“Oh, by the way,” Brooklyn said as she looked up from her phone casually at him.

“I think we are moving.”

She tapped her long fingernails on the countertop. This time they were a light blue. Sky blue. With a thick coating of gold glitter. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore jeans and a silver colored zipper sweatshirt with several stars on it.

“Moving?” Leo said with a startled shock that he did not try to contain. His hair had gotten longer in the front and one part was covering his left eye.

“Where?”

“Oh, my dad wants to move to California and so we are going at the end of the summer I guess.”

“He got a new job there.”

Leo wasn’t sure whether she was happy about this or not, and where that left him. Brooklyn wasn’t sure either. Leo still was in juvie, but was set to get out at the end of the next month. And as long as no more crimes happened he would stay out of there. As long as he kept in step with what was right and wrong he would never have to go back. Ever.

Hats off to him. He had gotten through. It had not been easy but he was going home soon.

And now Brooklyn was moving?

And just last week Leo had learned that Earth was not really his original home though, all why he was within the walls of juvie.

He had learned it as his mother whispered it to him on her last visit. She had not wanted it to be picked up by the audio visual equipment in the visiting area and so she had said it quietly.

In fact it was so quiet, Leo had not known if he had really heard her.

But hear her he had when he had asked her a second time.

“We had to leave the planet of Rillarok, your dad and I did. With you, Leo. We were in danger.”

“What?” He asked her again and then she said the same thing.

He looked at her with some uneasiness. And there were so many questions. Where to begin? He started with only the first one.

“How old was I when we came here?” Leo said.

“Twelve,” she said as it was being announced that visiting time was over.

And just then Leo had said Rilla what?

Brooklyn had visited Leo two times while he was there. She had wanted to visit him more but it just was not the same seeing him with so many cameras around the place. And it was a long drive there. She could not even hold his hand and could not sit next to him there. They were behind plexiglass, facing each other. It was drab and dreary there. And it did not smell very good either. The air was so very stale. Kind of like there was never any fresh air inside. It all had made her a little restless.

The freedom was gone. Of being able to see Leo just by herself. And even though she knew it would not be forever, it had felt like that and she was actually drifting away from him, in a sense. And this was either out of a necessity for her or maybe by pure choice. It was kind of a defense mechanism for the short term.

Leo thought back.

When my thoughts were up in the stars, she brought me back down again. And what was it I was thinking? Should I just try to erase her from my mind?

Are you ready for the truth, Brooklyn? Because this time will be the last time.