— The Killers, When You Were Young

Chapter Two: When Wally Met Lark...

Sometimes, Lark likes to imagine that her life is a movie.

She likes to pretend she's the main character—the protagonist. This is not because she is particularly self-centred, nor because she has some insatiable need for attention that can only be satisfied by delusions of cinematic grandeur.

It is because of fate, like everything with Lark is. She likes to believe in the notion of fate because the notion of fate comes in tandem with the notion of love. And aren't love and fate, at their core, one and the same? This was something Lark liked to believe—that whatever happened, especially in matters of the heart, was always going to happen. Later down the line, Wally West would contribute to Lark's one-woman symposium on the subject with his own observations—ones that for the most part regarded conjectures on physics, time, and theoretical mathematics. Of the two of them, he is the scientist. She is, of course, the romantic.

In a few months' time, they will be laying on Lark's bed, bodies intertwined, atoms pressed to atoms, and Lark will ask Wally if he believes in fate.

He will answer that he believes in her—as if she and his destiny are synonymous with each other. Lark will shake her head and ask the question again, changing the phrasing ever-so-slightly. Do you believe in love?

Again, he answers: I believe in you.

Indulge me for a moment. Do you think this was always going to happen? Lark pauses. Do you think we were always going to meet?

It will be storming outside, as it almost always is. Wally presses a kiss to Lark's collarbone, and lightning splits the night in two. Like, in a star-crossed-lovers way?

Is there any other way? Lark will ask, and Wally will think it's a joke, but one look at her expression and he will, almost instantly, realise his mistake. Clucking her tongue, Lark will run her fingers gently along his spine, and for a few moments the answer to her question—to any question, other than her touch—is the last thing on his mind.

When he recovers, he responds. Well, there's always causality.

Causality? Lark will repeat, curious.

Causality, Wally will confirm as he buries his face in the crook of her neck, as he breathes her in—tastes her in his throat and feels her in his lungs. He will go on to tell her: Causality is cause-and-effect. Things influence other things—they don't just happen.

So you don't think we just... met. Even later, Wally will remember this, and he will know what she really meant: You think this was up to chance. Wally despite his sceptical nature will, by then, know better.

Well, we did meet. But us meeting doesn't exist in a vacuum. There were choices—causes, I guess—leading up to it.

Lark will not look impressed. Wally will fall over himself to change that. Like—You needing to get to Allender by nine-thirty to meet with your sister-in-law. The bus to Allender being late. Me being early. You choosing to walk to the Enchanted Florist. Me choosing to run.

He continues: All these causes lie in the past of us meeting, and us meeting is the future of the effect that was caused.

It will take Lark a moment to process all this. Then, she will argue: Those aren't causes, though. They're circumstances.

I'm trying to—look, Lark. What I'm trying to say is, nothing happens just because it's going to happen. Other things have to happen first. Like A—he will kiss her neck—to B—he will kiss her jaw—to C. (He will kiss her lips.)

Lark, distracted for a moment, kisses him back. Then, she looks upset again. But—the fact that these other things have to happen just for us to happen—that has to mean something, right?

Wally will laugh, because in his entire life he has never had pillow talk so scientific. You really want to believe we're meant to be together, don't you? Have you considered that we're together because I chose you? Because you chose me?

Lark will be silent, because her entire worldview has always operated on the basis that everything is predetermined: the past, the present and the future are already set in stone. She does not like the idea that anything is left to chance, especially Wally West and the love for him she has only just begun to admit out loud.

Look, birdie... Wally senses he could have handled this conversation a little better, and so, he will lift his face to look at hers, reach down to tuck a thick curl of hair behind her ear. Maybe we were always going to meet. But by the theory of causation, that still would've been predetermined by an event in the past. An action. It could've been anything. Anything you've done, anything I've done, anything anyone we've ever known has done.

That sounded like destiny to Lark.

Every action has a consequence, and every consequence led me to you.

