Atlas Of My Heart: Chapter 7

Welcome to My World

We burst through the heavy metal doors of the school’s side exit, and the November wind hits us like a physical blow.

I gasp, pulling my mustard-yellow coat tighter around myself, shivering from the sudden drop in temperature. But Atlas doesn’t just shiver. He completely stops walking.

“Atlas?” I whisper, my heart pounding as I check the empty parking lot for witnesses. “We have to keep moving.”

He doesn’t answer. He is staring up at the sky.

In Sector 4, the sky was a violet-tinged ceiling of smog, perfectly still and eternally gray. Here, it’s late afternoon. Heavy, bruised clouds are rolling over the horizon, fracturing the sunlight into sharp rays of gold and orange. The wind howls through the bare branches of the oak trees lining the lot, sending a chaotic flurry of brown leaves swirling across the asphalt.

Atlas reaches out, his soot-stained hand trembling, and catches a dead leaf out of the air.

“The atmosphere,” he says, his voice entirely stripped of its usual analytical calm. “It is… untethered.”

“It’s just the wind. And autumn,” I say, grabbing his wrist. Three seconds later, on the brick wall of the school behind us, my shadow finally reaches out and grabs his shadow. The sight makes my stomach twist with vertigo. “Please, we need to get out of the open. If someone sees the lag – ”

“There are no transport tubes,” Atlas murmurs, his dark eyes wide as a beat-up Honda Civic rattles past the school on Route 9, its radio blasting bass so loud it vibrates in my teeth. He flinches at the sound, instinctively stepping half in front of me as if the noise is a physical threat. “Unregulated transport vehicles. They operate on their own distinct trajectories. The noise is… immense.”

“Yeah, that’s just Todd from my math class,” I say, pulling him toward the edge of the school grounds. “Come on. We need to go somewhere I can think.”

We walk the half-mile down Route 9 to Murphy’s Diner. It’s the most nerve-wracking walk of my life. Every time a car passes, I rigidly lock my arms to my sides, terrified someone will notice that the shadows trailing on the pavement are three seconds late to the party.

Atlas, on the other hand, looks like a man walking through a vivid hallucination. He stares at a crushed soda can in the gutter like it’s a modern art masterpiece. He watches a squirrel dart up a telephone pole with a look of absolute, breathless wonder. Everything that I consider ugly, run-down, and depressing about my town, Atlas looks at with pure reverence.

Because it’s not uniform. Because it’s not gray.

We reach the diner. The neon Murphy’s sign is buzzing with a frantic, defective bzzzt sound, the ‘R’ completely burnt out.

“Okay,” I say, stopping outside the glass door. “My boss, Jerry, is probably going to yell at me. I sort of ran out on my shift right before… everything happened. Just let me do the talking. Try not to sound like a robot from the future.”

“I will attempt to calibrate my dialect to your century’s colloquialisms,” Atlas says perfectly straight-faced.

“Right. Good start,” I mutter, and push the door open.

The bell chimes overhead. Instantly, the sensory assault of Murphy’s hits us. It smells like burnt coffee, bacon grease, maple syrup, and the lemon bleach Jerry uses on the counters. It sounds like clattering silverware, the low murmur of town gossip, and the faint, tinny hum of a country song playing from the jukebox in the corner.

Atlas physically staggers.

He grabs the edge of the nearest booth, his knuckles turning white. His eyes dart rapidly from the red vinyl seats to the spinning dessert case displaying cherry pies, and finally to the ceiling fans lazily cutting through the thick, warm air. In his world, there was only silence, white light, and flavorless nutrient paste. Murphy’s Diner is loud, messy, and violently alive.

“Vanessa!”

Jerry storms out from behind the counter, a stained rag in his hand. His face is the color of a ripe tomato. “You disappear for half an hour, leave the front completely unstaffed, and now you stroll back in? What is this, a vacation resort?”

“I’m sorry, Jerry,” I say quickly, slipping into my best placating customer-service voice. “I had a… family emergency. A bad one. And this is my cousin, Atlas. He’s an exchange student. He got totally lost and I had to go find him.”

Jerry narrows his eyes, looking Atlas up and down. Atlas is wearing his matte-gray futuristic tunic, which is now smeared with boiler-room soot, and his posture is as rigid as a military cadet.

“He looks like he joined a cult,” Jerry grunts.

“It’s European fashion,” I lie seamlessly. “I just need to grab my backpack from the breakroom and then I can finish my shift. Please, Jerry. I really need the hours.”

