I remember my stomach taken over by fireflies.

But now here, at the diner, a baby screams and the moment is broken. I say goodbye to Runza and that twinkling memory.

But, it is true, welcoming customers was part of the job!

My annoyance at being completely ignored overwhelms me and suddenly I am impatient.

No.

No, I won’t stay here.

I stand up and make my way to the front door. I throw it open, and the bell tinkles overhead. The customers look up from their mugs, their glowing screens. Waiting.

I want to say something, something clever and possibly withering. But I can’t think of anything.

So I leave.

I resolve to make my way to the library.

There I will be allowed to float through the stacks to my heart’s content.

There I will speak to no one.

Strolling along the sidewalk of the town, a weed poking through here and there, I notice something in the window of a secondhand store. A random thing, really. A microscope.

A blink—and I’m suddenly back in Biology 101, back with the Zander Haaf. Since his sparkling appearance at the Runza, things had been slowly, dreamily progressing. Constant notes, church giggles, a paper flirtation.

And then one day, I’ll never forget it, I wrote this:

Stop writing me! Why are you even writing me?

It was kind of infuriating. Everyone knew Zander Haaf was too good for me. Was he teasing me? All this attention—was he just making fun of me after all?

But then Zander replied:

Because I like you.

I died when he wrote that.

But then, my reanimated corpse wrote back:

Why?

And Zander took forever to write:

Because you’re strange. And smart. And look kind of like a spooky albino. And in your Runza outfit, you look like a little banana. Oh, and you think weird. You say things weird. Actually, come to think of it. I don’t like you.

I looked down. Frowned. O-kaaaaay.

Then, he quickly scribbled:

I’m in love with you.

Ladies and gentleman, the Zander Haaf just told me he was in love with me! He wrote it right there! In black and white! For all the world to see!

And my insides went tumbling. There were butterflies dancing ballets. Dragonflies dancing the cha-cha. And the ground ceased to exist. Now I was only floating, floating with my chair and our table in Biology 101.

I didn’t reply. Not a note back. Nothing.

I couldn’t.

I was paralyzed.

Paralyzed with glee.

Zander, expectant, waited. Waited . . . and waited.

But, you see, I just couldn’t. I just didn’t know what to do. I was in a state of crisis. Love crisis.

Then, Mr. Eckdahl told us we all had to go to the microscopes and take a piece of our gums, which, gross, how do you even do that? We were supposed to saw off a piece of our gums with a toothpick and take a look at the miracle of our cells!