Consequence? Lark will huff. You make me sound like something you have to suffer. Like something you can't escape. Like—

Fate? Wally will counter. And Lark, stunned speechless, will not be able to do anything other than smile.

In the present, however, Lark Lennox does not yet have any of Wally West's metaphysical insight. And so she is forced to ascribe to her belief that everything is decided, that life is a movie and existence, her existence, is scripted.

It is a part she must play, and it goes something like this:

WALLY
Wally West. Have we met?

LARK smiles and shakes his hand. Thunder shakes the sky awake, and with it her heart.

LARK
I'm Lark. Lark Lennox.

LARK lets go. (Tragically, it's already love.)

"That's a gorgeous name for a gorgeous girl," Wally says, using his now-empty hand to smooth back his hair. His words feel full of false bravado, and Lark wonders how many names he's found gorgeous, how many girls to accompany such an observation. But when he speaks next, he sounds a world more genuine. "Lark, like the bird?"

She's heard this line a thousand times before—a million. "Wally, like the idiot?"

It's somewhat of a test. Some guys just can't handle their humility.

(Was this the moment Wally would talk of in the future? The cause to their loved-up, rose-coloured effect?)

Without missing a beat, Wally laughs and passes with flying colours. "I dunno if people use that as an insult anymore, but yeah, I guess."

"Oh, we can change that. Now—Wally West," Lark muses, "It sounds like a superhero name. Alliterative. Like Peter Parker. Bruce Banner."

"Like Lark Lennox," Wally replies, lifting a brow. Another smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "You're as much a superhero as I am. As I would be, I mean."

There is something about the way he corrected himself that piques Lark's interest. She ignores it for now. "I could be a supervillain," Lark suggests. "It goes both ways."

(Or maybe it was this:)

"No way. You're too pretty to be evil."

"And that's how I get you. You're too busy ogling at me to realise I've been the mastermind all along."

"Whaaat? You were the one who killed my family and sent me down this path of vengeance?"

"You know it. I've been plotting this for years." Lark leans on the counter, cradling her face in her hands. "Everything you think you know, every person you've ever met, everywhere you've ever been—it all leads back to me."

Wally faux-gasps, then laughs. "You're funny, Lark-like-the-bird."

"You're easily impressed, Wally-like-the-idiot. And, if you don't mind my saying, you're a pathetic flirt."

"It's part of my charm."

"At least you're self-aware."

"Again, part of my charm. Is it working?"

LARK (to herself)
Yes—yes, it is.

WALLY'S eyes flicker up to the wall of cards behind her as if to avoid her answer if it just happened to be no. It's not no, but WALLY doesn't know that. He doesn't know a lot of things, but he will. Eventually: in the future, which is to say in the present, which is also to say in the past. With WALLY distracted by the cards and the audience distracted by pointed but serviceable foreshadowing, LARK takes the chance to look at WALLY properly.

WALLY
This place has some really nice cards.

He was good-looking, but he didn't have the air of someone who had always been attractive—what LARK meant was, he was gorgeous. Lightning in the flesh. But when he was younger a more accurate description could have been awkward and she would have believed it. Even now he didn't seem too comfortable in his body; tall, lean, it wasn't a body to be ashamed of, but WALLY seemed uneasy down to his atoms, his very existence in disagreement with every muscle, organ, cell he had. He was itching to move, to stay moving, to never stop. Either he wanted to be dead, or he felt far too alive; he was either everything or nothing, and there was no in-between.

Or he was just hyperactive. LARK watches his eyes as they scan the wall behind her; he barely registers the first word of a card before he's already moved to the one beside it, too distracted by the next hand-drawn pattern or embossed holiday greeting.

LARK
Yeah.

