Eastern Lights

by Brittainy Cherry

  What’s the word to describe someone who is sexy and cute—sute? Cexy? Hell, I didn’t know what to call it, but she encompassed it completely.

  I glanced down at my watch then leaned in behind her as she stood at the pinball machine. “It’s almost three thirty in the morning,” I told her, feeling a bit sick to my stomach. I had this plan to spend the night doing all these different activities, but with the subway travel time and the city being busier than ever, time wasn’t on our side. The closer it grew to morning, the more I wanted to freeze time. I wanted more of her, more of us, whatever it was that we were.

  “I wanted to show you the other part of this location before we head out,” I explained. As I leaned in, my body pressed against her back, and for a second, I thought she leaned into me, allowing her body to mold into mine. As the night went on, our bodies found ways of being closer to one another, as if a magnetic pull was forcing us together.

  I didn’t mind. I liked it when she was close to me.

  “It’s already three-thirty?” she asked, turning my way and frowning. It was good to know we were both displeased with that reality.

  “Yeah. Come on, let me take you to the best part of this.” I took her hand and began leading us through the space. There was a door with a large glowing C over it.

  “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 t
hink 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.

  “People come here to write down their wishes and stick them to the wall. I figured we could write down our hopes and leave them here to put them out into the world. You said you don’t like speaking of your fears, which I get, but speaking about your wishes…” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Is this lame? Feel free to tell me if this is lame.”

  I laughed. “This is the opposite of lame. This is amazing.” I walked up to the wall and crossed my arms, reading some of the wishes that had been left against the bricks.

  Some wishes were material things: expensive cars, expensive games, purses.

  Others’ wishes were a bit deeper.

  I wish for my ex to love me again.

  I wish to get out of toxic relationships.

  I wish for a home.

  I wish for a cure for cancer.

  I felt that one deep in my bones.

  I looked over at Red, who was reading the words, too. I loved the way she took them in, holding her hands over her heart as if she were connecting personally to each word written upon the pieces of paper.

  “Ready?” I asked her, walking over to the stack of unused Post-it Notes and grabbing a pad and a pen for us to use.

  She took a deep breath, stepped away from the wall, and nodded. “Ready.”

  “How many do we get to write?”

  “Three seems like a magical number to me.”

  Three wishes. If I had three wishes, how would I use them?

  Number one: I wish my mother’s cancer would never come back.

  Number two: I wish no kid would ever go hungry or be without shelter or love.

  Number three:

  I turned to Red, who was in deep thought as she bit her bottom lip and scribbled on the Post-it. Every now and again, she’d pause and nibble that lip. I couldn’t stop watching her stop-and-go writing process. Everything about her, I found so damn attractive.

  I went back to my last Post-it and scribbled down my last wish.

  Number three: More nights like this. More nights with Red.

  We put the notes up on the brick wall. I knew they’d probably blow away at some point in time. I knew they would roll up and tear at some point. But, at that moment, it felt powerful to put our wishes into the atmosphere.

  Red walked over to my notes, and I walked over to hers. She wished for longevity, she wished for love, and she wished for more time.

  I couldn’t help but wish for more time, too. Each second I spent with her that evening felt like something important was slowly evaporating from my life. There I was, hoping to make her fall in love with me as a way to help her get over her ex, and there I was, falling quickly for a girl who wasn’t going to stick around after sunrise.

  Oh, the situations we put ourselves in, Con.

  “More nights with Red,” she said out loud before turning to me. “You wished for more nights with me?”

  “Yes. More nights with you.”

  She laughed a little and fiddled with her hands. “That’s funny,” she said, pointing toward the wall. “Because I cheated a bit and wrote a fourth note.” She revealed the sticky note in her palm then handed it over to me. “I wished for you, too.”

  I read the words: More Captain America.

  I smirked and brushed my hand against the back of my neck. “More of me?”

  “More of you.”

  Fuck.

  My heart.

  I’d always known it was there, but I hadn’t known it could beat like that, like a million fireworks all exploding at once into a damn masterpiece.

  I held my hand out toward her. “Dance with me.”

  “What?” She giggled. And my gosh, I loved her giggle. “There’s no music.”

  “Don’t care. Just dance with me.”

  She gave me her hand and I pulled her toward me. Our bodies swayed slowly as she wrapped her arms around my neck and rested her head against my chest.

