Quantum Love

(song: “Oblivious” by Aztec Camera)

“What’s the point of all this?” I remember thinking, while flames danced around us.

I hope it haunts me ’til I’m hopeless

I hope it hits you when you go

And sometimes on the edge of sleeping

It rises up to let me know it’s not so deep

The music was too damn loud. Not just loud, deafening, echoing off the crumbling walls, the crackling flames, and whatever hellish monster was stalking me from the shadows. And of course, it wasn’t some badass action-movie soundtrack. No, it was this song: “Oblivious” by Aztec Camera, blasting on a Walkman I’d bought as a joke, and now it was the soundtrack to me and the pink-haired girl standing at the edge of a blown-out window, debating whether to jump into a churning black void of smoke and fire.

“Can you turn that off?” she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m trying!” I fumbled with the Walkman’s stupid tiny buttons, accidentally flipping the cassette over. The song restarted from the beginning. Roddy Frame’s voice mocked me as my life burned down around me. “I—It’s not turning off!”

“You’re pressing play again, idiot!”

“Why is the play button so close to the stop button?!” I hissed, nearly dropping the thing.

“Just throw it out the window!”

“No way! Do you know how much Gerry yelled at me for buying this? He almost killed me when he saw the receipt.”

“Why am I not surprised?” she muttered, her voice ice-cold, almost drowned out by the roar of flames.

Gerry. Yeah, the guy had a meltdown when I brought this thing back to the shop. It was supposed to be a display piece, okay? Some hipster bait to sell overpriced cassettes. But no, he lost his mind because I used the company card. He wouldn’t shut up about “misallocated resources” and “burning money.” Now, standing in the middle of an actual burning building, I guess irony wins.

Behind us, the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps drew closer, the shadow stretching across the glowing embers and soot-streaked walls. Someone was following us. Someone who didn’t care about fire or music or why I had bought a stupid Walkman.

“How is he not getting burned?” I whispered, looking over my shoulder.

She glanced at the shadow, her expression unreadable. “Wanna go back and ask him, hotshot?" She said as she turned her gaze on me again and gave me that look.

"We have to jump.”

I had to blink my eyes 5 times while processing what she just said "I'm sorry, what?"

"We jump."

“You say that like it’s easy,” I said, taking a step back. “I don’t even know who you are!”

“You know who I am.”

“No, I don’t! I found your passports—plural—and not a single one says Azalée. I googled Azalée, okay? It’s not even a name! It’s a flower. You’re not even a person, you’re—you’re a plant! A plant!”

She smirked, clearly unimpressed with my detective work and entertained by my emotional meltdown at the same time. “Are you done?”

“No!” I said, as the shadow moved closer. “What the hell am i even doing here? You’re not real. This is insane. I’m about to die listening to a Walkman from the ’80s playing a band i actually hate, standing next to a flower in human form who, in her free time, kills people while insulting them in french, and—”

She kissed me. Not a quick peck, this was a movie kiss, a bad one, the kind of movie where the guy is totally oblivious to what is happening, but still a movie kiss. Firelight flickered in the background, the sound of my Walkman still faintly playing as her lips completely erased whatever rant I was working on. I froze, my breath catching in my throat.

She pulled away, her cool voice cutting through the chaos. “Do you trust me now?”

I couldn’t speak. My heart was still trying to restart.

“Levi.” Her hand on my shoulder. “We jump now.”

I nodded, no idea why. I just did.

We jumped.

[Scene Shift: One Week Earlier — The Shop]

The first thing I noticed yesterday night was how bad the lighting was. You’d think an Italian place that charged $19 for a plate of spaghetti would at least shell out for decent bulbs. Instead, everything was dark and fuzzy, like a cheap noir movie. Wendy didn’t see me at first, she was too busy laughing at something that waiter said, her hand brushing his arm, her eyes sparkling in a way that definitely didn’t sparkle when she looked at me.

“Wendy,” I muttered under my breath, watching through the window. I still had the takeout bag in my hand, my nose filled with the smell of Carbonara, as I saw her tilt her head and whisper something in his ear. He smiled. He was one of those tall, Italian-restaurant waiter guys who probably played mandolino at parties and made women swoon by saying, “Ciao.” I could see it all. The smirk, the way she leaned in. The same exact thing she did on our first date, only this time, it wasn’t me she was leaning toward.

I stayed there for maybe thirty seconds, just holding the takeout, hoping maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Then she kissed him. Right there in the middle of that overpriced, dimly lit restaurant. She kissed him, and I just stood there, thinking, Well, shit. Now what do I do with this fucking Carbonara?

Now, standing behind the counter at Needle & Wax, that memory played on repeat, like a scratched record I couldn’t stop spinning. I could hear Gerry in the back, yelling about some misplaced shipment of vinyl. I could hear a customer flipping through a bin of used Joy Division albums, muttering about prices. I could hear the buzz of my phone in my pocket.

I didn’t want to look, but I knew who it was.

“Levi,” Wendy’s text read, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’ll explain everything when you come home after work.”

I stared at it for a long time. I didn’t reply. Not yet. But I was about to. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a ton of options, right? Rent was due. My life was already a mess. Wendy was a mess too, sure, but she was my mess. Or so I thought.

And that’s when the door opened.

The first thing I noticed was the hair: long, straight, pink, and so clean it looked like it reflected the sunlight. The second thing was her eyes, ice-blue, sharp as glass, cutting through the dusty shop air. She had that look, like she knew exactly how much attention she drew and didn’t care. She wore a vintage Paris SG football shirt, slim jeans, and a bomber jacket so sleek it made the racks of old band shirts behind her look like thrift store trash. A pair of sunglasses hung off the neck of her shirt, and she was chewing gum like she owned the place.

I froze. My hands stopped rearranging the stack of CDs I’d been pretending to work on. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was overwhelming, like a perfectly staged movie scene. Like she’d walked in from a different universe and landed here, in Gerry’s dingy little vinyl shop, and brought all her shine and style and cold, unshakable confidence with her.

She started browsing. Her fingers skimmed the records, not in a rush, like she had all the time in the world. I realized I was just standing there, staring like a total idiot. I needed to say something, anything. I inhaled, steeling myself to speak. This was it. This was the moment I—

“Need help?” I blurted, my voice cracking slightly. Classic. Just classic.

She looked up, her gaze meeting mine. And the chapter ends right there, leaving me, and probably everyone else, desperate to know what happens next.