“Wait, which order are we doing this all in?” I asked. I could tell that deflated Lori a bit, but she still laughed. “What’s so funny? I’m hungry!”
“Here I am, worried about you being upset with me, how you might be adjusting here, and any questions you may have, but you’re just worried about food.”
“Well, we came here for food, didn’t we?” I asked, not sure what she was expecting. “We’re hungry, so let’s eat. We’re humans, we can talk and eat at the same time.”
“Fair enough. Today’s meal is on me, by the way.”
I thanked her and started to work my way through the menu. It looked like a pretty standard affair for an American restaurant, which helped. Going out for dinner had become a rarity back in Oregon, so I tried to stick with what I knew I liked and wouldn’t have trouble finishing to make sure our money didn’t go to waste. They did have some more expensive steaks and seafood on here, both of which I would not be putting Lori’s bill. Instead, I saw some kind of barbecue macaroni mix which looked good and was reasonably priced. I set my heart on getting that.
A very well-built man of what I thought was Chinese descent walked up to the table. He looked a few years older than me and disinterested in the two of us. With his height, muscles, and handsome face, he was getting more than a few looks from most of the women in the restaurant. The food on their plates didn’t appear to be the only meal they were enjoying.
“Hello, I’m Alex and I’ll be your server today. What can I start you off with?” Alex’s words were the standard for waiters, but he lacked the kindness and approachability of the ones I was used to. He didn’t seem intentionally cold, just like it was his normal way of acting. Throw on his tall and muscular appearance, and he was more than a little intimidating.
I waited for Lori to start ordering since she said she was paying, but her face was buried in her menu while she mumbled to herself. I sat there for a few more seconds, watching as she occasionally threw up some quick glances toward Alex. I had no idea what had gotten into her, so I just proceeded with my order.
“I’ll take the barbecue and macaroni meal with whatever clear soda you have, thank you,” I finally said.
“Great,” Alex said, jotting my order down on his pad. “How about you?”
“M-me?” Lori stuttered, slamming the menu down on the table. “I’ll, uh, have the, um, bacon cheese fries. And a Coke. I think. Thank you”
“Right, so barbecue macaroni with a Sprite and bacon cheese fries with a Coke.” If Alex was at all bothered by Lori’s behavior, he wasn’t showing it. “Will that be all for you two?”
We both nodded and he went on his way. Along with plenty of the women around us, I watched him until he returned to the kitchen and was out of earshot. Well, I assumed he was out of earshot anyway. Never knew what kind Anomalies these people might have had that could have given them super senses.
“You okay there?” I asked Lori, not entirely sure how delicately to approach it. “You kinda broke down there a bit.”
“I, ugh, okay fine, but you have to promise to not tell anyone, okay?” Once I nodded in agreement, Lori continued. “That guy, Alex, I have a big crush on him.”
“Lori, if that’s how you act around your crush, you have more to worry about than me telling someone.”
“Look, I know, okay? I just didn’t think he’d be working here today and- oh crap, here he comes! Act normal.” Lori did her best to act normal, which was the least natural looking thing, obviously. It took everything I had to hold in my laughter when Alex gave us our sodas and told us our food would be out shortly, which somehow made Lori blush furiously. Once again, we thanked him and he went back to the kitchen.
“Well, since you can read emotions, and he seems like a pretty stable guy, I can understand the attraction,” I said, trying to put the pieces together for her crush.
“Huh? Oh, yeah sure, but have you seen his biceps?” She had a dreamy look in her eyes that said she wasn’t just hungry for some loaded fries.
“Or his biceps, those work too,” I said, failing to suppress a chuckle.
“Sure, laugh it up now, but I bet you were drooling over the site of Lizzy in a bikini,” she replied before taking a sip of her soda. “She’s always surrounded by guys. I can’t blame them either. I mean, look at her. No need to be ashamed of it. She’s absolutely gorgeous. I mean, shit, have you seen how big her-”
“Jeez, don’t say things like that so loud,” I whispered, cutting her off while my cheeks went red. “Sure, she’s pretty, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to drop everything for a chance to date her. I talked to her for maybe a couple minutes, and most of those were spent with me unable to make eye contact.”
“Anyway, let’s talk about what you can do here,” Lori said, sensing my desire to change subjects. “As you’re aware, this is the food court, which is more like a restaurant, but you get the idea.
“We have our residential area which has, and this may surprise you, residences in them. There are also a couple of small shops on the residential floors, including a grocery store. Besides those, things like the pool are located on those floors. We also have a bunch of indoor sports rooms. We have basketball courts, football fields, soccer fields, hockey rinks, and other things I’ve never even checked out. You name it, we probably have it. They get especially popular when that sport is being played, and we even stream playoff games and World Cup games at the appropriate place of play.”
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“Okay, so athletics and exercise aren’t going to be things I have an issue with here then. Do I have to sign up or anything to use them?”
“Not to use them, no,” Lori said, looking up and around the restaurant, likely for her food or Alex. “We have some small leagues that people put together, and you have to sign up to be in those, but I get the feeling you’re not interested in those.”
“Nope, not really,” I agreed. “What else is here?”
“We have two small movie theaters on the residential floors. I think that does it for those, but there could be something else hidden away that I’ve never seen before. The car garage is just that, nothing really special about it, but people are talking about doing some car shows from time to time.
