Chương 24: No More Lessons, Stephanie

"Tom?" Stephanie froze in the doorway, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. She looked at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.

"You're unusually early today. Did something happen?"

"You could say that, Stephanie. I've got more than a worthy reason to celebrate. So today I decided to change our traditions. Instead of a lesson, I booked a table at a restaurant for the two of us."

"Wow..." She paused, tilting her head slightly and narrowing her eyes as if trying to spot a catch.

"You're inviting me to a real restaurant? Tom, this's so unexpected… and honestly, it's not like you at all."

"I acknowledge my mistake," I said with a short nod, maintaining a formal tone.

"I should have warned you in advance so you could adjust your plans. If your evening is already occupied, I can call the administrator and move the reservation to any time convenient for you."

"Don't even think about it!" Stephanie leaned forward, almost grabbing the sleeve of my jacket. Her eyes gleamed with excitement.

"Just give me half an hour… well, maybe a bit more. I need to do something decent with my hair and squeeze into a dress!"

"Take your time," I said, deliberately glancing at my watch. The hands stood at five in the evening.

"I reserved the table with plenty of margin, for the entire night. More precisely, until the establishment closes. There is more than enough time."

"You're thoughtful," she said with a reverent exhale, already backing into her apartment.

"That's it! Wait! I'll call you as soon as I'm ready." Half an hour stretched into a full one hundred twenty minutes. I spent that time in my apartment, reading random articles on Wikipedia and watching videos on YouTube. When the smartphone finally vibrated and I stepped into the hallway, Stephanie was already waiting for me. She had done tremendous work.

Her bright pink hair was styled into a complex, futuristic arrangement that emphasized the line of her neck, and her usual jeans had been replaced with a sleek black dress. It was short, form-fitting, and, to be honest, it suited her extremely well. Nighttime Los Angeles beyond the enormous panoramic window shimmered with millions of lights, resembling a scatter of diamond dust carelessly thrown over black velvet. We were seated in a prestigious establishment on one of the upper floors.

I had deliberately chosen a small private room, an alcove, where the muted hum of the main hall, the clinking of glasses, and the sounds of jazz reached us only as a faint echo. A well-trained waiter, whose movements were so silent and precise that he seemed part of the interior, placed plates of exquisite dishes before us. With a barely audible, refined click, he uncorked a bottle of expensive red wine, filled our glasses, and disappeared behind a heavy curtain, leaving us in complete privacy.

"I'm impressed, Tom," Stephanie said, immediately grabbing her smartphone and searching for the perfect angle for social media photos.

"This looks absolutely divine. The presentation! But listen… this place's insanely expensive. Why spend this much?"

"Don't worry about it," I replied, taking a careful sip of the wine. The taste was complex and astringent.

"For my current budget, this evening will not become a financial catastrophe."

"We could've had dinner somewhere simpler," she said, awkwardly tucking a pink strand behind her ear. In that gesture of a usually confident girl, I caught a trace of uncertainty for the first time.

"Or just grabbed a couple of hot dogs in the park while Lucky chased squirrels, like we always did."

"That's precisely the point, Stephanie. The key phrase is 'like we always did.' You've said more than once that you crave new experiences, vivid emotions, and that you hate gray routine with all your heart. So today, just enjoy the moment, the taste of the food, and the view of the city. It's the least I can do to thank you for your selfless help with my Spanish."

"Oh, come on, you didn't have to do all this. It wasn't a burden for me at all. Besides, you helped me too during our outings."

"In what way?" I asked, genuinely surprised, raising an eyebrow.

"With you, it was never boring to walk Lucky. And let's be honest, in a night park with a guy like you, I always felt completely safe," she said with an open, warm smile.

"So what was that reason to celebrate you mentioned at the door? I'm dying of curiosity!" I silently took out my smartphone and handed it to her across the table. On the screen glowed the electronic version of an official certificate, adorned with watermarks and serious seals of the examination center. Stephanie began to read, and I could literally see her eyebrows climbing higher and higher until they froze at the edge of her bangs.

"You… you passed an official exam? And got the maximum score?!" She looked up at me, her eyes filled with genuine shock.

"C2 level! Tom, that's native-level proficiency, professional mastery! How'd you even do that? You told me yourself a month ago you were a complete beginner, that you'd only just started learning the basics from self-study books!" I calmly cut a piece of a perfectly cooked steak. It was time for the prepared story.

"That's what my mother said, and unfortunately she's not always aware of my actual affairs and progress," I replied with an indifferent shrug.