LARK focuses on WALLY'S face. Yes, he's pretty. All straight lines—his jaw, his nose, his collarbones (which LARK can see, rather scandalously she thinks to herself, through the fabric of his long sleeve shirt, made wet by the rain) and yet there is a softness to him. Perhaps it is the freckles. WALLY has freckles, something LARK did not account for but certainly does not fail to appreciate; they play into his "charm", working well with his bright eyes and boyish features. The accent helps, too. Midwestern, he sounds warm. Welcoming.

Like home.

LARK (to herself, again)
Stay focused, Lennox.

LARK postulates that Wally is just too alive. ("Postulate" is not a word LARK has ever used in her life, but because WALLY will teach it to her later and the future is the present is the present is the past, et cetera, we will use it now.) This is the happier hypothesis (hypothesis: another buzzword) of the two she has come to form; there is life in WALLY WEST, so much of it, perhaps too much, and it courses through every inch of him like electricity.

WALLY
I have to ask. You do work here, right?

Finished with the wall of cards, WALLY's gaze finds hers. He gives her a lopsided grin.

WALLY
Or you know someone who does?

The left side of his mouth is the one part of his body that is satisfied with staying in place. LARK's eyes flicker down to his lips and yes, this is what her brother means when he talks of lightning—of its instant, white-hot lethality.

Three million volts, thirty thousand Amps, and LARK can feel each and every one of them in her chest. Of the two of them, WALLY and LARK, she is not the scientist, nor the mathematician. But when it comes to storms she knows her numbers: when struck by lightning, one has a ten percent chance of death, leaving a ninety percent chance of permanent injury.

LARK has never been one to leave anything up to chance.

Just this once, she will make an exception.

"Don't worry, I'm allowed to be back here." Lark smiles in a way that suggests she is not. "On most Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays."

"But here you are on a Tuesday."

"Here I am. And here are you."

"Funny how things work out."

"I agree." Lark looks Wally up and down once more and finds him empty-handed. "Can I help you with something?" Find you flowers for the girlfriend I hope to God you don't have? "What are you looking for?"

Wally replies with I don't know instead of You, obviously which Lark tries not to take too personally. "Let me help you then," she offers, and Wally nods. "First of all, what's the occasion?"

"A girl."

"A pretty one?" Lark asks.

"The prettiest," Wally answers. "What's your favourite? If you had to choose."

"Pink roses," Lark says almost too quickly. She gestures to the half-crushed flowers on the counter beside her. They only look half-pathetic lying there. "I got these just this morning."

"Oh?" Wally lifts a brow. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Just like lightning—right to the point, its purpose straight and true. Lark laughs and shakes her head. "No, I don't. It was just some guy."

Wally's brow only lifts higher.

"I'm serious. It was some guy I've never met. Just some stranger."

"He's not going to have a girlfriend for much longer if he keeps giving her flowers to random women he meets."

"Probably not. But," Lark smiles innocently, "can you blame him?"

Wally shakes his head earnestly. "No, I can't."

Lark makes a soft, satisfied sort of noise. Then, she smiles again. "Anyway. I wouldn't recommend roses by themselves. I would probably put in some greenery, and a few filler flowers. Spineless butcher's broom, baby's breath, spray roses, a Stargazer lily here or there." As Lark talked, her eyes drifted down to the half-crushed bouquet; upon closer inspection, she realised the arrangement was composed of every specimen of flora she'd just listed.

Funny how things work out.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but I promise I'm taking notes."

Lark snaps back to reality, gaze shooting to meet Wally's. "Does your girl like pink roses, too?" If she learned anything today, it was that a lot of people liked pink roses.

"It's way too soon to call her my girl." Wally says. He looks at Lark, then cranes his neck to give the bouquet a second glance. "Not to be rude, but maybe the reason that guy didn't give this to his girlfriend is because it looks like it got hit by a car."

"Better it than me," Lark says, grabbing a pair of scissors and a pair of pruners from the second counter drawer. In one fluid move, she uses the scissors to cut through the layers of craft paper and clear cellophane that encase the bouquet.

"Huh?"