“Anyway, beneath that is where you’ll find people practicing with their Anomalies. Luna bases are largely funded privately by individuals who have Anomalies as well, so to keep getting their money, we sort of need to play by their rules. That meant no formal teaching to use our Anomalies. If we had a bunch of training and someone went evil, all our donors and residents might get put in some hot water.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, getting lost in my head trying to put everything together. “Sorry, still trying to get used to everything.”
“You’re fine, don’t worry about it. But our donors specifically said that we cannot have proper classes on how to use our powers, and they check in on us a few times a year to make sure everything is up to their standard. If that happened and it got out, it could tie back to them and that’d just be a nightmare for everyone involved. So, now that people with Anomalies are attacking, we have no proper way to defend ourselves. In fact, if the Luna base locations end up being discovered, many of us are sitting ducks. What’s a girl who can read emotions going to do against someone who can move the earth beneath her feet? Not much.
“They never banned us from practicing on our own, though. We can try to evolve our powers on our own. The dedicated ones have found success with their powers that way. A lot of people struggle to grow their Anomalies in meaningful ways. Still, now that the cat is sort of out of the bag, that’s given us a bit more freedom. Starting tomorrow, we can work on drawing out your Anomaly.”
“Really? We can?” In truth, that was what I really wanted to be talking about. I had still only broken a TV, and I didn’t even know how I did that. The entire point of Shelly and I moving here was to learn about what I could do so I could protect us. “How do we do that? Some special method of training?”
“Sure, something like that,” she said, biting her lip nervously. “If you consider potentially making you cry special.”
“We’re doing what now?” I was, understandably, not thrilled with that idea. Horrible visions of things that might make me cry came to mind, and I wasn’t sure if I would really be able to use superpowers under those conditions.
“For a little while, most people can only activate their Anomaly under similar circumstances to their first usage,” Lori explained, and it started to make sense to me, but I didn’t want to interrupt her. “So, we’ll try to make you feel like you did when you broke your TV. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to use your Anomaly whenever you want.”
“And that worked for you?” I asked.
“Yep, sure did. Since my reaction was largely fear based, they had to make me intentionally scared. Guess which girl doesn’t like heights and had to go skydiving, all while trying to focus on her power and calm herself down. Yours seemed stress-based, so it should be a bit easier to get your Anomaly out. Stress is easier to create than true fear.”
After that, we just sat in silence and sipped on our drinks. Lori looked sad and lost in thought, which I had expected. Thoughts of Rory were no doubt in her mind, and she still hadn’t been afforded proper time to grieve. I felt guilty because she was still taking time out to help me out even though she had her own issues to battle through.
We were both brought back to reality when two plates loudly hit the surface of the table. We looked up to see a bored—or maybe that was normal for him—looking Alex. He muttered something about enjoying our food before walking off. The guy didn’t even offer us refills on our empty glasses. I was going to ask Lori if that was normal, but I noticed her eyes following him all the way back and decided to just leave it be.
“Thanks,” I told her as I grabbed a fork and jabbed it into my food. It smelled delicious and my mouth started watering. “You really didn’t have to do all this.”
“I really did. What I said to you in Oregon was…not cool, to put it nicely. You’ve been through more than any person should go through, and I wasn’t thinking about that clearly when I snapped at you. That doesn’t excuse what I said.”
I’d never had someone be so upfront and honest with an apology before. Shelly had come close in Oregon, but she didn’t really do anything wrong, and even though I wasn’t mad at her anymore, I did know that what Lori told me was wrong. I wanted to tell her that everything was fine now, but she looked at me with so much determination in her eyes that I kept my mouth shut.
“There are issues that I have,” she said, taking a shaky breath. “They aren’t horrible, but my power has led me to have mood swings in the past, often on very short notice, usually beyond what most normal people would consider just being moody. For someone so used to seeing emotions, I can have trouble processing my own. It happened when I first met you and later when Rory died, even if the latter was more justified.
“Those kinds of outbursts are part of the reason why I’ve been scared to try and meet new people. When I was alone in that apartment for that week, I decided that I’m going to try and put those feelings behind me. They might be a part of who I am as a person, but I can do my best to make myself better. My first step was apologizing to you about what happened…which is something I should have started with, and not waited this long to do, but here we are now.”
I tried to think about how I should reply. I could have just given her a casual show of forgiveness and understanding, though what she said didn’t really deserve such a nonchalant answer. Admittedly, I didn’t know what to say to her. I knew where she was coming from when she said those horrible things, and once she apologized, I was perfectly fine. All water under the bridge at that point. The hatchet was totally buried.
“Need help doing it?” I managed after a few seconds. “I accept your apology and forgive you, no problems there. I want to be a better person here myself. I’m aimless and I know it. While I’m here, I want to gain some direction in my life. I need to gain direction. I don’t know, I’m just not satisfied with the me I am right now. I can be better, and if I’m going to protect Shelly, I’m going to have to be better.”
“God, I’m so glad you asked,” she said, putting her head on the table. “We both suck at social interaction, don’t we? Is this how most people become friends?”
I took a little bit to think about that, but I wouldn’t deny that we were both pretty bad at being social. “Beats me. Could be better, could be worse, I guess?”
“Sounds good to me. Now how about we shut up and finally eat?” She asked, not even waiting for me before she dug into her bacon cheese fries. That was a sentiment I could get behind entirely. I took my fork and started to wolf down the macaroni, and it was one of the best things I’d ever tasted. At least for a little while, it felt good to just relax and eat food, even if we did look like starved animals doing it.