~16~

Sweat began to bead, pool, then cascade its way down my body.

I can't believe I did that, I can't believe I did that!!

My shoulder muscle flexed as I reach and swiftly pass my overall 100th pushup.

Not allowing myself a moment of rest or to catch my breath, I switch to laying down on my back and easily breeze past 50 sit up.

My core, along with everything else, severely burned from my actions, but I couldn't allow myself a moment's rest.

Otherwise the cringe would set it.

I already felt a sharp stab of it lick through my chest as if it were nothing.

"For Christ's sake, you act as if they saw you in the nude or something."

Carol's deadbeat and uninterested tone fills the only room I could walk around in.

I roll my eyes at her and continue to exercise till I started seeing spots and feeling nauseous.

"Easy for YOU to say, you're not the one who bawled her eyes out in front of potential people she fancies. That aside, I just met them! I cried on our SECOND meeting ever! I'm such a fool!!!" I tried to launch myself into another set of exercises, but my limbs simply refused to cooperate. Slowly thudding in pain from my every mild action as I slump to the floor.

"You already have a crush on one of them??? You shameless slut!"

"Who the fuck said anything about just one!?"

"Urgh, heterosexuality is so dead and boring," Carol rolled her eyes, immediately losing interest in the topic.

"She says while currently planning to go on a date with a male coworker just to make her ex-wife jealous and hopefully come back?" I retort.

"It's a foolproof plan, I tell you!!" Carol hopelessly insists.

"It really isn't, bestie." I softly whisper, my chest heaving up and down as I struggle to catch my breath.

But I knew my advice fell on deaf ears. I'd just have to patiently sit back and see how spectacularly this plan would fail. And then laugh accordingly.

My chest continued to rise and fall sporadically as I struggled to properly control my breathing. I placed a hand on it and physically forced myself into a timed breathing rhythm to help me better control it.

There was no livestream today, hence the candid nature with how Carol and I spoke with one another.

But she'd been weirdly insistent on maintaining near-constant communication with me after my crying episode yesterday.

Even though she'd suggested not to livestream today, I was already way ahead of her in making the decision not to because I still needed time to process what the fuck happened.

I didn't think contact with another person would make me break down so easily, let alone two!

If I could even consider Leo and Dion people at all, and not space aliens with the ulterior motive of...I don't know, stealing my soul?

We hadn't been able to talk much, as the rest of the time we spent together before they had to leave was spent consoling me.

Carol gave accurate directions as, while they understood what I was going through, emotion-wise, they had no clue how to handle it.

Which is strange for creatures that look human.

How can they physiologically bare such a striking resemblance to humans, yet have basic understanding of our language, and completely flounder when faced with basic human emotion?

You say that as if all men back on earth are experts at dealing with crying women. I thought snarkily. They barely know how to handle and express their own emotions!

Well, touché, fair enough.

"Will our crimes against humanity be making an appearance today?" I hear Carol ask me while I still lay on the floor, slightly zoning out.

I bolt upright in a sitting position and feel the butterflies in my stomach take off at the thought of meeting Leo and Dion again.

I cross my legs in front of one another and bring my knees up to my chin as I hug my legs, curling myself up into a makeshift ball.

"I-I don't know, they said they'd come back and visit again, but I wasn't given a specific date."

Then Carol's insult finally touched down in my mind.

"Hey! They're not freaks! They're gorgeous!!" I spat out.

"I never called them freaks. I called them crimes against humanity." Carol corrected. "They could've chosen any form to mimic and they chose that!? I feel insulted and you should too! We can all agree that the female body is OBJECTIVELY the best form of the human race."

I roll my eyes at her.

"Where that may be true, but regardless, we don't even know if they copied our human forms or not." I tried to argue.

"Oh come on! They look exactly like us! There is no probability in the known universe that exists where that happy little accident would be a viable outcome!"

For days now since my first interaction with Leo and Dion, Carol and I have been tossing around the idea of the 'mimic theory'. Or more accurately, Carol has been forcing me to accept it without question.

The Mimic Theory, dubbed by her, is that Leo and Dion's race of people, who or whatever they are, must've seen humans before, or studied me enough to be able to mimic our forms to make it easier to approach us without scaring us.

Or more specifically me.

It was an interesting theory, but there were too many gaps in it.

Like, if they were mimicking me, why do they look nothing like me?

Aside from the obvious of not taking on a female form but a male one, they still look nothing alike from each other. Dion was slightly taller and thinner, while Leo was an entirely different saturation colour!

There were too many inconsistencies, both logical and quite literally physical, to comfortably be able to put forth that theory in any capacity.

But that didn't stop Carol from profusely trying.

"Even if your argument is to say why they don't look like you specifically, which why would anyone want to, we know for a fact they have access to our internet! So them getting their hands on a variety of what we look like, especially our men and being able to copy them, is still very entirely plausible!" Carol continued to argue.

I let out a defeated sigh.

"If I say I'm slightly more convinced about this than I was yesterday, will you shut up about it?" I say.

"How much more convinced?" Carol squinted at me.

"60-65%."

"Deal."

And with that, we've put a pin in this crazy theory of hers.

"Jumping off from that, how did your search go for cross-checking their faces with the database we have back on earth?" as much as I wanted to sprint away in the completely opposite direction from Carol's Mimic Theory, a lot of the things she presented DID peak my interest.

It was Carol's turn to let out a sigh of abject defeat.

"Nothing." She replies. "No face on earth, that we have record of, at least, matches Leonidas and Dionysus' faces. But that still doesn't disprove the fact that they could've copied the basic human body of our men!-"

"Oh my God, I get it! Shut the fuck up!!!" I immediately regretted asking.

My muscles had finally loosened up and were slightly less sore enough to allow me to make a cup of green tea.

I just recently plucked off the leaves from my mini makeshift garden and I'd been dying for an excuse to drink it.

Better now more than ever.

"It doesn't seem like our boys will be showing up today, huh?" Carol commented next.

I tried to hide the hurt and disappointed tone from my voice as I finished making my tea and turn to face her, taking a long, slow, and comforting sip.

"There's always tomorrow," I say hopefully. Wishing deep down that they'd actually show up.

I miss them.