"In reality, I've been systematically studying the language for several years. You're a reasonable person, and you understand perfectly well that it's impossible to master Spanish from absolute zero to such a level in four weeks. This was merely the final stage of polishing live speech. With your help."

"Wow... still," she said, returning the phone to me with a strange kind of reverence.

"Tell me, is that exam really hard? You know, I've been thinking… maybe I should try taking it too. I mean, I've spoken it since I was a kid."

"You see, Stephanie," I decided to be as honest as possible, "this exam doesn't assess your ability to chat in a park. It evaluates your ability to follow rigid rules flawlessly. You understand people perfectly, you speak without hesitation, your speech is vivid and rich. But how're you with academic grammar, syntax, and complex linguistic structures that aren't used in everyday life?"

"Honestly? Not great," she said, immediately deflating and starting to poke at her salad with her fork.

"Then ask yourself the main question: do you actually need this certificate?" I decided to give her sincere advice, drawing on my past office experience.

"You are a veterinarian, you save animals, and your clients value your hands and your knowledge. We live in the United States. Here, it is often much easier for an employer to hire an immigrant who agrees to work for less money and knows the language from birth than an American with an expensive translator certificate. In the office where I used to work, we did not look at such regalia at all. When the need arose, we would simply shout into the corridor: 'Hey, who here speaks Spanish?'

, and in that very moment someone would appear, ready to help for a cup of coffee." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"If you're so pragmatic, then why'd you go after this useless certificate yourself?" Stephanie looked straight into my eyes, and in her gaze I saw genuine confusion.

"I bet even just taking that test costs a fortune."

"You're absolutely right. No serious international certificate is issued for nothing. It had to be paid for."

"Then why, Tom?" she tilted her head, trying to decipher my logic.

"What, are you one of those guys who collects achievements like in video games? Just for a checkmark on your profile?"

"If I were like that, I would have collected all possible Boy Scout badges back in early childhood," I said with a faint, barely noticeable sadness, recalling Danny's words about how such trifles are valued at the recruitment office.

"But the reality is that now I work within the army system. And in the army, they do not value your unique personality or your hidden talents. They value documented proof of skills. In this hierarchy, everything is simple: the more official papers with seals you have, the higher your status and the broader your opportunities. It is simply another tool for achieving a goal."

"I see," she said distantly, and the tone was unfamiliar to me. There was no usual playfulness or spark of interest in it, only a cold, ringing emptiness.

"So what're you planning to do with all your free time now?"

"This morning I enrolled in an intensive Portuguese course," I admitted honestly.

"They share a common linguistic base with Spanish, so I plan to master it in the shortest possible time. Possibly in three to four weeks." Stephanie froze. She slowly lifted her glass, watching as the thick ruby wine lazily slid along the transparent walls.

"So I'm not needed anymore," it was not a question. It was a statement of fact, dry and sharp like a scalpel.

"This whole evening… the fancy restaurant, your unusual attention, that grand reveal with the certificate. Tom, you're just drawing a line, right? You set up this dinner to tell me you're not planning to see me anymore?" I felt something shift inside. An unpleasant heat began to spread under my skin, a mix of social discomfort and residual guilt.

"There's no need to phrase it so harshly, Stephanie, but you understood correctly," I said, taking a sip of wine, trying to wash away the sudden discomfort.

"I did want to thank you, to do something pleasant as a final settlement for the lessons. My schedule is becoming tighter. Unfortunately, I no longer have free time for neighborly gatherings and aimless walks."

"Oh, come on, don't give me that sentimentality," she said sharply, draining her glass in one go and placing it on the tablecloth with a knock. A sharp smirk flashed in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you had fun. I saw how careful you were around me this whole time. Like you're some fragile balloon that somehow ended up next to a cactus."

"That's called basic politeness and respect for personal boundaries," I replied calmly, trying to maintain a mask of composure.

"Since this's apparently our last conversation like this…" she poured herself more wine, almost to the brim, and drank again, not taking her intent, studying gaze off me.

"Answer me one question. Tom, are you an Awakened?" The silence in the room instantly became absolute. I felt blood rush to my face in a powerful surge, burning my cheeks. It was a humiliating, almost childish feeling, like a petty thief caught by the hand at the very moment he was sure of his invisibility. My mind raced, analyzing the breach in my cover. Where had I slipped? The learning speed? Or simply the coldness she mistook for a sign of a covert agent?

But Stephanie was not making an assertion, she was probing, which meant her certainty was not yet absolute.

