Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

Paola and Luca was in the rear. Everyone else, including Scott, who’d made a full recovery, was somewhere in the middle.  
    Luca felt kinda like a prisoner. They were in the back of a van that had big plates on the side, which Luca thought looked like armor. And the van was being driven by two strangers who both looked to John every time they were about to open their mouths.  
    Desmond looked mad; Mary looked worried; Will was staring out the window.
    Paola’s face wasn’t as easy to read. They’d been driving for five or six miles and she hadn’t said a word without prompting, and only delivered one-line answers whenever Luca asked her a question. She looked a little scared, but mostly confused. It probably had something to do with him looking like a grownup.
      It was like the time when Luca’s dad shaved his mustache. His father had worn a mustache since before he was born, so when Luca ran downstairs one morning last May and saw the fresh pink skin above his dad’s lip, he almost felt like his father was a stranger. Throughout the rest of that day, all of the next, and into most of the following week, Luca had a hard time looking his dad in the eye. It was difficult to find balance between what his brain told him to see what he actually did.  
    Luca figured Paola probably didn’t want to ignore him, but didn’t know what else to do. Which is why he wasn’t altogether surprised, though totally happy, when she finally adjusted her seatbelt, turned to her left, and looked Luca in the eye.
    “What’s it like,” she said, “you know, aging like that? It’s gotta be weirder than weird, right? Are your insides like your outsides? I mean, you look all grown up, but you must still think like you used to. You would have to.”  
      Luca leaned closer to Paola and spoke in a whisper, not wanting Will, Desmond or Mary to hear him, not to mention the two drivers up front, though he was pretty sure everyone could hear every word anyway.
    “I don’t know,” he shook his head. “My brain feels really busy. Lots of colors and noise. Like a big bucket of Legos being dumped out and refilled, over and over. They’re all moving around in my head so much that I can’t build anything. It’s just really, really loud, and I can see all the different colors and shapes but I can’t do anything with them because they won’t stop moving. Some of those Legos are the ways I used to think, but now there are a bunch of new Legos. So, I guess I’m supposed to learn how to put the blocks together.” He looked at Paula, then added, “Does that make sense?”
    “I guess,” she said, leaning in her seat. After a minute she looked back over.  
    “You talk different now, you know. Not like you used to at all. Well, except using Legos to reference things,” she said with a smile. “But it’s weird because you don’t talk like you’re supposed to, either.”
    “How am I supposed to talk?” Luca said, unable to hide his injured expression.
    Paola’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t know,” she said. “At least, not exactly. It just seems like you’re not quite...” Paola swallowed, then fell silent, thinking a moment before opening her mouth again. “Remember in school how there were two playgrounds, one for the older kids and one for the younger kids? At least that’s how it was in my school.”
    Luca nodded. “Yeah, the kindergartners have their own playground. First, Second, and Third all shared the playground with the swings and slides. Fourth and Fifth got the playground with the tetherball poles and handball courts. We weren’t allowed to play there, and the older graders always kicked us out when we tried. Sixth and Seventh graders went to the middle school next door.
    “Okay,” Paola said. “Well, it seems to me like half of you has moved to the bigger playground even though you’re supposed to still be on the smaller one. And you can’t play tetherball or foursquare because you’ve never been on the playground before and no one’s told you the rules.”
    Luca felt like he was about to cry. While he’d always been sensitive, he felt especially so with all these new feelings rushing through his head.
    Paola touched his shoulder then brushed his arm. It tickled. “Don’t be sad,” she said. The same thing happened to me one time, at least sort of.” She smiled. “Not that I aged overnight like you, or anything. You definitely have me beat there.”
    Paola laughed and Luca felt happy