"It's a long story. But to summarise: I almost got hit by a motorbike this morning."

"Are you okay?"

"Me? Oh, I'm great. I've got my flowers so I'm happy."

"No one who's happy holds scissors like that."

Lark puts the scissors down, as if to prove a point, then begins to pick the crushed roses out of what's left of her bouquet. "Back to your girl. That's my personal recommendation—the pink roses—but you can never go wrong with red."

Wally grins at that. "Oh, I know."

"Because of your hair?"

"Because of my hair," Wally confirms, chuckling. Lark humours him with a half-laugh—he's cute. And he's trying, which might be a low bar for some but for others, it wasn't nearly low enough. "Well, I'm kinda jealous of that guy. He stole my idea, in a way."

"Oh?" Lark cuts a new sheet of craft paper to size, then begins the task of reconstructing the bouquet—albeit smaller, now that half its focal flowers were lying lamely in the bin behind the counter. She stares down at the countertop, and it's a moment before she realises. "Oh."

Wally chuckles again. "Maybe some other time. You look like you've got enough flowers on your hands for now. What's the occasion?"

"Well," Lark slices through the stem of a rose, ignoring the heat rising in her cheeks, "these are my nearly-got-hit-by-a-motorbike celebratory flowers. And these," she points to the sunflowers with the pruners, its blades a gleaming arrow, "are for my brother's fiancée. I'm meeting her...well, I was meant to meet her twenty minutes ago."

"I'm sure she'll understand you almost getting hit by a motorbike."

"I'm sure she will too."

"I'm not so sure about how loitering in a flower shop where you may-or-may-not-actually-work will fly, but you can always milk the first thing."

"Exactly." Satisfied with her pruning, Lark begins to wrap the bouquet. "And I do actually work here, by the way."

"Well, you do look like you know what you're doing."

"I grew up around flowers." And storms—two things that definitely did not mix, but Wally didn't have to know that. "My dad runs a flower shop back home. I worked there all throughout high school."

"Where's 'home'? If you don't mind me asking."

"Nebraska."

Wally grins again. Lark catches it in the corner of her eye and memorises it. He, as well as what he is about to say, is too perfect for reality. It had to be fate.

WALLY
Nebraska? No way.

LARK
What about it?

WALLY
I'm from Nebraska, too.

LARK knew his accent was familiar.

LARK
Really? Where in Nebraska?

WALLY
Blue Valley.

LARK
Blue Valley? Are you serious?

WALLY
Uh-huh. Why?

LARK
I'm from Claire.

Silence fills the space between WALLY and LARK momentarily, settling like snow upon the flowers and other flora that surround them; this is because the towns of Blue Valley and Claire happen to be situated barely thirty miles apart. (It is also because the word Claire, when used in such a context, is synonymous to any citizen of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri with the tornado that destroyed the town of the same name. That is to say, the word Claire is synonymous with destruction.)

WALLY (unsure what to say to That)
I swear we played against you guys in high school.

LARK
I think so. No offence, but you don't look like much of a footballer.

WALLY
I'm not. Always been more of a runner.

WALLY
What was your team called, again?

LARK
The Claire High Hurricanes.

WALLY
... That seems in poor taste.

LARK
Yeah.

Her bouquet finished, Lark holds it up for Wally to inspect. He gives an approving nod and she smiles. "Have you figured out what you want? If it's simple, I can probably arrange it for you."

"You have somewhere to be, Lark."

"Don't you?"

"Maybe."

"And yet here we are."

If Lark was writing this story, Wally would have asked for her number right about now. He would have laughed and nodded—perhaps repeating her words playfully, a here we are to match her own—before asking her for her number or perhaps, offering her his own.

But he doesn't.

"Ha. Yeah." Wally clears his throat and even without her powers, Lark knows something has changed. "I should get going, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Big day. But it was really nice meeting you." He steps away from the counter before Lark can even try to stop him. A small smile flickers across his lips, uneven. Uncertain. "Maybe we'll meet again?"

