Playing with Fire

by L.J. Shen

Grandmomma always said people were like tacos—the harder they were, the easier they broke. Being soft meant being adaptive, more flexible. “When you’re soft, you can contain more. And if you contain more, the world can’t break you.”

“I’m good at things.” He quirked an eyebrow, sticking a candy apple stick he produced out of nowhere into the side of his mouth, smirking. “They’re just not resume-appropriate.”

He was going to soar and burst like a supernova once he was out of this small Texas town, and I was going to remain the ashes he left behind—the stardust that slowly descended the earth in his wake.

As I watched him there, I didn’t see the most popular guy in college. The sex god. The illegal fighter. I saw the loneliest boy I’d ever laid eyes on. Sweet, confused, and lost. And I thought, bitterly, he didn’t even know that across the parking lot sat a girl just like him.

“I’m grateful that Tuesday went down the way it did.” His voice was scratchy. Thick. “Because the worst day of your life gave me the best version of you.”