Gianna Rosalita DeLuca tapped the screen of the touch register with the dead-eyed precision of a girl who had long since made peace with her minimum-wage purgatory.
"Do you want your receipt?" she asked the customer in front of her, not really waiting for an answer.
The man hesitated, glanced at his hoagie, and then back at her, as if deciding whether this was the moment to make small talk. Gianna had already turned away, half-listening to the hiss of the hot roller grill, the murmur of the soda machine, the crackle of the radio playing some overplayed pop song from two years ago.
Her shift felt like it had been going on for a hundred years. Maybe longer. Maybe she'd been born here, standing behind the register at the Wawa, doomed to ring up coffee and cigarettes and turkey Shorties for the rest of eternity. Maybe her bones were buried beneath the tile, and this was just some purgatorial simulation.
She glanced at the clock. 4:37 PM.
Time was an enemy.
Another customer wandered up, some kid who smelled like a cologne sample had exploded in his backpack.
"Can I get a pack of Marlboro Reds?" he asked, too confidently.
Gianna raised an eyebrow. "You got ID for that?"
The kid hesitated. Then, like an absolute moron, he dug around in his pocket and pulled out the most laughably fake Pennsylvania driver's license she had ever seen.
She picked it up between two fingers and turned it slightly, as if examining it, before looking back at him, deadpan.
"This used to be a library card."
The kid swallowed. "Oh."
"Yeah," she said, flicking it back at him. "Nice try, though."
He slunk off, and she sighed, leaning against the counter. Her nails clicked idly against the register as she stared out at the parking lot, where some guy in a beat-up Honda Civic was struggling to make his gas pump work.
Somewhere in the universe, people were doing interesting things. Having fun. Not standing in a Wawa waiting for death.
But not her. She had hours to go. She activated the camera on her phone, flipped the lens around to turn it into a $600 pocket mirror.
Gianna's dark hair fell in thick, effortless waves past her shoulders, the kind of hair that made old Italian ladies grab their rosaries and mutter about the malocchio. Her dark eyes were big, round, and expressive--except when she was bored out of her mind, like now, when they were half-lidded with a practiced indifference. A beauty mark sat just above her lip, subtle but perfectly placed, the kind of thing people noticed after they'd already been staring at her too long.
Her skin had that warm, sun-brushed undertone, like she could tan just by thinking about it, and she had full lips that were always slightly pursed, even when she wasn't actively making fun of someone.
And then there was her figure.
Busty wasn't even the right word--she had a balcony. A proper, Juliet-worthy expanse that could have supported a full Shakespearean soliloquy. Her Wawa polo, standard-issue and absolutely not designed with her in mind, stretched to accommodate, and the name tag pinned to it looked like it might give up and fall off at any moment.
Guys pretended not to stare. She pretended not to notice.
A few of the other girls at work had called her pretty, but in that careful, almost resentful way. The kind of pretty that got you free drinks but also side-eyes. The kind of pretty that felt like both a blessing and a warning.
She exhaled through her nose, watching the clock tick from 4:37 to 4:38.
Time wasn't moving fast enough to save her.
The girl--Professor? No way, she was like, 28 at most--stepped up to the counter with an easy confidence, setting down a bottle of water and a protein bar. She had that sharp, too-intelligent look, like she'd been thinking deep thoughts about physics or ethics or whatever smart people at Drexel thought about before wandering into a Wawa in search of sustenance.
Gianna picked up the ID hanging from the girl's lanyard, tilting it slightly as she squinted at the name.
"Jaku...bow...Jakubohhh..."
She gave up halfway through, shrugging and looking up. The girl--Professor Jakubowicz--grinned, one eyebrow lifting.
"That's cute," she said, smirking in a way that wasn't quite teasing, but also wasn't not teasing. There was something in her expression, a flicker of amusement, maybe even the barest trace of affection, like she found Gianna's attempt endearing rather than annoying.
Gianna felt her ears get warm. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"Yeah, well," she muttered, swiping the items across the scanner with a little more force than necessary, just to cover the sudden awkwardness. "You should get a shorter name."
Jakubowicz laughed, tipping her head to the side. "I'll work on that."
She slid a ten across the counter, and when their fingers brushed--just barely--Gianna felt a strange, sharp jolt, like the moment before lightning hits.
Something about this girl didn't belong here. Not on South Street, not in this Wawa, not standing across from her with that knowing smirk and bright, inquisitive eyes.
And yet, here she was.
Her voice was low and smooth, the kind of voice that made you lean in without realizing it, like there was some secret in the way she shaped her words. A voice that wrapped around you, settled into your bones, and made everything else in the world feel just a little less important.
And her eyes--God, her eyes.
Gianna had seen plenty of blue eyes before, but none like this. They weren't just a color, weren't just a shade--they were depth, a steady, quiet pull that made her feel like she was sinking into something she didn't quite understand. There was warmth in them, a softness that made Gianna's pulse slow, like the feeling of slipping into a sunlit bed on a cold morning.
She should look away. She should say something snarky, break the spell, regain control of the moment.
But she didn't.
For just a second--too long, really, but she couldn't help it--she let herself be held there, caught in those impossible blue eyes, feeling like maybe, just maybe, the endless stretch of her shift wasn't quite so unbearable anymore.
Gianna's breath caught somewhere deep.
The words weren't loud. They weren't flirtatious in the way she was used to--some guy swaggering up with a shitty pickup line, or a girl at a party getting too bold after one too many seltzers. No, this was different. It was quiet, deliberate. It wasn't a question, wasn't an offer. It was a vision, placed gently into her hands like something precious, something delicate.
And damn it, she could see it.
Sunlight spilling through unfamiliar curtains, warming bare shoulders. The smell of coffee, of laundry still warm from the dryer. The sound of laughter echoing off walls that felt like theirs. A world that was just the two of them, untouchable, perfectly separate from everything outside.
For a second, she forgot to breathe.
The professor's smirk had softened, her head tilted just slightly, watching--waiting--to see what Gianna would do.
Gianna swallowed hard, blinked, tried to gather the pieces of herself that had just scattered across the linoleum floor.
Instead, she blurted out, "What the fuck was that?"
The professor laughed, eyes glinting with something dangerous--not in the way that meant harm, but in the way that meant change.
"Just a thought," she said, sliding her water and protein bar off the counter like she hadn't just cracked open reality for a second. "Have a good night, Gianna."
And then, just like that, she was gone.
A few nights later, she was back.
Same light hair, same sharp blue eyes, same lanyard, same everything--except now she was smoother. More deliberate. Like she knew exactly what she was doing, and exactly what kind of effect she had.
Gianna felt it immediately.
