Selene’s POV

~Six Years Ago


“What’s with my tattoo?” Mom chuckles as she pulls up her sleeves, revealing the veritable gallery of art on her arms. “Which one?”

I shrug, lounging on the couch where I lazily inquire about her ink on a whim. “I dunno… your favorite. I’m trying to think of some ideas for tattoos of my own.”

“D’awww, my girl wants to be just like her Momma!” The absolute monster I call family pinches my cheek while cooing until I violently shake to escape her clutches. The woman cackles at my reaction before flopping onto the sofa and looking over her options. “I’m not sure. So many good choices. This one here I got with a good friend of mine. It’s a music note since he’s just a big old meathead who likes banging on drums all day. He got a whisk for me since he probably wouldn’t have eaten three squares without me and his sister around to scold him and occasionally cook. This one, the flaming sword, I got after losing a bet to my brother. Bastard’s first idea for a tattoo I shot down right away because he is now and has always been a crude prick. I didn’t need such an accurate representation of him on my skin… but my favorite...”

Her expression softens as her eyes pass over a certain blue patch on her skin. She tries to skip over it until I point right at it. “That one… What’s the story with that one?”

She grimaces, obviously mulling over a personally polarizing memory. “That one… was my first love. Maybe my only true love.” I look at Mom, confused. Her lack of lines standing in stark contrast to her words. “She was… brash, strong, a bit of an ass sometimes… She challenged me to be better than I was every day. She saw in me qualities and goodness I couldn’t find in the mirror. She wanted the world to see her as polished steel, flawless, indestructible. But… she let herself be vulnerable with me… she showed me a tenderness nobody would have expected from her in a million years. Hilariously enough, it was in those moments of… dare I say humanity… that I saw her shining brighter than she ever did while putting on airs.”

Mom looks lost in thought for a moment before shaking herself out of it. “Anyway, this was her favorite flower. I used to grow them in the garden we shared, but they were fragile and ill-suited to this world. They’ve since gone extinct… but I got this tattoo so that every time she was feeling down and turned her back to the world, I could walk up behind her, wrap my arms around her waist, and when she looked down at them, it’d be like I was giving her the flower she loved so much to cheer her up.”

Mom sighs and rolls down her sleeves. “Yeah, that one’s probably my favorite.”

“I’m sorry–”

“Don’t be,” Mom says smiling. “Despite how things ended… I can’t lie and say the memories are anything but pleasant. And... it's nice to see that flower again from time to time.”


***


~Present Day


You don’t need to trust me, I know I haven’t earned that with everything you know about me. Just, please, if you find out anything give me a call.

Parting words from a prick… why do I keep thinking about him? Why do I still have his number? I shouldn’t care about one fanatic’s epiphany that his vile actions were wrong after all. Though the lines being wrong... that would really be something.

“Selene, you still here?” The familiar voice brings me back to present as I stare at the half-marked short story in front of me. “Either your slush pile is just as painful as mine, or you’ve got way too much on your mind.”

I look up at Professor Garcia, who’s holding a stack of papers so devastatingly corrected she might as well have dipped the poor creative writing assignment in red paint. Not willing to admit that I was thoroughly slacking off in my duties as a TA, I shrug. “Let’s put it this way, teach, I don’t think you’re finding the world’s next great novelist in this class.”

My boss wheezes a laugh and shakes her head, spreading her greying hair around with the dramatic action. “Ah darn, and here I had such high hopes for the author of… Mucus Man… Five bucks if you can guess whether that's supposed to be a superhero or a story about a particularly rough cold.”

“Superhero.”

“Swing and a miss… wanna read it? It features graphic descriptions of phlegm that I’m assuming were informed by real-life experience!” I shiver a bit at the thought and Jane laughs a bit more at my expense. “There’s my squeamish little assistant.”

“Shut up! Not like I could even read that after you marked the whole thing with your sadistic red pen!” The damn old crone is one of the few people that knows how to get under my skin.

Still smiling, the professor sways to a beat for a moment before singing, “I see a story and I want to paint it red~”

In the market for some payback about the squeamish comment, I make a face. “I can see why someone used to be a singer.”

The professor slumps a bit. “Ugh. Low blow… my wife already makes fun of my singing enough!”

“Yeah, Mom’s pretty brutal when she makes fun of you. Sometimes I think you two are legitimately fighting before you start laughing like hyenas.” Mel walks into Professor Garcia’s office and plops into the seat next to mine. Right… Professor’s wife. Having gotten so close to Mel over the past year, I often forget the reason I took this job in the first place. I mean, the reason besides needing that sweet-sweet grad school stipend… The curious case of Mel’s parents.

Two women who seem utterly head over heels with one another, even after decades of marriage… with no line connecting them. Ironically enough, they have a red line each, both leading toward what looks like the same destination. Yet somehow, without the mystical connection that seems like an immutable rule of the world otherwise… they’re happy as can be. Part of me has always assumed they’re the exception that proves the rule… but the dumbass, looking to get hurt again, unrealistically optimistic part of me hopes they’re proof the system isn’t all it's cracked up to be.

If you find out anything, give me a call– Yeah, no not a chance, Hubris.

