Collide. Megan Hart

Jen grabbed at the pendant, catching it before it could fall onto the table. She handed it to me.

      “Damn.” I studied it. Nothing special, really, just a small, swirled design. I’d picked it up on the bargain table at my favorite thrift store. I cupped it now, the metal curiously warm in my palm. “Ah, well.”

      “Can you get it fixed?”

      “Not worth it. I don’t even think it’s real gold.”

      “Too bad,” Jen said brightly. “Otherwise, you could take it to one of those places that buys gold for cash! I got invited to some home party thing my mom’s neighbor’s having. It says they’ll take gold fillings … teeth attached!”

      “Gross!” I put the necklace into my coat pocket.

      Jen laughed and seemed about to say something else, but her chuckle caught and broke. She looked over my shoulder, eyes wide. I knew better than to turn around.

      I didn’t have to. I knew it was him. I could feel him. I could smell him.

      Oranges.

      He eased past us. The hem of his long black coat brushed my arm, and I turned into a fifteen-year-old girl. The only reason I didn’t giggle out loud was because my throat had gone so dry I couldn’t make a peep. Jen didn’t say a word, either, just stared at me with raised brows until Johnny’d passed.

      “Are you okay?” she whispered, leaning close. “You look like you’re going to pass out. You’re all pale!”

      I didn’t feel like I was going to. I didn’t feel pale. I felt redhot and blushing. I swallowed the cotton on my tongue and shook my head, not daring to look over her shoulder to watch him place his order at the counter. “No. I’m okay.”

      “You sure?” Jen put her hand over mine to squeeze. “Really, Emm, you look …”

      Just then, he turned around and looked at me. I mean, really looked. Not a quick glance, eyes sliding past me like I didn’t exist. Not a double take, either, like the sight of me had frightened him. Johnny Dellasandro looked at me, and I was already half out of my chair before I realized I couldn’t just get up and go to him.

      Jen glanced over her shoulder, but he’d already turned back to the counter to take the plate with the muffin on it from the counter girl. He wasn’t looking at me any longer, and I didn’t know how to tell her he had been. If he had been—it was easy in those few seconds to convince myself I’d imagined it.

      “Emm?”

      “He is so fucking beautiful.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded hoarse and harsh and full of longing.

      “Yeah.” Jen’s brow furrowed and she glanced at him again.

      He’d moved to a table toward the back and looked up at the sound of the bell over the door. Jen and I both looked, too. A woman about my age, maybe a year or two older, moved directly toward the back of the room without stopping even at the counter. From my place at the table it was easy to see her slide into the chair across from Johnny and to watch her lean forward so he could kiss her in greeting. My stomach dropped all the way down to the toes of the boots I’d spent twenty minutes agonizing over.

      “Well, fuck,” I said miserably.

      Jen looked back at me. “I don’t recognize her.”

      “No. Me, neither.”

      “She’s not a regular,” Jen continued, affronted. “Jesus, at least he could go with a regular!”

      I didn’t feel like laughing but I couldn’t help it—her logic was so very flawed. “Why don’t you go over there and challenge her to a dance-off or something.”

      Jen shook her head and looked at me seriously. “I don’t think so.”

      I opened my mouth to protest that I was kidding, but the way Jen looked again back at Johnny and the woman, then at me, stopped me. She wasn’t smiling. I felt studied. A different kind of heat crept up my throat and cheeks, somehow guilty this time.

      “No,” she added. “I don’t think so.”

      My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. “It’s my mom.”

      “Go ahead and take it. I’m going to grab some coffee and a piece of cake or something. You want a muffin and a bottomless cup, right?”

      “Yeah, thanks.” I dug in my purse for a ten-dollar bill she waved away, and I couldn’t argue with her because I was already thumbing my phone’s screen to take the call. “Mom. Hi.”

      “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing’s wrong—why do you always think something’s wrong?” I should’ve felt more annoyed by her question, but the truth was, it was good to hear the concern in my mom’s voice. It was good to be so loved.

      “You called me before noon on a Sunday morning, that’s why I think something’s wrong, Emmaline. You can’t lie to your mother.”

      “Oh, Mom.” Sometimes she sounded so much older than she was. More like a grandma than a mother, and yet I knew from photos and stories that she’d been a true child of the sixties. More so even than my dad, who wasn’t above getting a little tipsy at Christmastime and who’d confessed to me once that he thought pot should be legal. “So. Tell me?”

      “Nothing’s wrong,” I assured her. My eye caught Johnny again, but he wasn’t looking this way. He was in intense conversation with that woman, both of them leaning in toward each other in a way that could only mean intimacy. I tore my gaze from them and focused on my call. “I just thought I’d see what you’re up to.”

      “Oh.” My mom sounded nonplussed. “Well, your dad and I went out to breakfast at the Old Country Buffet.”

      “You … went to breakfast?”

      At the counter, Jen was only a few feet away from Johnny, but she didn’t even look like she was trying to take a peek, much less not-so-casually overhear their conversation. It was still going full-force, based on his expression and the set of his companion’s shoulders. I couldn’t see her face, but her body language told me everything I needed to know.

      “Sure. Why, aren’t we allowed?” My mom sounded a little strange, a little shorter in her response than I was used to.

      “Of course you are. Mom, are you feeling okay?”

      “I’m supposed to be asking you that,” she said.

      And there it was, the subject that would never go away. It wasn’t fair to call it an elephant in the room. You were supposed to be able to ignore those.

      For one long instant I thought about telling her. Not the bits about the sex on the train and being some sort of 1970s Italian movie queen. I was sure my mom didn’t want to hear about that. But the small blank moments, the scent of oranges. I didn’t, though. Not only because I didn’t want to worry her, but because I didn’t want to prove her right.

      “I’m fine, Mom. Really.” My throat closed on the lie, and my eyes smarted. I was glad we had the distance of satellites between us. I’d never have been able to get away with it face-to-face.

      “Where are you? I hear a lot of noise.” “Oh. The coffee shop.”

      My mom laughed. “Again? You’re going to turn into a cup of coffee soon.”

      “Better that than a pumpkin,” I told her as Jen wove her way back to our table balancing two plates and two empty mugs. “People who love coffee say they can’t live without it. Pumpkins just get made into pie.”

      “Oh, you crazy girl,” my mom said fondly. “Call me tomorrow?”

      “Sure, Mom. Bye.” We disconnected just as Jen sat down, pushing my plate and mug toward me.

      “Your mom must be pretty cool,”