Power Outage

The hum of the community center’s industrial refrigerator died with a sudden, metallic groan. Then, the lights vanished.

One second, I was squinting at a spreadsheet on my laptop, trying to ignore Jasper’s rhythmic tapping on his phone. The next, the world was thick, heavy black. The silence that followed was even louder than the air conditioning had been.

"Okay," Jasper’s voice drifted through the dark, stripped of its usual upbeat, podcast-ready shimmer. "That wasn't part of the schedule."

"It’s a citywide outage," I said, my eyes straining to find a shape in the void. I reached for my phone, but the screen stayed dark. "Great. My battery died ten minutes ago."

"Mine too," Jasper admitted. I heard a soft thud—the sound of him tossing his useless tech onto the plastic table. "I was at two percent. I guess the universe wants us to stop working."

"The universe is going to set my residency back three weeks if I don't finish this proposal," I muttered. I felt my way along the edge of the table, my fingers brushing cold metal until I found the emergency kit we’d joked about earlier. I fumbled inside, clicking a plastic switch.

A small, amber light flickered to life. It was a single, battery-powered camping lantern. It didn't do much, but it carved a small circle of gold out of the darkness, illuminating the chipped paint of the table and the sharp angles of Jasper’s face.

He wasn’t looking at his reflection in a window or checking his hair. He was just sitting there, leaning back, looking at the lantern. He looked... tired.

"Sit down, Elena," he said softly. He pulled out the chair next to him. Not the one across from him, but the one right there. "The Wi-Fi is dead. The cell towers are probably jammed. You’re a neurosurgeon, not a wizard. You can’t fix the power grid."

I hesitated, then sank into the chair. The proximity felt different without the glow of our screens acting as a barrier. Without the distraction of data, the air felt thick. I could smell the faint scent of his cologne—sandalwood and something crisp—and the lingering smell of the floor wax.

"What do you do when you aren't being Jasper Cole?" I asked. The question came out blunter than I intended.

He chuckled, a low sound that didn't have his usual performative edge. "I don't know. Usually, I'm busy documenting the fact that I'm being Jasper Cole. It’s a full-time job keeping up the brand."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It pays for the loft," he said, but he didn't sound defensive. He looked at me, his eyes catching the amber light. "What about you? You’re always 'Dr. Reyes.' Even when you’re eating a protein bar, you look like you’re performing surgery on it. Why the rush? Why the perfection?"

I looked at my hands. My knuckles were white. I forced them to relax. "My parents didn't come here from Mexico so I could be 'relaxed,' Jasper."

He shifted, turning his body toward mine. "Tell me."

"It’s not a fun story. It’s a lot of long shifts and night school." I tried to shrug it off, but the darkness made it hard to hide. "They worked in a commercial laundry in the Sunset District. Twelve hours a day in a room full of steam and the smell of bleach. My mother’s hands were always red. Always. Even on Christmas."

Jasper didn't interrupt. He didn't offer a platitude or a "wow, that’s deep" for his followers. He just waited.

"I used to sit in the back of the shop and do my homework on a folding table," I continued, the words spilling out faster now. "I’d watch them. I realized early on that they were burning their lives like fuel just to keep me moving forward. If I fail, if I’m just 'average,' then that steam and that bleach... it was for nothing. I have to be the best. I don't have a choice."

I expected him to make a joke to lighten the mood. Instead, he reached out, his hand hovering near mine on the table before he pulled it back slightly.

"So the perfection isn't for you," Jasper said quietly. "It’s a debt you’re paying back."

I looked at him, surprised by the accuracy of the word. "I've never thought of it that way. But yes. I suppose it is."

"My dad left when I was eight," Jasper said. He wasn't looking at me now; he was staring at the shadows on the far wall. "My mom... she dealt with it by making sure we always looked like the perfect family to the neighbors. If we looked happy, then we weren't broken. I learned how to smile for the camera before I learned how to ride a bike."

"Is that why you do the podcast? The 'dating' stuff?" I asked.

"If I control the narrative, no one can leave me," he said. He gave a small, wry smile. "Or at least, I can pretend I wanted them to leave. It’s a game, Elena. If it’s a game, you can’t get hurt when you lose a turn."

"But you aren't playing right now," I pointed out.

"Hard to play in the dark," he whispered.

We sat in silence for a long time. The lantern flickered, the batteries beginning to drain. In the dim light, the sharp-edged influencer and the guarded surgeon were gone. There were just two people in a dark room, breathing the same cool, stagnant air.

"Your parents," Jasper said, breaking the quiet. "Are they proud?"

"They’re terrified," I admitted, a small laugh escaping me. "They think I work too hard. My mom still sends me containers of soup because she thinks I’m starving."

"They love you," Jasper said. It wasn't a question.

"They do." I looked at him. "I think they’d be okay if I was just average. But I don't think I'd be okay with it."

Jasper nodded slowly. For the first time since I’d met him at that gala, he wasn't trying to sell me anything. He wasn't trying to win. He was just... there.

The darkness didn't feel like a void anymore. It felt like a shield. Under the cover of the blackout, the masks had slipped, and for a few minutes, we didn't have to be who the world expected us to be.