"Maybe."

And then he's going, going, gone. Out of her life and into the storm. Lost to bad weather, as so many things in her life, so many people, have been.

LARK
???

"He was kinda cute," says Lark's bespectacled co-worker Max, who reappears from the greenery aisle to sidle up to the front counter. Lark wordlessly switches positions with him as he takes his place by the cash register and begins to put her purchases through the system. "He looked like he was into you."

"Yeah," Lark said absently, her eyes skimming the aisles between the counter and the storefront to find the panelled windows that looked out onto the street. She could see Wally at the intersection, waiting for the light. "Yeah," she repeats, turning back to Max with a funny sort of smile. "I thought so too. But he didn't even ask me for my number."

"Huh. Weird."

"You think?" Lark found herself returning to Wally, or what she could see of him through the rain-obscured glass.

"I meant these flowers—they're familiar." Max adjusts his glasses, holding up the pink roses before putting them aside from the sunflowers. "But I guess the guy, too. You're very pretty, Lark."

"They're my favourite," she replies, as if those three words explained everything—Max's confusion, Lark's morning, Wally's whiplash of interest. Then, she looks back at Max, slightly amused. "Thank you, Max. Are you going to ask me for my number?"

"If it makes you feel better about him, sure. That's fifty-five dollars, by the way."

Lark pulled out her purse and paid for the flowers and card. "I think I'll survive, but I will hold you to that if I ever get bored."

Max snorts as he puts her purchases in a paper bag. "Well, he's probably still out there waiting for the light." He slides the bag across the counter with a small shrug, "You know the Allender intersection can be a pain in the ass to cross."

Lark lifts a brow as she reaches for the bag.

"I'm saying you should go for it. For all you know he could be your soulmate or something."

"Hm." Lark bit her lip, looping her wrist through the bag's handles. "Maybe you're right. Have a nice day, Max. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah. Good luck."

As Lark steps out into the rain, she thinks of the Stranger. She thinks of all the times she has dreamt him, all the times she has drawn him messily from memory.

He has always been on his way out. The back of his head she knows as well as the back of her hand; it is only this once she has seen his face.

Is this how she will remember Wally West? A beautiful stranger, concealed by rain, stolen away by the storms that have seen Lark through her whole life?

He has always been on his way out. Why he was always leaving, Lark did not know. Why he never stayed—Lark did not know that, either.

She did so well with the unknown. What else could fuel her fantasies? If she didn't believe in fate, in love, she believed that what was was enough, but what could be was infinitely more. This unknown, this uncertainty—it has always served her well.

But not anymore. No. Lark did not know why the Stranger was always leaving. She did not know why he never stayed.

But she knows this: she has been waiting for far too long.

She knows this is no meet-cute. This is no accident. This is not up to chance.

This is fate.

This was always going to happen.

(And if wasn't? She will make it happen.)

Lark catches up to Wally, and the next few moments should have predetermined the rest of her life. They should have played out like a movie, scene by scene, frame by frame, line by line. Lark reaches for his arm, fingertips brushing against rain-saturated fabric, and as Wally turns around, she imagines it.

LARK
Wally, hey. I don't know if you were just being polite in there, or if I'm just crazy, or if I'm just lonely.

LARK
But I feel like I know you. Like I've been waiting for you.

LARK
Maybe that's a bit much. Maybe I'm a bit much. But don't take it from me.

LARK
Find out for yourself.

LARK (to herself, and to the universe)
Don't go. Don't leave me this time.

LARK (to her heart, and to WALLY)
Stay.

But perhaps she is wrong. Because when Wally West turns to face her, he does not respond to her, nor to her touch. He does not accept her. He does not reject her, either.

He does not do anything. Something bright flashes across Lark's vision, like the lightning in her chest, like the lightning she remembers from all those years ago.

When it fades, he is gone.