Will's Secret

'I have something to tell you,' Will said, staring at his clammy palms with bright eyes and a creased forehead.

'Oh no.' Jen slammed down a clawed palm onto the armrest and muted the TV with the other hand.

'Don't tell me that that bitch ex-girlfriend of yours is visiting. I will be annoyed.'

'No, it's not that,' he replied. 'This is bigger.'

'You're engaged,' Jen said with a lump in her throat.

'No, bigger.'

'Pregnant? Well, not pregnant, but, you know, having-'

'No.'

'Then what?' Jen's hand relaxed as her curiosity tingled.

Will took a very deep breath, more than it seemed was possible. He then gulped and raised his eyes to meet hers.

'I'm an alien,' he said.

'Shut up,' she snapped back. She muttered something about how she should have expected it to be something stupid.

'I'm serious,' he said. His chest and eyelids trembled.

'I don't get it,' Jen said, almost as a question.

'I was not born on this planet.'

'This is a joke,' Jen said, 'right?'

Will stared. His breath shook.

Jen didn't speak for what seemed, to Will, like forever. He wasn't sure that she'd still accept him for what he really was.

'But... how?' she finally said.

'How what?'

'Where were you born then?'

'Mars,' Will said.

'There's nothing on Mars!' Jen started to think that it was a joke after all.

'There's loads on Mars,' Will said. 'It's just that you humans always land in the desert and then get bored.'

'So, you're... not human? Are you... in disguise or something? Or using a Chameleon Circuit thing... from Doctor Who?' Every two words from Jen's mouth sounded like questions that grouped together to form bigger questions.

'No, this I actually how I look,' Will said.

'But you- what-' Jen tip-toed, 'have four lungs or something?'

'No, us Martians have exactly the same bodies as you do.'

'Oh,' Jen said, feeling like everything she had ever assumed about how aliens look was just childish. 'That's... boring.'

'Um... I'm sorry?' Will said.

'How come you're exactly the same as us?' she said.

'We just happened to evolve in exactly the same way,' Will said, lightly, with a shrug of the shoulders.

'But, there must be some crazy alien animals though, right?'

'Not really, everything evolved the same as here.'

Jen looked at the floor. A tiny fly had landed near her foot and seemed to wait until she was millimetres away before it flew off.

'What about your culture and history?' Jen sparked, pointing towards Will with her finger and the ceiling with her eyebrows. 'Those can't possibly be the same! Not everything that's ever happened throughout time: millions of years of development leading to thousands of years of individual thoughts and philosophies and conflicts and feats that shaped the world in infinite ways. So many great minds have crossed the face of this planet and created the life we live today. It's impossible that your culture and history can be the same.'

'Pretty much...' Will said, squinting.

'Gah! How?'

'Well, obviously we didn't have the same people, but the same basic philosophies gradually developed and societies became shaped by this. If you went to Mars today, you wouldn't find it weird. It'd probably be weirder going to Asia.'

Jen huffed and crossed her arms.

'I can't believe you're an alien and yet that's so boring,' she said.

'Sorry to disappoint,' Will said.

'That's ok,' Jen sighed. 'What are you making for dinner tonight, anyway?'