Jerry sighs, the anger deflating out of him. He knows I need the money. He knows about my parents’ situation. “Fine. But you’re cleaning the grease traps tonight. Put your cousin in a booth and get an apron on.”

“Thank you,” I breathe.

I guide a stunned Atlas to the furthest corner booth, sliding him into the red vinyl seat. The beauty of the booth is that the high back completely blocks the light from the windows. Our shadows are hidden in the dark corner. No lag to worry about as long as we stay seated.

I grab a menu from behind the sugar dispenser and slide it across the table to him.

“Just look at this and don’t talk to anyone,” I whisper. “I’ll be right back.”

I rush to the back room, splash cold water on my face, and tie my polyester uniform apron over my jeans. When I return to the floor with a fresh pot of coffee in my hand, I stop dead in my tracks.

Atlas stares at the Murphy’s menu like it’s a treasure map, running his finger down laminated pages of choices he’s never had.

He is tracing the pictures of pancakes, burgers, and milkshakes with an intensity that is almost heartbreaking. When I step up to the table, he looks up at me, his eyes wide.

“Nessa,” he whispers, his voice thick with disbelief. “Are these… options?”

“Yeah,” I say softly, pouring a glass of water and setting it in front of him. “It’s a menu.”

“But how do you know what to optimize?” he asks, pointing to the breakfast section. “Eggs. You can have them scrambled, fried, poached, or boiled. Why are there so many variations of the exact same protein? How does the State determine which preparation is most efficient for the citizen?”

“There is no State here, Atlas,” I remind him gently. “You just pick what you want. What tastes good to you.”

“What tastes good to me,” he repeats the concept like it’s a foreign language. He looks back down at the menu, shaking his head in slow amazement. “It is overwhelming. The sheer volume of freedom contained in this one document… it is staggering.”

Before I can respond, a raspy voice calls out from the counter. “Nessa! You gonna let an old man starve?”

I turn and smile. “Coming, Pete!”

Old Pete is sitting at his usual stool at the counter, his weathered hands wrapped around a porcelain mug. I walk over, pulling my order pad from my apron, though I don’t need it.

“Hey, Pete. Sorry I’m late today,” I say, pouring his coffee just the way he likes it – leaving exactly an inch at the top for milk. “You want the usual?”

“You know it, kiddo,” Pete smiles, the deep lines around his eyes crinkling. “Meatloaf, mashed potatoes. And don’t skimp on the brown gravy. My doctor says I need to watch my sodium, but my doctor doesn’t have to eat my cooking.”

“Extra gravy, extra hot,” I say with a wink. “I’ll tell the kitchen.”

I put the order in at the window and turn back to check on Atlas.

He is staring at me. Not just looking – staring, with a quiet, intense reverence that makes the breath catch in my throat. I walk back over to his booth, suddenly hyper-aware of the grease stains on my apron and the frizz in my hair.

“What?” I ask defensively, crossing my arms. “Did I spill coffee on myself?”

“You know his nutritional requirements,” Atlas says softly.

“I know his order,” I correct him. “Pete comes in every Tuesday and Thursday. His wife passed away a few years ago. She used to make him meatloaf on Thursdays, so now he comes here for it. It makes him feel a little less lonely.”

Atlas processes this information, his dark eyes studying my face. “You do not just provide calories. You provide comfort. You remember their histories. You facilitate their emotional well-being.”

I laugh, a harsh, self-deprecating sound. “Atlas, I wait tables. I make minimum wage and smell like fried onions. The kids at my school literally threw money at me today as a joke because my job is considered so pathetic.”

“Then the youth at your educational facility are fundamentally defective,” Atlas says, his tone suddenly sharp and fiercely protective. He leans forward across the sticky Formica table, his gaze locking onto mine. “In my time, comfort is heavily regulated. Sustenance is a liquid assigned by a machine. Human connection is considered an inefficiency.”

He reaches across the table. His fingertips lightly brush against the cheap polyester of my diner uniform. A shiver races up my arm at his touch.

“You look at them, and you see what they need,” Atlas says quietly. “You provide comfort and sustenance. This is noble work, Nessa. You are vital to this ecosystem.”

I stare at him. The ambient noise of the diner – the clattering plates, the country music, the sizzle of the grill – fades into the background.

