Tomorrow Holds Such Better Days

It was late September, the leaves had already started to change their colors into the bright yellows, reds, and oranges. Making the whole world light up against the gloaming clouds of the gusty weather. But I didn't mind, I never did, fall was my favorite season. I liked wearing hoodies and scarves, and watching the leaves fall off of the trees.

But compared to the excitement of the fall weather; work, as usual, was boring. I worked in a little comic book store in a complex that no one really visited, due to the lame location, I loved reading comics and not really having any work to do, but sometimes I wish an actual human being came in. No one was in today, except for me. The manager left early, telling me to close up.

Matt always trusted me enough. So here I was, reading random comics that I picked out before my shift as I tried not to cry about the lack of human communication, I couldn't help it, I was the sort of person who liked talking about my interests to random strangers. I also longed for my laptop, which was waiting in my room, calling for me. I was actually itching to play World of Warcraft since the last bell for the weekend rang.

But I had a three hour shift and no wifi to deal with. And naturally, I sat down muttering to myself about the complications of my life. It wasn't until twenty minutes through maybe my fifth comic that I hear the bell on the door ring, signalling that someone entered into the shop.

Unlucky for me, you could never see the customer that entered from the counter of the store, so you literally had to maze through and creep around until you find them. Afraid that it might have been John, who was the owner of the store, and would sneak in visits sometimes and fire people if they weren't doing their job, I got off my ass and wandered around the small store trying to find the person who just entered. A minute later I was staring at the unknown customer, the boy was tall, cowering over the comics concentrating, he had one hand through his black and blonde hair.

"Excuse- Uh, excuse m-"

I clear my throat instead, trying to gain his attention from the rack.

The other boy looks surprised by my spontaneous appearance.

"Hey, welcome to Atomic Books, may I help you?" I ask in the nicest voice possible, because I was known to sound like a bitch, especially on days where I could be home playing WoW or Skyrim, yeah I was absolutely upset over that and probably won’t be over it anytime soon.

"Oh shoot, sorry dude you scared me. I came here to look for this comic, uh The Invisible?"

I was happy to hear a familiar name because sometimes these kids would come in with the names of the rarest comic books in the world and I'd tell them a billion times that we didn't have it but they'd still ask for it and it was probably the most frustrating thing in the world.

"That's a really good one. I've actually read it. Did you know that the writer, Grant Morrison, got the idea because he said he was abducted by aliens? I'm sure that he took LSD or something, the book is nuts, but it's so good that you can't even make fun of it." I inform him, I did quite a lot of research on the comics I read.

The stranger looks at me with a smile.

"Aliens huh? He probably is fucking crazy. I heard that you can barely understand what the comic book is about because of how crazy the images are. But I wanted to try reading something a little different from the Marvel comics, you know?"

I nodded understandingly, although I loved Marvel more than anything. I finally find it in the sci-fi section and hand him a volume.

"Hey thanks dude. I'm Jack by the way.”

“Nice meeting you, I’m Alex. So, do you need help finding anything else?” I ask.

The other flips through the book I gave him with a smile on his face that just doesn’t seem to want to fade away.

“Nah, I’ve been looking for this for a long time. Pretty happy.” he tells me.

“I’m glad. I hope you enjoy it. Just come to the counter when you’re ready.” I tell him, returning the smile back then walking back to the area I confined myself in.

I guess Jack followed me to the counter because he was standing in front of me, which kind of scared me because I hadn’t turned around until I got here. He was staring at something from behind the counter intently, I kind of wanted to ask him what he was staring at but then he started talking.

“You play WoW?”

I look down at my backpack that had the Mage pin my cousin had bought me two years ago for my birthday.

I nod my head.

“I’m a complete loser.” I admit.

Jack puts the comic book down on the counter and reaches for something in his pocket. I thought he was going to bring out a WoW handkerchief or something, and completely nerd off.

But it was just a regular wallet, in which he places a ten dollar bill on top of the comic book.

“If playing World of Warcraft makes you a loser, then I’m the biggest level 89 blood elf, loser in the world.” Well at least he played.

“I’ve never heard someone my age tell me they play. You’re either ten years old and enthuse about it or you’re.. I think 18, I’m guessing because you looks my age, and play secretly without telling anyone hoping that the information doesn’t catch the ears of anyone because then you’ll be a virgin forever.”

The other boy laughs at that.

“It’s true. But my friend Rian is that type of guy, I actually don’t really mind flaunting and bragging about beating halo 3 five times and playing Star craft everyday. And beside, my gaming techniques can't really drown out my overbearingly good looks. How can I be a virgin?"

This was probably the most untypical conversation topic that two strangers can converse about but I was having fun nonetheless.

"You're telling me that you turned someone on by telling them that you're a level 89 blood elf?" I ask, an eyebrow raised as I checked out his item and took out the necessary amount of change that was due.

“And you’re telling me that you weren’t turned on when I told you that?”

I couldn’t stop laughing. I hadn’t laughed so hard in months and I let it all out, spilling the laughter out holding onto my stomach with one hand and the cowering over the counter I try to breathe.

“I don’t know if I should be honored to make you laugh that hard or if I should be offended that you take my flirtation as a joke.”

“I-I’m sorry.” I say wiping the little tear that formed in the corner of my eye.

To be honest, he was a cute guy, and he had a nice smile. I never really preferred a certain gender. I was flexible with that. If they were cute and nice, I usually liked them. So now that a cute and nice guy was flirting with me and talking about video games, I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy.

“I’ll forgive you if you give me your wow name and maybe even a phone number.” he tells me, as I hand him the comic and his money back. I look at him, my hand over the receipt printer, ripping the piece of paper out. I grab the pen I had used earlier to doodle some pictures and I wrote down the information writing “Alex Gaskarth” above it and sliding it to him. The other boy takes the paper with a smirk.

“I have to go, but I’m hoping this wont be our last encounter.” he tells me. Walking away and waving.

I wave back, until he disappears and I hear the bell on the door ring once more signalling his exit. I lean back in my chair enjoying the pleasure of giving my number to someone. I haven’t gone out on a date since eighth grade.