Dark Matter: SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE

by Jessica Loft

  Mackenzie considered this. She was almost done with school. She’d been a senior back home and it was April, so there were only a few months left. She’d need a job anyway, so why not get some experience here in this store? And church. Well, she’d never really gone, but how bad could it be? Anything was better on a Sunday morning than watching Mitch sit around in his boxer shorts, drinking beer and yelling at the TV.

  “That sounds really great, actually,” Mackenzie said and tears formed in her eyes.

  “Oh, honey.” The woman came around the counter and wrapped her in a big hug.

  Mackenzie hadn’t felt so loved in a long time. She hugged her back, a warm feeling of joy spreading through her.

  “I’m Joanna, and my husband is Nick. We don’t have any kids of our own, and don’t you know, just the other day we were praying that we’d be able to help a child somehow and now here you are. Well, not that you’re a child, but I believe the Lord sent you here to us so we could help you.”

  Mackenzie chuckled a little at the woman’s enthusiasm. She couldn’t help the feeling of acceptance that brought a smile to her face. “Well, if He did, I’m glad. I’m Mackenzie. Or just Kenzie for short.”

  Joanna gave her another quick hug. “I am so glad you came into my store today.”

  The breaks of the bus squealed behind her, and Mackenzie turned to watch it go, a grin across her face.

  Chapter 3

  It was a Tuesday when Mackenzie came to town. She’d spent that evening with the Coleman’s, getting to know Joanna and Nick better, meeting their little Yorkie, Roscoe, and settling in. By Wednesday evening Mackenzie was certain she had made a great choice in staying. Joanna had spent the whole day with her, shopping for clothes, and buying the food she liked, and just talking.

  They had to be the nicest couple Mackenzie had ever met. Almost too nice. It seemed like everyone in town was almost a little too nice and welcoming to a stranger, but, she reasoned, it was because they loved Joanna. Everywhere they went, people were excited to see her and meet the new “Kenzie,” Joanna’s God child. They were all so very nice and accepting. It must rub off, she thought. Maybe she would be happy and nice like that, too, one day if she stayed here long enough.

  Now it was Thursday and it was time for Mackenzie’s first day at her new school. She was nervous, of course, but in her brand new clothes, she felt cooler than she ever had back home in her hand-me-downs from her mom’s friends.

  Joanna walked her to the school’s office. “Karen!” She leaned over the counter to hug the woman who sat behind it. “So good to see you. This is Mackenzie.” Joanna said it with such pride as she held a hand out toward her. “She’s new to town and is living with us.”

  “Oh, yes,” Karen said. She riffled through a stack of papers and pulled a few out. “I have your new schedule right here, and some other papers for you.” She picked up a phone and told the person on the other end, “Is Sophia here yet? Oh yes, perfect. Mackenzie just arrived.” Karen gave her a warm grin. “Sophia is on her way down. She will show you around the school and help you out today.”

  Joanna gave her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek, after making sure no other kids were around. “You have a great day. Call if you need to, and I’ll be waiting to hear all about your day when you get home.”

  Sophia walked in and Joanna smiled again and walked out of the office.

  “Hi Mackenzie. Nice to meet you. You’re going to love Glorietta Creek.”

  “It seems really great so far. Everyone is so nice.”

  Sophia smiled. “You won’t meet any nicer people. We just believe that being happy and kind to each other makes life that much sweeter.”

  “That’s right, darling,” Karen agreed.

  They exchanged smiles and Sophia glanced at Mackenzie’s schedule. “Let’s go to homeroom and find your locker.”

  All that day, Sophia stayed by her side, pointing out where things were, introducing her to new friends. Mackenzie was readily accepted into Sophia’s group of friends, which seemed to be just one huge group in the school. She could detect no cliques, no separation of nerd and jock, no popular versus unpopular. Unbelievably, everyone here seemed to be friends and to get along amicably. At lunch, she’d even had several requests from people to sit with them.

  By the time she got to the last class of the day, chemistry, Kenzie was both overwhelmed by the acceptance, and also a bit wary of the extreme niceness and friendliness. Did no one ever fight or get mad at each other?

  She took her seat and was introduced once again to the few new students she hadn’t met before. They all grinned at her and gave her warm welcomes, like she’d come to expect. She smiled back, and then noticed out of the corner of her eye the boy sitting beside her. But his smile wasn’t what drew her attention, she turned and stared at him, the boy sitting beside her wasn’t grinning like every other person she had met in this town, he was just merely sitting there calmly.

  He nodded at her. “Hey. I’m Luke.”

  He wasn’t mean. Not even close. He just didn’t give her a giant beaming grin, didn’t hold out his hand, or ask her to hang out this weekend. He gave her a small smile, the head nod, and went back to his book.

  “Most people just call me Kenzie,” she said, leaning back in her seat.

  He looked over at her again. “Cool.”

  Later, when the class was grouped into teams to do their lab, she was relieved to find out Luke would be her partner. She moved her desk closer to his so instead of multiple desks they could make one big table. She smiled at him and began to work on the experiment.

  The lab involved mixing two chemicals together and writing down the reaction that took place. As she poured one chemical into the empty test tube, a tiny bit splashed out, onto Luke’s hand.