  “I can feel your heartbeats,” she told me.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I was a corny guy. When it came to being the cornmaster, I was the leader of the pack. But I didn’t want to go full-blown corn and tell her that heart she was feeling was beating for her.

  But let’s be honest…that heart was beating for her.

  “Mario never danced with me. He said it was stupid,” she told me. Everything she told me about that man made me hate him that much more.

  “Do you like dancing?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I love it.”

  “Can you make me a promise, Red?”

  “Yes.”

  “Never again fall in love with a man who won’t dance with you.”

  She looked up at me for a second before laying her head against my chest. “How many times have you been in love?”

  “In the normal sense of the word? Never.”

  “What do you mean by that? ‘In the normal sense’?”

  I smirked. “I’ve never had a girlfriend. Therefore, I’ve never had that normal boy meets girl, boy and girl see each other nonstop and talk nonstop and fall madly in love kind of love story.”

  “If you’ve never loved a woman, then you’ve never been in love. Easy as that.”

  I smiled. “I disagree with you on that. If only it were that easy. But I feel love all the time. I call it flashes of love, small or big moments of connection with a person. It’s the small moments of love that I like the best. Like when a person rushes to open the door for you when your hands are full. Or when a little kid falls into a laughing fit and can’t stop giggling. When an older couple walks by holding hands. Those are moments when I feel love. Those are the moments I fall head over heels. I love the flashes of love.”

  “See, I hear what you’re saying, but can I be honest for a second?”

  “I thrive on honesty.”

  She pulled away a bit, bringing our dancing to a stop, and she scrunched up her face. “When you say all of that, 99% of me believes you, but the other one percent is like, That sounds like some major fuckboy stuff,” she joked.

  I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you could see it that way. Honestly, that’s why I wanted this night to be only tonight. Do I want more time with you? Absolutely. But am I aware that I’m not in a place to give you the love and time you deserve? Yes. I’m too focused on my career to respectfully take up real estate in a woman’s life when I am not equipped to give her the fair equity she deserves.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “So basically, you’re trying not to waste people’s time.”

  “We’re on this earth with limited time. It would be a shame if I wasted someone’s.”

  “That’s really un-fuckboy of you to say.”

  I snickered. “I’m trying to be as un-fuckboy as possible.”

  “Captain?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we dance again?”

  Within seconds, we’re swaying again to our own kind of music.

  “So this would be one, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

  “Be one what?”

  “A flash of love.”

  I rested my chin on the top of her head as we moved back and forth. “This whole evening with you has been nothing but flashes of love.”

  After our time in Wish Alley, dancing to ou
r own music, we both realized time was running out, and it was my turn to take her to a place I loved.

  “So, here’s the thing. I love a lot of places in the city, but I kind of want to go back to the beginning of the night where you and I began. I was hoping maybe we could watch the sunrise over the city on the rooftop of the bar,” I offered.

  “I feel bad. I feel as if I took up too much time in the comic bookstore geeking out. Now, you don’t have enough time to take me to a place you love,” she explained.

  “The places I’ve loved tonight were the ones I went with you. Wherever you were tonight, I loved it.”

  She blushed, and if that wasn’t a small sample of what love felt like, I didn’t want to know what love truly was. Because the feeling in my chest was so overwhelmingly packed with joy that I thought my heart was going to explode.

  “You’re such a smooth talker, Cap.”

  “I think you like it, Red.”

  “I do,” she confessed. “I’ve liked every single moment of the night. Well, minus the one when you got a black eye,” she said, gently touching the space around my eye. I’d almost forgotten I got my ass kicked.

  Funny how she didn’t think she was the heroine of her story when she literally made me forget about my pain. Only a leading lady could do that.

  “Won’t the bar be closed by the time we get there?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about that. I have a few connections, remember? Unless you want to do something else to help ensure you fall in love with me. I can book us a quick trip to Bora Bora or something,” I joked.

  “No.” She laughed and shook her head. “I think the best way for me to fall in love with you is just being around you.”

  This time it was my turn to blush like the schoolboy I had been.

  “You’re a smooth talker, Red.”

  “It’s only because I want you to fall in love with me.”

  Dammit, Red…it’s working.

  5

  Aaliyah

  We stopped for coffee before arriving at the bar where we’d begun. The club was already closed, and the only people left inside were the workers cleaning up. My heart dropped a bit the moment I realized we were locked out, but it began skipping again when Captain pulled out his cell phone and made a call.