Chapter 11
Amechanical voice rang out from the speakers on Lux’s sides. “Malfunction detected.”
“No, no, no.” Lux cried as he sat up.
“Lux. What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up with him.
“Were they able to be fixed?” I asked, panic seeping into my voice.
Lux’s eyes softened toward me. “No. There was nothing that could be done.” Lux said, plopping himself down on the floor. He sat cross-legged and put his head down. “I’ll turn back into a machine. You’ll still be able to play your games, but I won’t be animated anymore.”
Dropping to my knees in front of him, my hands framed his face to make him look me in the eyes. “I don’t care about the games, Lux. There has to be a way to fix this!”
Lux’s limbs jerked and contorted, then shrank into his body. His head was next, his handsome features smoothing away like melting wax until his whole head shrank into nothing. His body writhed on the floor through it all, twisting and contracting in ways that made my stomach lurch.
And then it stopped. The convulsions ended, and what was left on the carpet wasn't Lux anymore.
It was just the console. The LUX-1 System that I purchased at the store.
My heart pounded, and the tears came hot and fast, blurring everything. The silence pressed the walls in around me. The room that had only moments before been filled with a gorgeous man professing his love for me was now more empty than the day the kids left.
I sat unmoving on the floor beside him, knees pulled to my chest. My mind couldn’t catch up to what had just happened.
My phone’s ringtone sounded from my pocket. It rang three times before I finally fished it out.
I stared at the screen numbly, having to read Derek’s name twice before it registered.
I looked down at Lux, lifeless on the carpet, then answered the call because I needed to hear someone’s voice, even if it was Derek’s.
“Hey.” His voice was warm. Easy. Familiar in a way that hit different than it would have an hour ago.
“Hey,” I responded. My own voice sounding far away.
“You okay? You sound,”
“I'm fine. What's going on?”
He took a breath. “I've been wanting to call for a while. I have some things I want to say to you, and I just need you to hear me out, okay?”
I looked at the console on the floor and choked out a weak “Okay.”
“I want to come home, Catia.” His voice turned to a pleading tone.
“I realize I don't have the right to ask that.
I know what I did and what it cost you. I'm not pretending otherwise.” He took a breath.
“But I genuinely believe we gave up on something worth fighting for. The kids deserve to have their family under one roof. They deserve school plays, holidays, and ordinary Saturday mornings with both of us there.” His voice dropped slightly.
“I wasn't there the way I should have been. I want to fix that. For them and for you.”
I closed my eyes.
School plays and holidays with both of us there.
I thought about the shopping trip alone. About the kids saying Mom would love something and not being able to tell them why Mom wasn't there to love it with them. I thought about what life could look like with all four of us under one roof again: normal and whole.
“I,”
“I know you probably need time. I'm not asking you to decide anything right now. I just need you to know that I'm not the same person I was. That I see things differently now.”
Something in his voice nagged at my mind.
“What changed?” I asked quietly. “What made you start seeing things differently?”
“Honestly?” he answered after a moment's hesitation. “Amber left. About a month ago. It's just been me and the kids since then, and I've had a lot of time to think about the choices I made.”
There it was.
Amber left, and suddenly he was rethinking the choices he had made that led to this point.
Maybe he meant every word. Maybe the introspection was genuine and the timing was just coincidence. But I knew what it felt like to be someone's second choice.
I again looked at the console on the floor.
“I hear you,” I said finally. “I do. But I can't have this conversation right now.”
“Catia,”
“I'm not saying never,” I said, and I wasn't sure if I meant that or not. “I just need to go.”
I hung up before he could say anything else and stood staring down at Lux.
This couldn't be it. It couldn't end like this. He couldn’t just be shut down and gone forever.
I grabbed my keys and headed to my car. Only one clear thought in my head: Selma.
She’d created him. She'd done this to him.
She could undo it.
The speed limit meant nothing as my car took me straight to her.
Somehow I didn’t crash as I was barely aware of the other cars on the road. When the strip mall came into view, my pulse climbed as I pulled into the parking lot.
Pixel Palace was gone.
Not closed. Not emptied out. Gone.
In its place was a small yoga studio with a sign that read ‘Bliss he was real.
All that left me with was one terrifying question:
If the store was gone... How would I ever find Selma?