“Now, has Sely properly served her sentence for today? She promised we’d go see that new rom-com together!”

Looking at my best friend with a purposefully deadpan expression, I respond, “Actually, I just said we’d go see a movie… we hadn’t actually discussed what we’d watch.” Melanie waves off my words as her Mother rolls her eyes.

“Yeah sure, have fun watching the rom-com you two.” E tu, Boss… “Selene, just make sure to finish grading your assignments by midnight and submit the scores into the system before the new day resets, alright?”

I stand up dramatically and cry out, “Captain my Captain!”

“You stand on my desk and you’re fired.”

***


Two and a half hours later, Melanie and I walk out of the theater. Melanie is wiping the tears from her eyes from her typical Act Three cry while I wipe the sleep from my eyes from my typical rom-com nap. “It was so beautiful Sely, they were destined to be together! Even though every force in the world seemed determined to keep them apart, they managed to find one another again and live a happy life!!!”

Goodness goddamn gracious, just hearing that generic summary of what I just endured almost puts me back to sleep… maybe I should get checked for narcolepsy. “Yeah… it certainly was something…”

“Something wonderful,” A voice behind us interjects. Turning around, I see a tall, lean guy, around my age wearing cargo shorts and one of those Hawaiian print shirts. He’s smiling brightly and wiping a few stray tears from his eyes. “Honestly, it’s been a while since I saw something that beautiful.”

“Thank you!” Mel sighs gratefully as if she finally met someone speaking her unique language. “At least someone here has a heart!”

My eyes roll as I cross my arms. “I have a heart. Unfortunately, said heart is connected to a brain that’s seen a million movies just like that before.”

The stranger shakes his head and “tsks” a few times. “That’s no good. In the words of my favorite author: ‘To rely solely on one’s head in matters of the heart, is to feed a fire nothing but thoughts and theories about how it should burn. As passion starves without the substance of vulnerability and impulse.’”

That problematic and incredibly derivative quote sounds familiar… Before I put two and two together, Mel’s jaw drops as she stares at the man with wonder. “You’ve read my stories?” That’s where I know it from! “But how? I… I mean, only a few hundred…”

“You’re RebelMel!?” He asks, face ablaze with an excitement normally reserved for the young. My friend just nods as rapidly as a glitching game character, clearly just as amped up by this coincidence as the blonde guy asking the question. “Holy shit, what a small world!”

Mel’s face looks like she’s listening to a chorus of violins while seeing the world through a powder pink filter and mentally planning her wedding. So in the interest of helping a sister out, I look over at the quintessential surfer dude in front of us and focus on seeing his–

A blinding light causes an intense headache to shoot through my skull as I stagger back a few steps. What the FUCK was that!? The guy walks right up to me and helps me find a nearby bench to sit on. “Oh, wow, you alright, miss?” He asks as I try to see his lines ag–

“FUCK!” I exclaim as the pain renews and I cover my eyes with my hands. While my eyes recover from the second intense strain, I feel the guy lean in close as he whispers. “There are a lot of you looky-loos around here, huh? Consider that an ‘it’s none of your concern’ burn.”

“Sely!” I hear my panicked friend as she rushes to my side and holds onto my shoulder. “Oh my god, are you okay? Do you need anything? What’s wrong!?”

“I’m fine,” I groan, clearly not. Once my eyes readjust I look around frantically and see the man power-walking back with a cup. “What the fuck did you do?” I growl at him, my voice trembling a bit from the residual hurt.

With a face like a wounded puppy, the man innocently gestures at the cup in his hands. “I… I got you some ice… you looked like you had a major headache or something.

My fist clenches as my jaw sets and I feel a familiar twinge of Wannapunchamotherfucker. “You know that’s not what I mean. What did you do to me!?”

“Selene!” Mel whispers in a slightly scolding tone. “I was right here, he didn’t do a thing to you. You just doubled over. If anything, he’s trying to help.”

Looking past Mel, at the man standing slightly behind her, I see him wearing a crooked grin as he nearly laughs at me. I glare back but as Mel turns her head, his expression shifts to concern. “I– I think I should probably just go…” He says softly, putting the cup of ice down next to me. “Umm… sorry, I guess.” With that, he turns and starts walking away.

Mel shoots back up. “Wait a second!” She looks at me once more with concern. “I’m just going to thank him for his help before he bolts. Are you okay?”

“Mel… I’m telling you… don’t.”

My friend looks between me and the mystery man a couple of times before shooting me an apologetic look. “Just hang tight for a minute. I will be right back.”

As Mel scurries over to the mysterious new shithead, I hear a loud slurping sound next to me. My head whips over to investigate, and sitting next to me is yet another guy with a unique fashion sense. This time the odd attire of choice is a stained white t-shirt and joggers under an open bathrobe. “That dude right there… he seems like seriously bad news, bro.” The man says this before taking another long drink from the… styrofoam bowl of cereal in his hands? How the hell did he even get that into the theater?

“I’m sorry, who the fuck are you now?” I bark out, exasperated beyond the point of niceties.

“Ah, sorry. Sup, my name’s Gabe. My cereal told me to find you.”