Page 34 of Not Like The Other Girls

But Lily’s not having it. “Oh, Every, I’m a damsel in distress. The tower is crumbling, the dragon is coming. Save me,” she says, waving her hands wildly.

The ketchup-flavored popcorn man shoots again, randomly, and misses.

“Oh shit.” And just like that, she’s quiet again.

Then he puts the rifle away and brings the megaphone back. “Every, I know you’re in there too. You’re helping her, man, you goody-assed knight.”

Every leans out of his window. “Thanks for the compliment, man.”

“Fuck you little shits; I should have hired a gunman.”

“Yo, Ferny. Told ya my shooting skills were always better than yours,” Every shouts out to Fernando, smirking.

Then a soft whisk of cloud blows forward, wiping away a certain black jeep. And just like that, the mouse king is lost.

Gone with the wind.

“Oh, good,” Lily exhales, “this is taking too damn long already.”

The car chase sure is one big fat mess, and so is Lily’s head.

“You think so? Then I should have just shifted into a dragon or something and ended it in eleven seconds. Too bad I wanted this unique experience.” Every talks from behind the wheel, the bus now slowing to a stop in front of a neighborhood near Lily’s home. One she is very familiar with, since she used to call the place home.

At least before her mama forgot to pay the rent and the landlord kicked them all out.

Actually, that is the very reason why they moved to squat at the hilltop ranch.

Her man parks the half-broken school bus in front of a wooden sign that reads, ‘Welcome To Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff Trailer Park, Your Lodge For Life.’ And below it, in graffiti paint spray, ‘Number of Population: Most of Us.’

Lily-girl sighs wistfully as the good old sense of nostalgia fills her heart to the brim, clearing her mind, once again, of all the chaotic events of the day. It brings her back to the easy times, when she would board the school bus—in fact, this same old one since it’s the town’s one and only—back home. The driver would complain about kids exceeding the maximum passenger capacity limit, and Lily would cram onto her sister’s seat and plop herself down on her lap.

Back before Sabrinella morphed into a bitch with salmonella.

It fits her name well, though.

Then Lily the Dreamer is pulled back to the future—no, present—by none other than her wolf-shifter CEO boyfriend’s deep, dark voice, whatever the fuck that means. “Yo, Lils, do you know what we’re doing here?”

“Nah, man, I’m an idiot.”

“Well, idiot, I’m man,” Every tells her, going totally off script, “and let me tell you. There’s a portal here, and we’re warping again ’cause it’s totally not safe to stay here. No more. At least for me. And I sure don’t want to be gunned down by that bastard Francisco—no, I mean Franco. Wait, shit, it’s Fernando.”

Lily looks at him in shock. “Every,” she exclaims in her high-pitched manic pixie voice, “were you just rambling? Oh fuck no, bro, that’s something only the main character Why-En girl can do. And it’s my quirk. My personal, a little dysfunctional, QUIRK.”

Every stares at her, tears shining in his sometimes-dark-sometimes-light orbs. “Lily, my beloved sugartits, I wasn’t planning on stealing any quirk of yours, girl.”

This time, it is Lily’s turn to shed some tears, and she does. “Every, my man, I can’t believe we’re having our first boyfriend-girlfriend fight. This is a relationship milestone. It’s making me so emotional.”

He is weeping woefully, she weeps weepily with him, and together, the weepers weep, weepier than even the weepiest weepy widowers.

How wholesome.



Discarding the school bus in front of the trailer park, the young lovers journey to Elma and Elmo’s hut, located in some secluded area south of the hood. Whatever.

Without knocking, without manners, Lily pushes their ancient door open, the scene going on over there making even this professional yapper have no words.

Fuck, she didn’t consent to see this shit.