The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
39. Normalcy

SUNLIGHT GLISTENED through my window, hurting my eyes as I woke up. I stretched my sore back and shoulders, reminding myself to never fall asleep on my desk again. Another surprise awaited me in the form of a pool of saliva on my textbook. I gasped in horror, plugged in a hairdryer, and aimed for my textbook clumsily as I was still groggy from my uncomfortable slumber.

When my book looked all dry, I tore open another cup of instant ramen, yawning as I poured hot water from the rice cooker. This was what a teenage girl looked like alone in a dorm, living on little nutritional value. As much as I wanted a proper meal, the school cafeteria was closed on Saturdays, and the nearest café was too far of a commute for this lazy, sleep-deprived school girl.

Besides, nobody could mess up instant ramen—except for me apparently.

I put too much water, forgot to add the seasoning, and opened the packet too wide that the noodles didn’t cook properly. Might as well eat it, I thought. I didn’t want it to go to waste.

A few minutes into chewing half-cooked noodles, I received a phone call from Curtis. That just made me realize that it had been a week, disregarding the implementation of timelines, since he took me out on that nonexistent date at the arcade. I remembered how my heart fluttered when I saw him, how the world felt so much brighter when he was around, how I would declare love to an empty void because I was ashamed of how I felt toward him. Now, with all that had happened, I didn’t understand such emotions anymore.

Nevertheless, I picked up, hoarsely swallowing the remaining noodles in my mouth.

“Yellow?” I muttered.

“Oh, hey Quinn,” Curtis said in his usual cheerful voice. “We’re gonna have another band practice this morning. You free?”

I looked at the pile of textbooks on my desk. I suppose I had studied enough the previous night.

“Sure,” I replied. “What time?”

“Ten A.M. There’s food if you’re hungry.”

I looked down at my half-empty bowl of noodles. At that point, I realized that I had been having instant ramen for two meals straight. I thought that something different to eat would be great. It could be potato chips for all I cared.

“Thanks,” I said. “See ya.”

“See ya.” Then he hung up.

And there it was all over again, that oblivion that came after wireless conversations; any other words I said wouldn’t be heard. I could utter even the most embarrassing confessions, and he would never know what they were.

This time, however, I said nothing.

I entered the band room as Deus Ex Machina was in the middle of another performance. It was a song I’d never heard of before, so there was a part of me that thought this was another one of Julio’s work—no, just as he had said, they were just songs in this timeline.

Besides, he didn’t exist in this world, did he?

After a few rounds of rehearsals, Curtis pulled out a box of pizza he had ordered before practice, an uncanny food choice if you asked me. Even if it was a few timelines ago, I could clearly remember when I was stuck in the band room with Deus Ex Machina, a hoard of monsters glaring at us from the other side of the glass window. It was quite absurd that almost the entire student population of St. John’s could corrupt over cravings for pizza, or perhaps, as I had later thought, they realized that the festival was pointless to them. Both the student body and the festival were only used to move the Author’s story forward. That was all there was to it. To quote the boy in the crowd that day, what was in it for them?

I guess they all just wanted to feel like a bigger piece of the story, to get a better slice of what the Metropolis had to offer. However, just like the pizza I and Deus Ex Machina had after rehearsals, there were just too many flavors to take in: the sweetness of pineapples, the savory meats, the bitter bell peppers.

I didn’t like bell peppers, so I gave Philip mine.

The following week brought even more silence, even more normalcy than I’d bargained for. It was a series of taking exams, having lunch with Deus Ex Machina and comparing answers, studying for the next tests with them, taking even more exams, and then attending rehearsals later that afternoon—even if I barely did anything during the practice sessions. For the most part, I just sat there and listened to Deus Ex Machina play. Bree eventually asked me to make a social media page for the band, but even with that on my hands now, there was barely anything to post about.

What was noteworthy, however, was their appetite. It was like each member had a map of the Metropolis on the palm of their hand for any good place to eat after rehearsals. Most of the time, I did not tag along. Aside from Curtis, I didn’t really consider them close friends yet. I hadn’t particularly been accustomed to being around Rachael as she would fight with Bree and flirt with Curtis.

But for some reason, that didn’t stop me from attending each practice and from having lunch with them. I joined them in preparing for their next gig that weekend, designing flyers and handing them out to students around the school (right under the teachers’ noses, of course.)

“If you know the words,” Rachael said, facing an audience larger than that of the Red Herring, “sing along.”

Little did I realize that I had sung along with them that night, on a table for one with a tall glass of milk tea. It was clear outside; no doves sat on the telephone wires, and no eyes were upon me. On the bus ride back to St. John’s, crows sang in dark, their wings streaking the night sky before disappearing into the horizon.

Sunday had arrived again, and some students had gone home for the weekend. The few of us who stayed lingered around the school grounds enjoying the morning breeze. It had been sunny all week, and in the haze, I spotted Philip exiting the campus in a familiar blue polo shirt. His ice cream parlor job was still a thing in this timeline, apparently. Was I the only one who knew about it? Why did he want to keep it a secret?

People like you wouldn’t get it, he‘d said.

If he had money issues, then I didn’t really see a problem. My parents liked to pretend they were insanely rich, especially in front of extended relatives.

“Hey, Quinn,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned around to replace Curtis waving at me. He wore a collared shirt with three-fourth sleeves wrapped tightly around his arms. It was as if he had somewhere important to go.

“Hey,” I said. “Great show last night.”

I meant it. It was a great show.

“Thanks,” Curtis replied. “I missed a few notes, actually. No one probably noticed.”

“Strange…” I mused. “Drums play notes?”

“Of course. What did you think?”

“I took piano as a kid—well, at least my parents tried to enroll me for lessons. My dad’s a musician, you see.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We have this big old piano in the living room, which feels like such a waste since I gave up the moment I faced sheet music. I’m hopeless with guitar chords, and my lungs are too weak for wind instruments. That’s why I thought the drums were the easiest to play. All you needed was rhythm, right?”

“I’d actually like to see you try,” he said, smirking. “Anyway, I’m thinking of throwing a party next week.”

I blinked. “A… party?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The details are a little blurry, but it’ll be fun. I’ll tell you more about it in class.”

“Sure.”

The thought of a party sounded too normal for me. Was that all that was happening the following week? There wouldn’t be any monsters around? No Cassandra to fight? No Julio knocking on my dorm’s window? But then, all those feelings diminished as excitement coursed through my veins. I was attending a party; almost all girls my age were doing so, and Curtis’ was the first I was going to since transferring to St. John’s.

“Anyway, gotta run,” Curtis said. “I—I promised Rachael I’d take her out today.”

“Okay,” I replied. “See ya.”

And then, he ran down the school grounds, disappearing into the corridors.

In all honesty, I didn’t know how to respond. Perhaps the kiss in the storage shed still happened, so he was aware of what I felt for him. (Unless he was that dense.) The mention of a date with Rachael felt unnecessary; to some extent, I wished he had better discretion, but as a twinge of pain and embarrassment conquered me, it vanished just as it had arrived.

If this was the Author’s story, a cheesy plot about unrequited love, I’d take it any day considering all I had gone through. Even if no boy would return my feelings, I wouldn’t bend space and time just to win a guy’s heart. (The last time was horrendous, even if I didn’t do anything intentionally.)

I just wanted to be a normal girl, and I think I got what I wished for. It was a dream come true, and I didn’t even need a prince to complete this happy ending.

I just didn’t want to mess it up.