  “Hey, watch it,” he said, and pulled back his hand to wipe it off.

  “Oh, sorry.” Her cheeks reddened and she set the tube down.

  “Luke, I’m sure it was just an accident,” the girl beside him said. “You don’t have to be mean.”

  “I wasn’t being mean, Eva, I was being normal.”

  Eva smiled at him. “It’s okay, Luke. We all have those days. If you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

  Luke rolled his eyes at Mackenzie. He picked up the other test tube of liquid and poured it in. The chemicals bubbled and the resulting mixture turned from a bright green to a green yellow. She wrote down in her notebook what had happened. As she did, she heard the other students exclaiming over the experiment. As they poured in the second liquid, they laughed and ooo’d in amazement.

  She looked at Luke, who was the only one looking somewhat bored. Why wasn’t he all super nice and excited like everyone else? Why had he been the only person in this town to snap at her? Not that it wasn’t deserved. She’d react the same way if he’d spilled some unknown chemical on her.

  “Don’t you find this experiment exciting?” she asked, leaning in close.

  “It’s cool, I guess.” He shrugged. “I had more fun playing with my science kit when I was a kid.”

  “Everyone else seems to think it’s pretty awesome.” The girl beside her clapped her hands when her chemicals bubbled up the tube.

  “Yeah, well, I am not like everyone.” He looked down at his notebook and finished writing his sentence.

  At the end of class, Mackenzie was gathering up her things to go home when two boys came up to her and asked if they could walk her to her bus. She looked at Luke, wishing he’d ask her. She wanted to find out what was different about him. Why he wasn’t like everyone else. But he just gave her another head nod and walked out.

  Chapter 4

  Mackenzie was escorted to the bus by a large group of kids who rode the same bus. They sat together, singing some pop song she didn’t know well. When the bus stopped at the Coleman’s, a chorus of cheers and goodbyes were rained upon her.

  She bounced inside to tell Joanna all about it. In the kitchen, Joanna had fresh-baked cookies and a glass
of cold milk waiting for her.

  “Sorry,” she said with a smile, “I hope this isn’t too childish. I forget what it’s like to be seventeen sometimes. If you’d rather have soda and chips, I have those too.”

  “No, this is perfect.” Kenzie hugged her, set down her book bag, picked up a warm cookie, and stuffed it into her mouth. She moaned in delight and took a huge gulp of milk. “Thank you. I love chocolate chip cookies and these are really good. They didn’t even come out of a box, did they?”

  “Goodness, no.” Joanna chuckled. “That’s practically blasphemy.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had homemade cookies.” She stuffed another cookie in her mouth, trying, but failing, to take her time and enjoy the taste.

  Joanna put a hand to her chest. “You poor thing.”

  Mackenzie told her about school and the new kids she’d met. “I was invited to the movies Friday night and to the square dance on Saturday. I told them I had to check with you first. Can I go?”

  “Well, of course, dear! So long as you finish your homework after school Friday and do those few chores I asked you about.”

  “Definitely.” Mackenzie didn’t know what to expect from her chore’s list. At home, her mom made her do the dishes, clean the bathroom, vacuum, do laundry, and really everything else around the house that Mitch was too lazy to do. But Joanna’s list was reasonable. It included tidying up her room, dusting and vacuuming, once a week. She’d almost laughed when she read it. She would have done much more had Joanna asked.

  “Are you coming to the movies tonight?” Mackenzie asked Luke Friday in chemistry class. The bell rang and everyone started cleaning up their supplies.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said as he shoved his books into his bag.

  “Didn’t anyone invite you yet? I think everyone is going.”

  “No, they invited me. They always do because it’s the nice thing to do.” He slung his bag over his shoulder. “Everyone around here always does the nice thing. Haven’t you noticed?”

  He walked out of the room and she dashed after him.

  “Hey, Kenzie, can I walk you to the bus?” asked a boy from her English class.

  “And me!” said a boy from her homeroom.

  “Next week, I promise!” she called over her shoulder with a grin. “See you both tonight.”

  When she turned back around, she saw that Luke had kept walking and was almost to the school exit.

  “Hey, wait up,” she said, running to catch up.

  “Thought you already had an escort.”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  He stopped outside the door and stood off to the side of the building, in the grass. She realized that with everyone being so smiley and friendly, she hadn’t really taken the time to really look at any one person in the town closely. Now she looked at Luke, at his dark brown eyes and short blonde hair. At the way the pieces of his hair fell into his eyes and he kept pushing them out of the way. She wondered how the tiny scar by his eye had gotten there, and if his lips were really as soft and smooth as they seemed to be. He was cute. Really cute. And the fact that he didn’t smile so easily meant that when he did, it lit up his whole face and it felt special because of its rarity.

  “So… what did you want to talk about?” he asked after a minute of her staring at him.

  “Oh, umm. You said something yesterday and it made me wonder. You said something about being ‘normal,’ and then today you said how everyone is always so nice and it just seemed that—” She leaned in closer and looked around. “Well, why are they all so nice? It’s like some kind of Pleasantville. It’s not normal, right?”

