"I can't go," Tyrone eventually sighed, shaking his head.
"What?!" Miranda asked stumped.
"I have family here" Tyrone explained.
Miranda's brows furrowed and she seemed to be in thought.
"Lover?" she asked in a low tone. After asking, she observed Tyrone intently and swallowed hard.
"What? No. My Mom, and siblings, I have two younger siblings." Tyrone was startled by the question and the expression on Miranda's face.
Miranda frowned again and seemed to be in thought. "Why not?" she asked after barely a second of consideration.
"Responsibilities Miranda, I have responsibilities I can't just abandon"
"What responsibilities? One million is a lot of money for an average Salerian home, surely they can take care of themselves"
Tyrone was stumped, he had genuinely forgotten about the money. How would he explain this to his mother? He panicked for a while before coming back to the present. Raising his head to Miranda, he could see the hope in her eyes as she stared at him waiting for his decision.
"I still can't leave like that. I need to see them and give them some explanation. Besides, why should I go with you? What am I getting into, is it worth it? I have a life here" he reasoned.
"Some life," Miranda muttered in annoyance and started away.
"Excuse me?"
Tyrone's voice caused her to pause in her tracks. She turned around to face him and noticed the expression on his face, he seemed more hurt than annoyed. She could tell the difference despite only knowing him for a few hours.
"Okay, you know what? I'd walk away from shit but not this time." She tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear and stepped forward closer to Tyrone. Folding her hands in front of her chest, she stared right at him and started.
"Let's talk about your 'life'" she said sarcastically.
"You go around every day suppressing your perception. Your senses tell you things about people, things their expressions try to deny. But you've suppressed yourself so long you've started to deny yourself too. So you get lost between what is real and the illusion the world has crafted in front of you. You can't trust yourself, because why should you when the other person is telling you something different?
"You think little of yourself. After all, who are you to determine a person's thoughts? So you give the benefit of the doubt only to be proven right, and then you start to hate your intelligence. You'll click your tongue and say, "Dammit you foolish Tyrone, you knew, you knew. How could you be so stupid when you knew". But then you walk away and continue to doubt your perception.
"How can Tyrone be special? The things I'm sensing are all in my head so I should trust others and doubt myself. Put everyone else before me because I often make mistakes. So you become a people pleaser, and then you get hurt because no one is as invested in you as you are in others. And again, you hate yourself."
Miranda paused for a moment and continued.
"Right now, your senses tell you to come with me. But you're thinking about not hurting your family at home; the sacrifice. Even if this means you continue to stifle your sense of self till you completely lose it, you would still choose to think of someone else first. Well, Tyrone, I see you, and obviously, Tiana does too. Your perception is the most beautiful part of you and we are giving you an opportunity to express yourself without reserve. Why refuse?"
"For family? Do they know who you are? Even if they do, would they accept it? You don't belong here," by the end Miranda started to wonder if she had done too much. She looked down for a while and slowly raised her brows to steal a glance at Tyrone's conflicted expression.
----
Tyrone didn't know how to feel at this moment. Never in his life had he felt seen or validated. He had heard those corny words on social media a lot in recent times, and he never really thought in-depth about them or their significance, but somehow, at this moment, only those words could express how he felt. No one had ever seen through him; people could tell he was down, they could tell he was fighting an inner battle, and sometimes they could see his low self-esteem, but never had anyone been able to tell why.
Many had tried, they'd formed a definition for him and stuck to it. Some even believed that he'd committed some sin and was weighed down by guilt.
Tyrone never saw the need to disprove anyone's conjecture about his nature. He felt pleased instead when he watched people trust their ignorant inaccuracies. He felt even more pleased because he never his himself; they just couldn't listen or watch as he could. He enjoyed a superiority complex at his own expense.
But even though Miranda made him feel seen and validated. Even though for a few minutes he felt human once again. . .
"I have learned something in my little time on earth. I don't belong anywhere. My family might never understand me, and they might, in fact, relate with me based on a misconception about my identity, but they are the closest to home I will ever get. I belong here. And you don't know me either, you've come close, closer than anyone ever could...but you don't know who I am. How then can you say I belong with you?" Tyrone asked, tilting his head a little as he stared at Miranda.
They maintained their silence for a while before he walked towards the door. Without looking back, he left the shop, closing the door behind him and disappearing into the now-dark streets.
"I've only been with you a few hours. How can I truly know you? If I learned so much in so little time, what would a few days do?" Miranda muttered to herself. She felt like she had lost a part of herself just now and all she wanted to do right now was leave this godforsaken country.
Quickly zipping the bag closed, she walked into the restroom, where she showered and changed into some clothes she'd left in the restroom closet. Once out on the street with the duffle bag in hand, she took a deep breath. A symbolic goodbye to Saleria and started away.
****
It was late but Tyrone made sure to find his car. Fortunately, Doc and his companion hadn't done anything to it. Once in the car, he checked the glove box for his phone and found it still safe there, but the battery had died.
Sinking into the driver seat, he stared out of the windshield into the night, his thoughts going back to the events of the day. He had lost something today. For a few hours, he felt alive, he felt his perception useful but also felt overwhelmed. He had often misunderstood his perception in the past, but about people, he was almost always right. Like Miranda said, he was often right about people but didn't accept his thoughts. He'd still trust them, expecting to be proven wrong.
To for once go with his gut, he felt liberated, but at the same time, he was scared. What if...what if his gut was wrong?
Fortunately, it hadn't been. Not today. And since he would never have to rely on his perception like that again, he felt a strange conflict of comfort and pain.
But he was glad to be going home. His family was not the best, perhaps they've hurt him more than anyone and anything else in his life ever had. But they felt safe nonetheless. He loved them, and although he sometimes found it difficult to accept, perhaps they loved him too. He could never disappear on them without saying something. He could never hurt them on purpose. He cared too much to be right.
At least a million Sali came out of this. He thought, feeling excited and pleased as he started to race home, thinking of how happy his mother would be and how their lives could change now.