“What’s this?” she asked.
“This is the part that reminds me of you.” I grabbed the handle of the door and pushed it open. At that moment, I felt as if I were Santa Claus nnand I’d just unlocked Red’s wildest dreams. Behind said door was a huge room with shelves and tables filled with comics. Special collector’s editions were even set behind glass at the cashier’s table.
“Oh my gosh.” She was stunned by what she was seeing. “Are those…?”
“Yes.”
“Can I…?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
She pushed past me and dived into the room, bum-rushing the Marvel section. The room glowed from the vintage club lighting, and it felt tacky in a cool way, if that made any sense. Carpet covered one of the walls and against it were giant posters of superheroes from all different universes.
I crossed my arms in pleasure with how it seemed I’d tapped into something she loved. I liked how she smiled as she paged through the stacks of comics. I walked across the aisle she stood in front of and began thumbing through them, too. The only thing separating us was the bin with the comics, and honestly, that was more space than I liked.
“Truth or truth?” she asked me.
I arched a brow. “Truth.”
“What was the happiest day of your life?”
“The second time I learned my mom’s cancer was gone for good.”
“That’s the best pick.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
“Truth or truth?” I inquired.
“Truth.”
“Why did your last relationship end?”
She paused a moment from paging through the comics, and I saw the split second of hurt flash before her. She shook her head a bit before replying. “I walked in on him cheating on me. Then he broke up with me because he was in love with her.”
“Again, asshole.”
“Yeah. But still…he broke up with me. I can’t believe I stood there while he was naked and allowed him to break up with me. I always thought I’d go into badass-strong-woman mode and snap during those kinds of moments. Break a lamp or two and kick him in his privates—but instead, I just stood there and took it. Then I cried for five weeks.” She stood straighter. “Actually, today’s the first day I haven’t cried.”
“We celebrate growth,” I said, applauding.
“I’m sure it has something to do with you distracting me from my heartache, so I thank you for that.”
“You’re still sad.”
She nodded. “Yes. Less sad today, though.”
“Which means you could be even less sad tomorrow, too.”
“Yeah. It’s just that breakups make you doubt everything about yourself. I keep thinking about how I could’ve been better for him, how I could’ve been his heroine instead of Monica.” She made a gagging face. “Gosh, Monica—what a stupid name. Can you believe it? He fell in love with Monica, and he talked about her as if she was his happily ever after. She was his heroine this whole time, and there I was thinking I was the leading lady in his story. All along, I was really just the basic barista, the side character no one remembers. I don’t know, maybe that’s my role in life. Maybe I am destined to be nothing more than a background character in people’s main stories. I’m just the girl who gives the hero and heroine their coffee.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
Her shoulders shrugged, and she said nothing else.
She went back to paging through her comics, and her eyes lit up with joy when she found something she loved. Her whole mood shifted when she held it to her chest and hugged it. “Do you see this?!” she excitedly asked.
“I can’t exactly see it because you’re squeezing it to death.”
She turned it around to reveal it to me, and there I was—well, not me, but my alter ego. “Captain America—a 1950 edition. This is a gem.”
“Get it. I’ll buy it for you.”
“No. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I want to. While you’re at it, build a collection for yourself to take.”
“Captain—”
“Please, Red.” I sounded as if I was begging. I was pleading because the way her eyes lit with joy looking at those comics was something I wanted to keep her feeling. “I know it’s a different time from 1918 when I was around, but I just want to do this for you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you.”
“What’s so special about me?”
I walked around to her so we stood face-to-face, and I slowly moved a piece of hair that was dangling by her cheek and placed it behind her ear. “Everything’s special about you.”
“What scares you?” she asked, throwing me off, clearly changing the subject from her to me.
“Oh, a lot of things. Snakes. Turbulence on airplanes. Being late for important meetings. Kangaroos.”
“Kangaroos?”
“Have you ever seen a kangaroo fight? Thor has nothing compared to a kangaroo.”
“Fair enough, but I was hoping for less surface-level fears. So I’ll ask again. What scares you?”
My brows knitted together. I didn’t talk about my fears out loud often. I believed that once you put words to something, once you gave voice to the monsters you kept locked away in your head, they were uncaged and able to be brought to life.
Even so, Red had been open with me, so she deserved the same respect. Maybe if I whispered it, my fears would stay only against her eardrums.
“Letting people down,” I confessed. “My mom’s cancer coming back and her dying from it. Losing people I care about. Leaving this life without making an impact.”
She smiled. It was small but felt massive in my chest. Her big smiles were amazing, don’t get me wrong, but those small, almost secret grins made me want the sun to stay down a few more hours.
“What about you?”
“I’m afraid of never having a family…of dying alone.”
“It seems we both fear the idea of death, huh?”
Her brown eyes gleamed with a bit of mirth. “You got a philosophical quote for that?”
“Hmm. ‘What worries you, masters you.’ John Locke. Which is why,” I explained, flipping through the bins some more. “I don’t speak about my fears very often. The more you feed them, the more they grow. Yeah, I have my fears and my worries, but I have more hope than that, too.”
She paused for a second and stared at me. Her eyes searched mine as if she were trying to decode something within me.
Just ask me, Red, and I’ll tell you my secrets.
Her body straightened as she stood taller with her comics pressed to her chest. “I know where I want to take you next for the place I think you’ll love.”
I arched an eyebrow and glanced down at my watch. “We’re inching closer to sunlight.”
“Well…” She walked around and held her free hand out toward me. “We better hurry.”
“Wish Alley?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as we stood at the end of a very well-lit alleyway.
People in costumes were standing around the alleyway, chatting, talking, and writing on Post-it Notes. The smoke from the sewer drains intermixed with the people’s cigarettes, creating a vibe that was unmatched. The laughter that filled the space was powerful, but then I’d look around and notice one or two individuals who were alone, who looked more somber, more heartbroken than the others surrounding them. They stared at the walls of Post-its before writing out their own and walking away.