Page 42 of Brighter Shades of Light
Responding to other people’s grief was such a challenge for me. The appropriate response would be ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or something similar, but the words lodged in my throat. ‘Sorry’ wouldn’t bring his father back any more than it would bring back Leon.
“What about your mother?” I asked.
“Never knew her.” He stared at his cup as if it held all the answers he was searching for. “When I was two, she had a brain aneurism. Dad said she passed peacefully in her sleep. I like to believe that’s true.”
So young and he’d already endured so much loss. Even if he had been too young to remember his mother, her loss affected him just the same. Her absence was painful. I had never known my father, but his absence had hurt me just as much.
“Yikes.” A nervous laugh escaped him as he ran a hand over the top of his hair. “This conversation took a nosedive quick, huh? I asked you for coffee so we could get to know each other, not bring up depressing shit. Sorry.”
“Perhaps we can meet at a bar next time, then,” I said without thinking. “Tell our woes over a glass of scotch.”
“Scotch is too fancy for my blood.” He grinned. “But a beer would do just fine.”
I was glad to see him smiling again, even if I didn’t understand my feelings. When Cody smiled, it was like my world shifted. He really did have his own energy field, and anyone fortunate enough to get close to him was the better for it.
***
I tutored Cody every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour each session. The new schedule allowed me to see him five days a week instead of the usual three.
As wrong as it might’ve been, I was enjoying the time spent with him. He was quickly becoming the part of my day I looked forward to most.
After two weeks, I suspected he no longer needed the extra help, but he kept showing up during my office hours…and I kept letting him. He stuck around after tutoring, and we’d talk a little.
Well,he’dtalk—a lot—and I listened, occasionally adding my own thoughts.
After the sessions, we went out for coffee. He was the one who asked, and I agreed, not having the strength to fight it anymore. I kept a professional demeanor around him, but it was nice to go out with someone and talk. The night with Vance and the group of people I hadn’t talked to since didn’t count.
I had isolated myself from everyone for so long that the change with Cody was interesting, and dare I say, exciting.
Cody’s views on the world….well, they reminded me of Leon.
“Imagine what we could do with nanotechnology,” Cody said, sitting across from me at what had become our usual table at Brewed Emporium. “Go further than powering houses and cars with solar energy. The environment would benefit from it, yeah, and the damage mankind has done could be reversed. But go even further than that.”
“How far?” I asked, feeling as though I was havingdéjà vu. I’d had many conversations with Leon that were nearly identical.
“Well, developing machines that aid not only in more efficient computers, but in medicine, too. Faster and more accurate surgeries, maybe even be able to heal genetic conditions once seen as incurable. Nanobots could go inside the body and repair injuries from cell to cell.”
“Nanobots?”
“They’re, like, super tiny robots that work at a microscopic level,” Cody explained. “They’re mostly a concept right now, but with more research they could change the world.”
“I know what they are, Mr. Miller,” I said, smiling. “I was just surprised that you did.”
A beautiful shade of pink touched his cheeks again. “Cody outside the classroom, remember?”
“My apologies.” I sipped my coffee. “So, what are your ideas about nanobots, Cody?”
Saying his name never failed to kick my heartbeat up a notch.
“In theory,” he said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. The excitement in his eyes made my heart jolt, along with another part of me. “Nanobots could be, like, little warriors in the body. They could fight off cancerous cells. Maybe even be high-tech scanners that could detect a disease super early, so we could catch it before it gets worse. Picture the technology we could create, you know? I hope I’m alive to see it one day.”
I sat across the table from him, both in awe and in shock.
“Can you imagine what we could do, Sebastian?” Leon placed his hand over mine. “They say nanobots could crack the secret to immortality one day. Imagine a world where some diseases are no longer a death sentence.”
A weight pressed down on my chest at the memory.
“Am I blabbing?” Cody sat up straighter. “Damn, I’m blabbing, huh?”
