Andrew Kelly

And so, on a bluebird day in September, she packed up her things and she went. To conquer the world, and maybe some others. To prove that she could.

She took a breath and she took a step.

And the shadows followed

Everything else was black, down to the dark matte of her lips. She wore her hair in two high pigtails. Like she was going to a comic book convention and not to class. Like this was Ivy League cosplay and she was Wednesday Addams. The white-blond spill deepened to a pale violet coil at the ends.

He wasn’t supposed to talk to her.

He knew it, and yet he couldn’t keep the words from carving out of him anyway.

“Personally, I’m partial to ‘lump of foul deformity.’ ”

She pinned him in a withering stare. “I think I’ll stick with ‘asshole.’ ”