,her inner voice told her.

And without further thinking, she followed it. So, she turned around and hit the button for the elevator a couple times. As if that would speed it up.

“Em!”

Fuck.

She groaned. So much about escapism.

As she turned around, she was blinded by a yellow canaryflying at her. After her eyes recovered from the first impression, she saw it was none other than Julie Regan, wearing a yellow cocktail dress so bright it made her eyes burn only from looking at it for two seconds. Brightness aside, it was the perfect fit for her beautiful curves and luscious shape she so envied. She wore her long blonde hair in soft waves to one side, which bounced with each of her steps. A big yellow flower with a just-as-yellow feather pinned in it. Her whole appearance was totally over the top, but that was exactly what Julie loved.

A big, wide smile, as usual, on her face – impossible to overlook, as she had chosen a strong, bright red for her full lips. On the whole, Julie was the personification of bright, shiny, and sexy.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you!” And with it, Julie’s arms slung around her in a tight hug. She was no hugger, but she had learned the world she resided in was a hugging world, so she had to learn to adapt eventually. In her mind, she observed them from an onlooker’s perspective, and it made her laugh internally. The black widow and the bright canary hugging.

“Good to see you, too, J,” she said, while patting her a bit on the back in the hopes Julie would finally let go of her.

“You won’t believe what happened!” she said, beaming at her with sparkling eyes, finally releasing her from her arms.

“Care to enlighten me now?”

She was curious. Absolutely. Although she suspected it to be either the announcement of her engagement, expecting a baby, or a promotion. All of it pinched her stomach.

She hadn’t told Julie about Chris, but she’d sure seen the photo on Insta too. Julie was generally always online. And as she didn’t ask where Chris was, it gave her confirmation enough. Julie would inevitably come around later, asking for all the smutty details.

“Come,” said Julie, taking her arm.

The good thing about walking with Julie was that everyone made room for her as if she were walking on an imaginary red carpet. Fabulous asshe was.

The bad thing, however, everyone stared. It gave her a feeling of being surrounded by paparazzi, and it made her wish to become invisible. But Julie loved it. Her personality filled the room, and it did not matter if the people were deep into a conversation; when Julie passed they interrupted whatever they were doing and looked up.

They made their way through the guests, straight for one of the huge round golden tables at the window front with a north view towards the Empire State Building. There were more than a dozen people around it seated, which made her groan internally, as it would require small talk.

She could see Julie’s boyfriend, Carl Pearson. At least she would have one person to talk to. He was an alien, too. Although he was eloquent, well-mannered, and held a PHD in Physics. He was a bit nerdy at first impression, and while he tended to blend in with the surroundings, there was a lot more to him than he let on – overall, he was a perfect fit for Julie.

With him sat Caleb. Caleb Harris, a big fish in the NBA, who only possessed two outfit styles: sportswear or suits. Both he rocked like no one else. Today, he had chosen a light blue, definitely tailor-made suit that looked absolutely fabulous with his dark skin. But, aside from the optics, Caleb dedicated his life to fighting the injustice in this country, which was almost the only reason why he relentlessly pursued a basketball career. To use his celeb-status for changing the status quo. It was something she admired so much, as she lacked a purpose as much as discipline in all areas of life.

Glancing further over the table, she saw Kai sitting with Cat and Sienna, two of Julie’s best friends. Sienna was six foot one of perfection, originally from Italy, notoriously single, but regularly dating two or more guys, mostly men at least twice her age. Sienna always wore her soul and heart on her sleeve, something she valued, but somehow, she couldn’t stand being around her too much, as she usually left her with a feeling of being the ugliest and most irrelevant person on the entire planet.

Then there was Cat. Her family immigrated from SouthKorea in the 1960s, and although she put much effort into showing how different she was to her family, she chose the same career as her father: neuroscience. Her whole body was plastered with tattoos, while her rose hair suited her and her overall appearance a lot.

Today, Cat wore a loose black dress with a huge neon pink number 333 on it. Cat rocked it, but she herself could never wear anything like it. Her first rule of clothing was to never draw attention to her. In her nature, Cat was very closed up and let no one look into her cards, unless she had a gin and tonic too much, but even then, she let no one entirely in. Except Kai. They had some sort of relationship; the exact details, no one knew, but it was, from the looks of it, quite consuming, figuratively, not literally.

Kai was thirty-seven and roughly ten years older than all of them, non-binary, and one of the best attending neurosurgeons in the entire country. They were the wonder child, graduated high school at thirteen, best in class in med school and became the youngest attending neurosurgeon in whole US at the sweet age of twenty-nine, while also completing a PHD in neuroscience.

Why and for what Kai enjoyed hanging with a bunch of twenty-something's, she didn’t know. But, once warmed up, they were quite engaging to talk to. At least they usually skipped the small talk and went straight for the deep, life-questioning topics. She loved it. Although it always left her with a bitter taste of not being enough. She, among all those utterly successful people, ate cold, left-over pizza for breakfast, sat on the floor in lack of a table and was absolutely lost as to what to do with her life. She had dreams, of course. So many. But somehow, nothing ever worked out. So eventually, she had given up following them.

“Soooooo,” beamed Julie next to her, radiating an uncomfortable, vibrant energy all over her. “As you are all here now, I can finally tell you the big news!”

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