As for what I think, I guess it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore when around someone like Sonic the Hedgehog. Not in a situation like this.

“Are you nervous?”

I feel my face getting hotter, so I turn away from him, concentrating on a stain coloring the carpet of the restaurant.

“No.”

I want him to take control of this so badly. I always screw everything up when so much is up to me. I‘m sorry to say this, but it would be better if he acted like everyone says he does: overconfident, cocky, talkative, sexy, charming... not to say that he isn’t. I’m just saying that it would be nice…

I guess I don’t know what I want from him.

It’s strange. The papers and the rest of the media make him out to be a self-centered jerk, but he seems rather subdued. Shy, even. His voice is much softer than I imagined, and kind of cracks when he talks.

“Are you sure? You’re blushing.”

“Oh, no... I just... it’s hot in here.”

Lame.

All he’s done so far is talk about me, and how glad he is that I mailed him, how glad he is that he called me this morning, how glad he is that we’re having this date.

How beautiful I look...

I’m not used to all of this. He ditches a television commercial, buys a tuxedo, makes reservations at the classiest restaurant in town, picks me up in a limousine, and “forgets” his cellular phone because he doesn’t want anyone bothering us. He even wore a raincoat just so he could wrap it around me when we got outdoors.

I look back up at him. He’s already smiling, his teeth shining in the candle light. Somewhere in the background a quartet plays. I try weakly to smile back at him, forcing myself to say something, anything...

“You are not what I expected at all.”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“Well, I dunno. The media makes you so intimidating, such a God-like figure, when in reality, you don’t seem so bad.”

“Yeah, they’re notorious for twisting facts.”

“So I noticed. And… I know it sounds weird, but they seem to distort your picture too.” This comment earns me a blank stare. “I mean, um, just that you look, I dunno, different, like, you look smaller on paper and on television.”

“Uh… thanks…”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that!”

“I know, I’m kidding.” He smiles again. “I was hoping to hear you laugh again.” My face gets impossibly hotter. I could put the heat of the sun to shame. “Although, I must say that from the picture you sent me, I was surprised to see you not wearing your glasses.”

I was hoping he wouldn’t notice. Even though I’m legally blind without them, I figured that I should look my best for him tonight. After all, he deserves better. He probably gets thousands of letters like mine.

“Tell me more about your job.” His teeth really shine from this angle. I can’t help but feel that... there’s something wrong. He’s been avoiding me on a lot of questions; he seems so uneasy about something.

“Not much to tell, I’m afraid. I’m just a clerk at a video store. The location is horrible and the selection is limited like you wouldn’t believe.” He laughs. I smile, and ask, “Do you see movies very often?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I just fail to see the point of them.”

“How so?”

“I just don’t enjoy the majority of them, mostly because all I can think about while watching them is the things they had to do to make the lighting right, the makeup that had to be applied, the wardrobe, the scripts, the sets, the cameras. It feels exactly like work, you see, and it’s always a bad thing to bring your work home with you.”

“True. I don’t really rent movies anymore either. I just watch them in the store when it’s slow.” I laugh. It sounds forced and fake, but he smiles back anyway.

He still looks distracted.

“So… tell me more about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your job. ‘Work,’ or whatever it can be called. What’s it like being a hero?”

And… I get the oddest look from him. “Oh... come on, you don’t want to hear all about that boring stuff, do you?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked, now would I?”

“I hate talking about myself, though.” He doesn’t blush, but he turns away like he is. I lean forward.

“So do I, but that’s all I’ve been doing this evening. It’s not like I want you to remain a mystery to me.”

He sighs, picking up a fork and starting to play with his food. “Alright, but I’ll let you ask the questions.”

“Fair enough.”

I think, a list of mysteries and complexities running through my head faster than I can grasp them. Then, a single newspaper headline comes to mind.

“How’s the Salva case coming along?”

And right away I regret mentioning it. A slew of facial expressions and eye movements tell me that this is a sensitive topic. He clears his throat and drops his fork, the clattering seemingly catching the attention of every restaurant patron.

“Something else, please.”

“Sorry. I should have known better…”

The Ed Salva case has got to the most puzzling, disturbing homicide case of the century. Twenty-eight victims, random pattern, no discernable motive, no evidence. His victims are always found wearing their organs on the outside. Supposedly, even with the rumor that Sonic is on the case, it still goes unsolved.

I sigh.

Our food has long since gone cold, and can’t help thinking that the evening has too.

No. I can’t let it end like this.

“Where do you live?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where in the city?”

A pause. “East Side.”

At first, I’m too shocked to say anything. Then, “That place is so...”

“Low rent? You have no idea.”

“Why would someone like you stay in a place like that?”

He leans forward, the blur of his blue eyes focusing slowly.

“Now, what I’m about to tell you is supposed to be confidential, but I’m doing it because, frankly, I like you and I don’t want you to think that I’m uninterested.”

The skin on the back of my neck tingles, and I lean forward as well. The rest of the restaurant disappears.

“After months of police investigation on the Salva case, we finally got our break about two weeks ago, when a pattern was detected coinciding with his last murder case. The East Side block was what we came up with as his base of operations, and so I had the police reserve me a room.”

So it’s true: he is working on the case.

“And after that, we waited. I tailed, analyzed, and catalogued every person I saw in that building. from the single mothers to the lonely college students, and I came up with nothing. No one fit the profile. I thought I was stuck.”

I barely notice when Sonic touches my hand. He so close that I can almost see him clearly.

“Then, one night, coming home from report, I see the janitor eye me suspiciously, and it hits me: he was the only one I had not thought about. It was so obvious, too, especially after all of the clues he dropped for me at each crime scene. I was a complete idiot not to see the answer sooner, but by then it was too late...”

I suddenly don’t like where the conversation is going.

“That night, for some reason I had left the apartment door unlocked. Feeling cocky, I guess, since I had already reported that I had found him, but it was my fatal error. He barges right into my apartment, and I expect to knock him out in one punch, but he’s unaffected! He jumps at me, and we roll across the room, punching and biting at each other, until we roll into the kitchen. We run into the counter where the knives are, and they go flying all over.”

I’m so enraptured that I stop breathing.

“Thrashing on top of me, amidst the flying of fists and growling, he gets a hold of the knife and...”

!

What?!

“... brings it... hard... down on my chest...”

Oh... God!

He blinks but his eyelids don’t follow. “I wake up a few hours later, feeling so much better. It’s always like this, though; first pain, then darkness, then light. But, I’m afraid that they’re on to me. This is the last time it’ll work. Once more, at best. Oh well, we’ll just have to see...”

I guess the papers are more right than I thought.

I should have been smarter…

I…

Something colder than the steel of the fork or the icy blue of Sonic’s eyes falls over me, and the last thing I hear is a restaurant patron screaming in fright.