Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(110)

“Uh, well. From the exactly two school dances I’ve ever been forced to attend, I stand over by the wall with my friends drinking fruit punch from a paper cup, trying to look cool but feeling like I’m three subway stops past awkward while silently praying the song ends in a hurry and we can go back to talking about gaming. Then there’s a big group dance at the end that smells like BO in motion.”

“Nice.”

Chloe high-fives the screen. Miles matches it, wishing he could touch her fingers for real.

“Anyway. I’m closing out with a favorite.”

“Hey, Miles?” Chloe says.

“Yeah?”

She smiles. “Thanks for taking me to prom.”

“It’s not over. Still time to fuck it up,” he says. He moves the speaker closer to the laptop and cranks the volume. It’s 4:53 a.m. but he thinks he can get away with it for six minutes and eleven seconds. His shoes are off, his tie and jacket long gone. Chloe has traded her prom dress for Pokémon pajamas. Her tiara rests on the bedside table. Miles presses play. Robert Fripp’s iconic, industrial guitar riff floats through the living room and reaches across the ether-miles like astronauts of sound landing in Chloe’s bedroom.

“CAN YOU HEAR IT?” Miles shouts at the screen.

“YES!”

Miles circles his arms maniacally, pushing them forward and back like an over-the-top magician in a melodrama. Chloe’s laugh drifts out of his laptop’s speaker. They twirl like sugared-up elves and do the Batman-eyes move. Chloe pretends to hypnotize Miles and he dances like a robot, then a chicken, then a ballerina. The moment is both ridiculous and deeply beautiful. For the length of the song, there are no sirens; there is no fear, no aching uncertainty about the future; they are just two high school seniors at a homemade prom. When Bowie sings the line about them being lovers, and that is a fact, Miles blushes and turns away from the camera for a moment. The two of them are grainy and laptop-light shiny. Their movements sometimes freeze and Miles hopes it’s not while he’s in the middle of something stupid.

But as Bowie kicks into high gear, they both stop, punched by the sonic grandeur of its pleading. Miles and Chloe sing along in earnest, caught up in the strength of its emotional prayer: that they, that anyone, can be heroes, even if only for one day. They sway, separately and in unison, their dance moves slightly satellite-delayed. The song fades away; it ends. Outside Miles’s windows, the sky is a sluggish gray.

“I guess that’s prom,” Miles says. He is tired but happy. “We did it. Yay, us.”

“Yay, us.”

She pats at her bed head. “I must look pretty scary right now.”

“Nah. You’re beautiful. I mean it.”

This time, Miles presses his palm to the screen and Chloe matches it. They stand like this for several seconds. Chloe yawns. “Sorry. It just hit me.”

“Yeah,” Miles says, pulling his hand back. “Me, too.” He places his cursor over the red leave-meeting block. “On three?”

Chloe laughs. “Okayyy. New dance move?”

“Just so we disconnect at the same time.” Miles shrugs, self-conscious. “It’s stupid, but…”

“No,” Chloe says, nodding. “I get it. It’s good. On three. Ready? One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

Miles clicks the box and just like that, Chloe is gone. Dodger trots into the room and whimpers to be let out. Miles opens the door to the backyard. Dodger cocks his head, confused.

“Dude, I’m busted. Can’t you go in the backyard like a normal dog just this once?”

Dodger barks and pushes his nose against Miles’s shin. Miles sighs and grabs his hoodie, a mask, and the leash, and then they are walking through Brooklyn’s strangely quiet streets. A pale pink morning begins its rise. The birds sing to one another.

Still high on the night, Miles keeps walking. He and Dodger cross over the expressway and head into Prospect Park all the way to Grand Army Plaza, where the sun is now struggling up between two apartment buildings. The sky is clear. It’s going to be a really pretty day. Miles will probably sleep for most of it.

Halfway toward home, his phone pings with a text from Mom Lisa, who’s just coming off shift. A response to his prom photo from last night.

I’m sorry, who is this GROWN MAN texting me? Wrong number, bro.

A second text follows. JK. You look sharp, Baby Boy. How was it?

Grinning, Miles texts back. Great! I’m pregnant.

He waits. The three dots fill his screen, disappear, reappear. Awesome. You’re gonna need a job.

His moms, constant as the sun now overtaking the meadow, warming his face. Miles laughs, filled with a reassuring light.





THE TALE OF THE HARE AND THE DEER



Once upon a time.

Once.

As if we could lock away such a time in a word and hope it would never return.

I’m sorry. I did not sleep well last night. Such dreams. I was deep in a forest. Something was chasing me. Not an animal. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know. My memory is an enemy. It wants me to surrender.

Let me start over.

So.

Once upon a time, there was a verdant land. Verdant. Green. But not in winter. In winter, there is blood on the snow. You would not think there could be so much blood from so small a wound. There were two sisters, Saga and Freya. They loved each other very much. Such a bond. The barn owl had been murdered. Such a great loss was felt by the whole of the forest. The lamentation rippled through the atoms of the river and the air and the roots of every tree, for as I said, everything is connected. Even the stars cried into the new dawn, which came up weak as a watery bloodstain. The oak absorbed the news with a bow of its majestic canopy; its leaves shook, a choir of tears. All was melancholy. I used to think that was a beautiful word. I used to think a lot of things that were not true. I was a bit of an illusionist, too. But the only one I ever fooled was myself.