When Worlds Collide

Chapter 1

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail as I paused in front of the side entrance to the pizza place where I worked. Then, letting out a breath and mentally preparing myself for a dizzying mess of phones, tables, and pickups, I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The first thing I did was glance up at the TV, but from my angle, I couldn't really read the headline. Then I pushed open the Employees Only door that led to behind the counter and punched in.

"Hey Rosie!" I called with a smile, seeing the teen who I'd be working with for the remainder of the night.

"Hey back," she said.

I checked the order number: 35. "Only at thirty-five? Has it really been that slow?" I muttered to myself.

"Yep," Rosie said as she slid a pizza into a box and picked up a cutter.

"Goodness gracious. Been like that all day?"

"Slow morning, according to Riley, so I guess so."

"It's Saturday," I said, pumping a squirt of hand sanitizer onto my hand. "Hopefully it'll pick up for the dinner rush."

"Yeah, hopefully," Rosie agreed.

Her real name was Danielle, but her curly hair was the color of roses, and it was the name she wrote on her cup, so that's what we called her. It's what she seemed to prefer. Where Rosie's nickname fit her to a tee, my name didn't match me whatsoever.

Rosie and Ruby. If you heard our names, you'd think we were siblings or something. Redheads. Maybe green eyes, maybe brown. I'm not sure what it is, but both names give you a certain image. The name Rose -- or Rosie, to me, is this curly red-haired girl with brown eyes and freckles and little dimples when she smiled. That was who Rosie was. She matched that.

But me? I had straight black hair that only cooperated when it was wet. Damp at the very least. I had brown eyes that were framed by thick brown glasses. I had acne, not freckles. Even at 23, I was still plagued by the teenage horror that is a face full of acne, although it wasn't my whole face. Just my one cheek that I often rested against my hand, which made me look even odder.

Whatever the name Ruby makes you think of, I'm the opposite. Mostly. If my name makes you think of a white girl, then I suppose I am that.

I'm not elegant or fancy or anything like that, either, like a name like Ruby might lead you to believe. I've worked at the same pizza place that I've worked at since freshman year at college. I attend a local college that I got into only because scholarships paid most of the money. I'm not rich. Not really. I share an apartment with my freshman-year roommate. I work a minimum wage job. My parents still live in the crappy two bedroom place that I grew up in. That place has serious issues. It's old, for one thing. The pipes creak all year long. There's no insulation save for cargo blankets my dad stapled to the wall, meaning it gets really cold in the winter and would be stifling hot in the summer if not for the existence of air conditioners.

If you think I make friends easily, or am super outgoing and just bundles of energy waiting to be used, that's wrong as well. I'm nothing like that. I'm not good with conversation, however much I hate silence. I guess if you wanted to have an idea of a Ruby similar to me, look at Ruby from Supernatural.

"Heads up, Ruby, a table just walked in," Rosie commented.

"Have you even gotten a table yet?" I asked her. Rosie shook her head. "Then it's your turn." She was still manning the pizza oven, waiting for another pizza. "I'll get them drinks."

I left the counter and went to get the table's drinks. After delivering them, I paused by the TV over the door. The reporter was talking about the recent bear attacks that had been occurring over the past several weeks... except that I'd been here over the past few weeks, and I didn't remember hearing anything about bear attacks. And bear attacks aren't even common in this area of the country anyway; it's a suburban town. Yeah there's forests, but I couldn't think of the last time anyone ever reported seeing a bear, much less one attacking people.