One (One Universe)

grin at me, while she talks to Dad. “You’re a lucky man.”
    Elias stands right inside the hall, and I know the moment he sees me because his mouth gapes. After a second, he closes it, and I can see his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows hard. That makes me smile even harder.
    We approach him, and I’m proud because I don’t wobble at all in the silver three-inch heels I dug out of Mom’s closet before the Symposium. And because I look amazing and I know it. Thankfully, seeing Elias in a button-down shirt and jacket prepared me for seeing him in a tux. He looks only slightly more incredible than he did this afternoon.
    But my Elias will always be in a t-shirt and jeans, flying with me through a Nebraska cornfield. One hundred percent himself, one hundred percent honest. One hundred percent happy. The tux is great, and the Hub is great, but my Elias will always be mine to keep, away from all this Super stuff.
    I kiss Dad’s cheek and then join Elias at the VanDyne’s table. We sit through a dinner with a fancy salad, about twelve utensils at each place setting, and some kind of delicious, melt-in-your-mouth steak. The only thing more intoxicating than the taste of the food is the way Elias brushes his hand against my knee every now and then, between listening and responding to his dad talking about Hub business.
    Mr. VanDyne mentions something about artificially engineering the chemicals for a suit that would be able to withstand the intense wind speed and pressure on the skin of a Super who could project the mass of her own body into a pressure vortex — basically, float and fly. I launch into some theories and formulas I’ve been kicking around for a year and a half. Hoping one of them would be useful for my own Super one day.
    Mr. VanDyne sits back and looks at Elias approvingly, but Mrs. VanDyne just gives me a polite smile. “Clearly a young woman this brilliant has earned a pass into the program. And to think Elias only ever mentioned how good you are at calculus.”
    Elias leans in, lips against my ear, and whispers, “You are truly amazing,” and I know he’s talking about my conversation with his dad, but the feeling of his breath against my neck makes me think that he means a couple other things, too. If I don’t get up and move, I’m going to jump on him right there. Or at least drag him down some dark corridor outside this ballroom, if those even exist in the Hub.
    The way Elias looks at me now, I know he’s feeling the same thing. He folds his napkin, puts it on the table, and grabs my hand. “Dance with me?”
    He smiles, and I glance at everyone around the table, murmur an “excuse us,” and follow him to the floor.
    We try to mimic the way everyone else dances, hands on waists and shoulders. I glance over at Leni tugging Daniel to the dance floor, and he holds her at quite a good length — confusing, I think, since they’ve been even more inseparable since that in the woods. But then I see why: His parents, the Doctors Suresh — both influential in the genetics department, I know — watch them dance with dead faces. Poor Leni.
    The big band plays “Blue Moon,” a song I love, naturally. The beat is faster than I’d like, but we take it as slow as we can. My arm snakes up along Elias’s. Because my heels give me some height, my hand rests comfortably wrapped around his shoulder, and I don’t have to crane my neck quite so much to look at him.
    Elias reaches his arm out, still holding my hand, and makes me spin under it. He pulls me back to him, hugging me tight, and I clutch at his waist. It can’t get any better than this. It just can’t. Not in a crowd of people, anyway.
    I remember that my parents are somewhere around here, and I pull back and smile at him but don’t get close enough that I want to stand on my toes to kiss him for real because that would be beyond embarrassing.
    He spins us in a circle, pressing my body to his. “So, what do you think? Can we skip prom now?”
    Even through his glasses, the colors in his eyes stand out, like a kaleidoscope, and they completely mesmerize me.
    “I thought that was always the plan,” I say, my voice low. “Skip prom. I’d rather be flying.” I flash him my most charming smile.
    “You and me flying in prom clothes? Tux and gown?” he asks, chuckling. “Mer, you’re gonna make me feel like Superman. Give me a complex or something.”
    I laugh. “No way. You’re as handsome as Superman,” I say, brushing my