Anyway, as I witnessed all of this in slow motion, with Smash Mouth singing in the background, and—slink, clatter, thunk—the last bag of pork rinds fell into the dispenser hatch of the vending machine, there was a hazy moment when I apparently wandered out from behind the corner of the stairwell. But I didn’t say anything. Lest anyone forget, my role in this movie was Awkward Social Outcast, and it was a comedy at my expense.

Imogen turned her head slowly—suddenly noticing the human-shaped figure…

… standing six feet away from her…

… in a dark, empty hallway…

… watching her.

She screamed and threw her arms in the air—along with all the snacks she was carrying—chips, candy bars, pork rinds, and a pair of Dr Peppers. One of the Dr Peppers landed in such a way that it cracked and spewed pressurized soda like a punctured vein in a splatter film. The other Dr Pepper landed uncracked, although it caught a backspin and rolled beneath her foot—right as she took a frantic step backward. The sole of her shoe landed on the center of the can, wobbled unsteadily, and the rest was poetry in motion. That is to say, Imogen’s leg shot up in an elegant high kick, the can of Dr Pepper launched like a ballistic missile, her entire body swung like a catapult, and she landed flat on her back.

“Shit,” I said.

I immediately swooped to Imogen’s aid—only to hover over her body, mirroring her paralysis.

“Oh my god,” I said. My hands floundered aimlessly. “I am so sorry. Imogen, are you okay?”

There was a long moment when Imogen’s eyes were like marbles—glassy orbs disconnected from sentient thought. She was dead. I killed her. I ogled Imogen to death. Death by ogling in the first degree.

Then she blinked, and there was life. Her eyes focused on me, and she smiled.

“Oh, hey, Ezra,” she said. Then she winced. “Ouch.”

“Where does it hurt?” I asked.

Imogen made a vague, wibbly-wobbly gesture with her hands that seemed to encompass her entire body.

“I’m gonna call nine-one-one,” I said.

“No!” said Imogen. She immediately attempted to sit up. “No, no, no. I’m good. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“In a breaking-and-entering situation?” said Imogen. “Ten minutes before the eclipse? I am so sure. Wynonna would kill—”

“Slevin, you little shit!” said the last voice in the world I wanted to hear. “What the hell sort of perverted things are you doing to my best friend?”

I whipped around, and there she was—Wynonna fucking Jones—strolling onto the scene like some sort of deus ex machina. But, like, the opposite. A sort of anti–deus ex machina who fucked things up right when you thought everything would be okay.