MIDNIGHT SNACK

He was stunning: sleek black hair that fell to his neck, eyes ringed in inky eyeliner, a red fishnet shirt under a black leather vest. His tight, dark jeans glittered in the light.

Rachel wondered with a sigh why she always fell for boys who were prettier than her.

Of course she’d decided to make her midnight CVS run in sweatpants and a chunky sweater. Of course she hadn’t bothered to wear cover-up or comb her lifeless brown hair.

She watched him stroll through the drink aisle from a safe distance, hiding behind a cheap Halloween skeleton in a cloak. There was no way she was going to let him see her, not with a liter of Pepsi, two bags of pretzels and three expensive chocolate bars in her basket. He was probably here to buy something sophisticated and vegan. Or beer. She couldn’t decide.

For a moment she considered sticking a box of granola bars in her basket, but decided it would still be blatantly obvious that she was going home to an empty apartment to eat her loneliness and watch four hours of “Glee.”

There was music in the way he moved. He carried his basket lightly, like he was too cool to even care about it’s presence. He pulled on of the glass freezer doors open, and Rachel waited for it: v8, Fuze, Naked Juice, maybe some canned cappuccino concoction.

He picked up a diet coke and dropped it in his basket.

Rachel frowned. He moved onto the snack aisle and she stalked him from behind the skeleton as he picked up two bags of Doritos and a whole bag of Reese’s. He paused for a moment, thinking, and then darted back to the drink aisle, swapping his diet coke for a regular one. Then he headed for the self checkout. As he started bagging his snacks, Rachel eased around the skeleton to hide herself again. “Mwahahaha! Happy Halloween!”

Rachel froze as the skeleton cackled and jerkily waved its arms. The boy was staring right at her. She felt like all those dreams where she showed up at school naked.

Then her eyes fell on the coke in his hand.

She took a deep breath, stepped away from the howling skeleton, and took the self checkout next to the glittery guy. With purpose, she scanned each one of her comfort foods and plopped them into a plastic bag. As she swiped her debit card, she glanced sideways to see him failing to jam a crumpled ten into the cash slot. She typed in her pin, faced him, and said, “I like your eyeliner.”

He looked at her and she nearly melted. “Thanks,” he said. “I like your sweatpants.”

Rachel wasn’t sure what to do, so she nodded curtly, took her receipt, and left the store. As soon as she was outside, she allowed herself a Breakfast Club air punch. Then she realized the guy in the taco truck on the corner was staring at her. She ducked her head and scuttled away.

EYES CLOSED

Lily closed her eyes, and the world went away.

“Can you hear me?”

Doctor Franklin’s voice was muffled, far off. “Yes,” Lily replied.

“Good. Now, Lily, it’s normal to feel disoriented when you close your eyes. For a moment, you may feel like the only person in the world.”

“That’s not what it is.”

“Then describe it to me.”

Lily breathed out and felt the universe shift. “I’m outside earth. Far outside. I can see galaxies moving. Spinning. Sometimes…I’m the one moving them.” She cracked an eye open, and the world rushed back like a bucket of cold water. “I’m not on drugs.” Doctor Franklin smiled.

“I never said that.”

“Good. Don’t.” Lily closed her eyes again and the universe floated by her. “Do you remember,” she said, “Last year when we had all those solar flares?”

“Yes.”

“That was me,” she said. “I sort of…elbowed the sun.”

“Ah.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“Okay.”

Millions of light years away, a star exploded silently. Lily watched the light spill out onto the black, felt the warmth of the flames on her skin. “A supernova,” Lily murmured. “It’s beautiful. I wish you could see it. I wish everyone could see it.” She felt a surge of delight. “Everyone can.”

When Doctor Franklin spoke, there was a note of concern in his voice. “Lily, I don’t think that most of us would survive a supernova.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I’d prefer if you kept those to outer space.”

“All space is outer space,” Lyly countered. “It’ll be fine. I can protect Earth. I’m strong enough. And when the sun is finished, I’ll create a new one.”

“Lily, that’s enough. I’ve gone along with your delusions until now but this isn’t a safe line of thought. You have to stop playing games.”

The room rocked. Lily heard Doctor Franklin land with a thump on the floor. She kept her eyes closed as he struggled to his feet. “I just altered the earth’s axis,” she said calmly. “That’s not a game, Doctor Franklin.”

“C-Coincidence…”

The room rocked again. The sound of Doctor Franklin’s desk crashing to the ground echoed through the universe. She heard the doctor scrambling though his things.

“We all feel so small, don’t we, Doctor?” Lily said, turning her gaze to the star at the heart of the galaxy. “But not me. Not anymore.”

“Lily, please stop.”

She reached for the sun.

“Lily, please, don’t make me do this!”

She smiled. “It’s going to be so beautiful, Doctor.”

For a moment, the whole universe stopped to listen to the sound of a single gunshot.

SALTINES

She had a shotgun way of eating saltines. Her whole hand dipped into the wrapper, and she drew out two crackers, one held between her index and middle fingers and the other pinched between her ring finger, pinky, and thumb. She’d pop one cracker into her mouth and let the other hang loosely from her lips. When she was done chewing the first, she’d pop the other in with a quick flick of her tongue and pick out two more crackers. It was frighteningly efficient.

Her work-issued nametag said Roxanne. It was an odd name for someone in this day and age, Colby thought. It sounded like velvet corsets and square necklines and ruby pendants. He looked back up to her face to find her staring right at him. Blushing, he looked back down at his sandwich.

Then she threw a saltine at him. The was three full tables away and she bounced it right off his head. When he looked up in disbelief, there was a saltine hanging off her lip, and she waggled another between her index and middle like a ninja star.

Annoyed, Colby took an aggressive bite of his sandwich and made a big show of chewing it. She counted by popping three saltines in her mouth at once and throwing up a metalhead evil eye. He unscrewed the cap on his mountain dew and chugged the whole thing at once. She stuck out her tongue, placed a saltine on it, and nearly swallowed it whole. He jammed half his sandwich in his mouth–

–and started choking.

The next thing he knew, a hand was pounding his back until he managed to send the sandwich down the right tube. He looked up. “You okay there, champ?” Roxanne asked with a wry grin. Flushing an incandescent shade of red, he nodded.

She tossed the empty saltine wrapper in the garbage and strolled out. He licked his lips. They tasted like salt.