Galactic Thrift (Goddess of the Universe)

I grabbed an ugly mauve gown off the portable rack and held the hanger high above my head, as I walked toward the wall to hang it with other forgotten gowns, when suddenly, I was staring at the cement floor, filled with shock and epic pain.

“Owwww… ugh. Nooo! No no no!” I tearfully plead for help. For it to be a bad dream. But not my real life! Not an injury that would keep me from earning a flipping meager living! I would end up on the street. “How can this be happening?” To me… I thought, so desperately horrified that I just ruined everything.

I heard a peculiar pop and sizzle and glanced to my left to find a glimmering, red rift opening up right there.

In the DRESSES section!

At Galactic Thrift?

“The flip? Seriously! The FLIP?!”

And through it stepped a face so very familiar, he could have been mine for milenia. I sucked in a breath, hurting and simultaneously vibing and more than mildly staggered by his nonchalance in arriving so very uncharacteristically. And with quite the quantum leap.

“Sullivan R. Quinn!”

“Hello, Samanthy.” He winked. I blinked in return, wishing I could rub my eyes. What if I was only seeing things and persons? Maybe I was that miserable…

“Ugh, wrong.” I managed to sit onto my butt, holding my knee, breathing through the pain. Crying. Crying through the pain. Why did being human have to hurt so damn much? Why didn’t anyone get trained how to hang long gowns and clothing items? Trained to tuck the dresses and gowns up over their hangers to prevent hazards?

“Mantha.” I gulped in a sob, half pain, half hopeful surprise at seeing him again just by thinking of him. At least, I was nearly certain that I had wish-spiraled him to me.

“Blurg. Nope.” A huge golly whopper of a tear snail-trail rolled slow-like down my cheek, pausing several times for dramatic affect.

“Sammy.” I sniffled, smiling and grimacing. Smimacing? Grimling…

“Again. No. Just. no.” I gently shook my head, from side to side, never taking my eyes off of his, feeling resolute, absolutely certain I hated the nickname, Sammy, but also like shock was setting in. And love. Love was settling deep into my bones.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Sure, okay. That.” I sucked in my breath, reached for him, and I tried to stand.

“She grabbed a few dresses to put away

On morning shift, that Saturday.

When a mauve chiffon gown got in her way

Stalling her work, to their dismay.

On her hands and knee on a cement floor.

Shocked to find herself not as upright as before.”

“Sullivan R. Quinn. No. No poems to memorialize this terible, brilliant, painfully awfully romantic moment. I think I tore something. Something very important.”

“Your awesome apron?”

“Hah! Nooo. Something in my knee. Maybe my meniscus?”

“Oh my Meniscus.”

“Yeah, there’s no way I can walk on this, flip, let alone drive myself. Would you take me to the nearest Urgent Care?”

“I’m glad I showed up when I did.”

“Sully, it’s been years! What took you so long?”

“I was waiting. For you.”

He was everywhere.

At least, he had been. While school was in session. Sullivan Quinn was legitimately everywhere I had been. He was in my classes. My lunch break. My extracurricular. My guard room. Hmm. Well, Band Room. The marching field. Buses. Sidewalks. Grass…

Everywhere.

And I had not loved the idea.

Then suddenly, he wasn’t everywhere I looked. Or turned. He was absent, missing from my always. We left school behind. And belatedly, I realized I had grown used to him always being in my sight. Always being nearby. Hearing him.

Knowing, if I needed him… if I asked… he would hear… he would be there.

Until he… wasn’t.

And my heart ached for him. Missed him. Looked for him. Hoped… for him. But I could no more control when I was finished with my current life cycle than I could force him to appear to me with just a thought. Or a wish. A seed of hope planted firmly in my deepest well of feelings for him and glimpses of a possible future beside him. But I was pretty certain he already had someone beside him…

And she… was not… me.

And he was not in the Puget Sound Lostlands, in a quirky, terribly exhausting, oft-times perilous, holier than thou thrift store on Neridiam. He was not experiencing the living hell of rampant sexual harassment that went unpunished.

But I was.

And I was alone. Stuck. Trapped.

Until just now.

Maybe falling wasn’t the worst thing ever to happen to me, if it meant I got to share time with Sully Quinn.

Sitting in a silver and black foldable wheelchair- which was surprisingly brand new and had previously been for sale for five dollars- I stared up at Sully, feeling anchored in his notice. Like everything could be okay simply because he stood nearby. “Are you able to heal yourself?”

“I…I don’t know. I’ve tried leaving just now, but I’m obviously still here.”

“Will you try? Please?”

“For you, yes.”

I cringed, bracing for pain. “Okay, here I go. Trying.”

“Why are you just sitting there? Don’t you have more clothes to recover at the dressing room?”

“Wegsdick, don’t you have a brain to notice I’m injured?”

“It’s Wicksedge.”

“Sure. Sure. Right. Sickdewg.”

What more could he do but roll his blustering eyes at me? He couldn’t, but I relished if he were to try.

“What happened? Sam, are you okay?” One of my favorite coworkers quickly rushed up to me.

“I’m not and I am.” His eyes ran up and down Sully and then he smiled at me, winking with a twinkling eye sparkle.