  His lips pulled into half a grin and that smile meant more to her than any she’d gotten that day. “You noticed. No. It’s not normal. And it wasn’t always like this, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People weren’t always so crazy nice. It started a few years ago.”

  “What was it like before?”

  “I don’t know. Normal. People just being people. Nice sometimes, mean sometimes, mad sometimes.” Normal emotions.

  She glanced around the groups of kids walking to the buses, noticing how there was a smile on every face. “But, they’re happy, right? They seem happy.”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “And why aren’t you so super nice and smiley all the time?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m resistant to the happy juice. It never made any sense to me. But I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to be all fake like that all the time, you know? Even if it means being upset or sad sometimes, I want to feel everything.”

  She nodded slowly. “It’s so weird. I wonder if I’ll be like that if I stay here long enough.”

  “I hope not.”

  She looked back at him and there was that half smile again. Butterflies took flight in her stomach.

  “See ya, Kenz,” he said, and walked away.

  Chapter 5

  That weekend, Mackenzie had a blast going to the movies and getting to know everyone. Of course, they were all super nice to her and full of smiles. Sitting back and observing her new “friends” she came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. Back home, there’d been so much drama. She said this or he talked to that girl when he was dating someone else. People got mean and nasty all the time. But here, everyone was so happy, and even when things went wrong, they shrugged it off like it was nothing. Maybe the rest of the world could learn something from these people.

  The next night at square dancing, it was also much more fun than she’d ever thought possible. By the time the night was over, she’d danced with five different boys, without any girl fights or drama. Although she was having a great time, she kept looking for Luke, even though she knew he wouldn’t be there.

  Sunday morning came and Mackenzie woke early, ready to go to church. She put on one of the dresses Joanna had bought for her with bright blue flowers. In Michigan she hadn’t had much occasion to wear dresses. No one wore them to school like they did here and she’d never gone to any sort of dance. As she stood in front of her mirror and swooshed back and forth, she enjoyed the way the flowered material brushed against her skin, and the bright colors went well with her dark hair.

  Mackenzie was surprised to see that she recognized almost all of people at church. The kids her age were all people from school. In fact, it seemed like the whole town went to the same church. Maybe that sort of thing happened in a small town, though. Everyone knew everyone, everyone hung out together, and everyone went to church together.

  Then she saw Luke. He sat to the left of her, a few pews up. She kept hoping that he’d turn around, but all through the singing, he just sat looking straight ahead.

  In the middle of the service Joanna mentioned that it was time to go to youth group. She had no idea what this meant, but followed Sophia and several other kids out.

  She looked behind her at the stream of kids exiting the sanctuary and her heart jumped when she saw Luke coming. She slowed down and waited for him to catch up.

  “So, you come to church,” she said to him quietly.

  “Don’t have much of a choice.”

  The group went through the doors and she felt a tug on her hand. She followed Luke off to the side and into a back hallway.

  “I usually prefer to skip youth group and go for a ride. That tends to make me feel closer to God than anything. Want to come?”

  She looked back over her shoulder. What would happen when the group was over and the Coleman’s were looking for her?

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be back before it’s over. My parents wouldn’t be too happy if they knew I skipped youth group. And, of course, by not too happy, I mean, they might not smile for an entire five minutes.”

  She chuckled. “Let’s go.”

  They ran outside and down a hill to a fence where there was a horse tied to a post.

  “Is this your horse?” she asked.

  He no
dded. “This is my farm.” He motioned to the land beyond the horse. Tall cornfields went on for miles. He untied the horse and hopped on. “Come on.”

  “Umm…” She looked for a place to put her foot, but wasn’t sure what to do.

  “You haven’t ridden before?”

  She shook her head. He took her hand, pointed to where she should put her foot, and pulled her up behind him.

  “Hold on tight,” he said.

  He made a clicking sound with his mouth and the horse took off. She wrapped her arms around his stomach and held tight, the feeling of being so close to him making the butterflies return.

  The wind blew her hair as they rode, making her close her eyes at the sheer joy of it. The rhythmic bouncing of the horse, the closeness of his body, the smell of dirt in the air. A lot of good had happened since she’d run away from Michigan and come to Glorietta Creek, but this moment was maybe the best.

  She didn’t know how long they rode for, but what seemed like all too soon he was stopping and sliding down from his horse. He took her hand to help her off, too.

  “That was awesome,” she said.

  He smiled at her, a smile that felt so much more genuine than the hundreds of smiles she’d gotten in the last few days.

  “I’m really glad you moved to town, Kenzie.”

  “Me too.”

  They hurried back up the hill to the church. They snuck down the back hall they’d disappeared from and walked to where the youth group was meeting. Mackenzie peaked around the door. They were still in there and they were drinking from tiny cups.

  “What are they doing?” she whispered.

  “Taking communion. We do it every service. So do the adults.”

  “What’s communion?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Seriously?”

  “This is my first time at church.”

  “You’re making me feel like a heathen now for making you skip it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on. What is it?”

  “It’s our way to remember what Jesus did when He had His last dinner with the disciples. He gave them wine and bread and said it was His body and blood, broken and poured out for them.”