For the last two years, this uniform has been my greatest source of shame. It was the reason Chloe Madison mocked me. It was the physical proof that my family was failing, that I was the poor girl who had to scrub tables while my classmates went to parties and took AP prep courses.

But looking at myself through Atlas’s eyes… everything shifts.

He doesn’t see a poor girl counting change. He sees someone who chooses her own clothes, who works for her survival, who feeds the lonely and remembers the forgotten. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel ashamed of my stained apron or my calloused hands.

I feel proud.

The moment is so intense, so unexpectedly beautiful, that I’m entirely unprepared for the voice that shatters it.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Kevin says, sliding into the booth next to Atlas without invitation. “Who the hell is this, and why is he looking at you like you just invented the concept of oxygen?”

I jump back, nearly knocking over Atlas’s water glass.

Kevin is glaring at Atlas, his arms crossed over his vintage corduroy blazer. Kevin’s eyeliner is slightly smudged from the rain, giving him a raccoon-like glare of intense suspicion. He looks at me, then at Atlas’s bizarre gray clothes.

“Kev,” I stammer. “I thought you left.”

“I was waiting in my car out back to make sure Jerry didn’t fire you,” Kevin says, not taking his eyes off Atlas. “Then I see you sneaking back into town with a guy wearing dystopian loungewear. You ran out of here crying two hours ago, Nessa. I’ve been texting you non-stop. Your phone is off. Care to explain?”

I swallow hard. Kevin is my best friend. He’s the only person who knows how bad my home life is. But I can’t exactly tell him I jumped through a tear in the space-time continuum in the school boiler room.

“Kevin, this is Atlas,” I say carefully. “He’s… a friend.”

“A friend,” Kevin repeats flatly. “Funny, we’ve been best friends since seventh grade, and I’ve never seen him. Where are you from, Atlas? A cult in upstate New York?”

Atlas sits perfectly straight, analyzing Kevin with calm precision. “I am from Sector 4.”

“Never heard of it,” Kevin says. “Is that a gated community?”

“It is a highly regulated habitation zone,” Atlas replies smoothly, though his eyes dart to the heavy black eyeliner circling Kevin’s eyes. “Your ocular markings are inefficient. However, they are aesthetically striking. Did you choose to apply the pigment yourself?”

Kevin blinks, utterly thrown. He touches his eyelid defensively. “Uh. Yeah. Obviously.”

“Fascinating,” Atlas murmurs, leaning in closer to inspect Kevin’s face. “The freedom to alter your biological presentation simply for visual impact. You are very brave.”

Kevin’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. He looks at me, his hostility completely derailed by the strange, formal compliment. For a second, the defensive armor Kevin constantly wears – the sarcasm, the detachment – cracks.

“I… thanks,” Kevin mumbles, suddenly looking flustered. He clears his throat and turns back to me. “Okay, he’s weird. I like him, but he’s deeply weird. Are you okay, though? Seriously. After the video Chloe posted…”

“I’m okay,” I say, and to my shock, I realize it’s the truth. The humiliation of the morning feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like it happened to a different girl entirely. “Really, Kev. I’m fine.”

Kevin studies my face, looking for the lie. Whatever he sees there, it convinces him. He nods slowly. “Alright. But if Jerry asks, I’m ordering fries, so you have to bring me fries.”

“Coming right up,” I smile.

I turn to walk back to the kitchen, my chest feeling lighter than it has in months. I have a secret. A terrifying, impossible, universe-breaking secret. But as I walk past the large pie-display case next to the register, I catch sight of my reflection in the curved glass.

The lightness in my chest vanishes.

My reflection is walking. But it’s three seconds behind me.

I stop, watching my ghostly image in the glass finally catch up to my current position. It’s a chilling reminder of the reality we’ve fractured.

But then, as I’m watching, the reflection does something worse.

For a fraction of a second, the glass doesn’t show me wearing my yellow coat and diner apron. It glitches, like a corrupted video file. For one single heartbeat, the reflection in the pie case shows me wearing a perfectly pristine, high-end designer coat – something Chloe Madison would wear.

I blink, and it’s gone. My thrifted yellow coat is back.

I grip the edge of the counter, my heart hammering against my ribs. Object flickering. The timeline isn’t just lagging anymore. It’s trying to rewrite itself.

I look back at the booth. Atlas is listening intently as Kevin explains the concept of french fries, completely unaware of the temporal landmine we are sitting on. I brought a piece of the future to fix my present.

But I’m starting to realize that the present might shatter under the weight of it.