"That's an interesting assumption," I said, leaning forward slightly, imitating polite, mildly ironic curiosity.

"And what criteria led you to that conclusion? What exactly about me made you think I have superpowers? Did I set things on fire with my gaze while we were walking Lucky? Or maybe I started glowing in the dark?"

"No, there's absolutely nothing special or heroic about you on the surface," she said, pressing her lips together in irritation, and I saw her fingers nervously tighten around the stem of her glass.

"Just a regular guy. Too proper, too boring. But there's one detail that's been bothering me. A month ago, I saw Danny Kim fly out of your apartment window. Literally fly out and disappear into the sky." It was a blow to the gut. An argument against which there was no direct defense. A cold sweat ran down my back, and my heart skipped a beat before resuming at an accelerated pace. I needed to destroy this logical connection immediately without admitting the truth.

The lie had to be not just plausible, but perfectly integrated into her worldview.

"Well, there's no point in hiding it any longer if you happened to witness it," I said with a heavy sigh, adopting the demeanor of a man burdened by someone else's secret.

"Yeah, Danny Kim did visit my apartment."

"I knew it!" Her voice rang with triumph. She straightened up victoriously.

"But he didn't come to see a colleague, Stephanie," I cut in sharply, forcing her to listen.

"Danny was looking for Megan Rogers. You heard from my mother yourself that we were very close as children. Apparently, analysts went through all of Megan's old connections before her awakening and decided to check whether she had contacted me. Danny hoped I knew something or was hiding her. To his deep disappointment, I couldn't help him. We haven't been in contact for years."

"He was looking for Megan?" Stephanie blinked in confusion. Her triumph began to crumble rapidly. This version was too grounded, too logical, and devoid of the aura of mystery she had expected.

"And that's it? Just questioning?"

"That's all. A brief inquiry, disappointment, and a dramatic exit through the window. I haven't seen him since, and frankly, I've got no desire to meet him again. It was a dubious experience."

"But what about your routine?" she made one last attempt to cling to her theory.

"Those exhausting daily workouts at the gym? Your mysterious job in the army that you can't talk about?"

"Stephanie, millions of people go to gyms every day. Some want to impress women, others simply don't want to lose their shape in an office chair and suffer from shortness of breath by the age of thirty. As for secrecy…" I leaned forward, lowering my voice to a confidential whisper.

"The army's a massive bureaucratic machine. If an employee's forbidden from discussing the details of their work, it doesn't mean they're guarding alien capsules in Area 51. That kind of restriction can apply even to an ordinary warehouse clerk who keeps track of army boots and toilet paper. Secrecy's a protocol, not a sign of exclusivity." This argument became the final nail in the coffin of her suspicions. Stephanie opened her mouth to object, but found no words. My logic, dry and ruthless, crushed her intuition.

"So you're… really not an Awakened?" she said, her shoulders dropping in disappointment, all her fighting spirit dissipating like smoke.

"And you don't even keep in touch with them?"

"No," I said curtly.

"What, were you spending time on me just to get closer to the world of superhumans through a neighbor?" Stephanie did not answer immediately. She slowly finished the remaining wine, and a complex mix of emotions appeared on her face.

"Not just for that…" she finally exhaled, avoiding my gaze.

"But fine, there's no point hiding it now. Yeah, it would've been cool. I wanted to meet Danny, Megan, see all that from the inside… become part of something bigger than just a clinic for cats and dogs."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," I said, taking a substantial sip, feeling the tension in my chest finally ease. The puzzle in my head finally came together. For a long time, I could not understand why such a vibrant girl, living in a perpetual carnival rhythm, had latched onto someone like me. My mother's theory about a reliable man collapsed completely. Stephanie was not looking for stability. She was looking for an entry ticket into the world of a new elite.

The Awakened had become the new Olympian gods, and the chance to socialize with one of them was the highest social reward for someone of her type. That was where our dinner ended. Stephanie did not make a scene, did not cry, and did not throw dishes at me, which I already considered an excellent outcome. Her interest in me dropped to zero instantly, returning to its starting point. We became just neighbors again, exchanging dry greetings when we happened to meet near the elevator.

My natural suspiciousness and skepticism had not failed me again. I had been right. Behind her attention lay a purely pragmatic, social interest. The discovery brought me a cold satisfaction. However, contrary to expectations, I had no desire to run to my mother and boast about being right. I simply wanted to return home, to my quiet fortress, and open the first page of a Portuguese textbook. One stage was complete. The next lay ahead.