“I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.”
“Why? Because you threw yourself at him in a bikini and he rejected you? Trust me,” she said gently, when I just lay here like a corpse, “it happens to the best of us, babe.”
“Mmph.” That was my face smushed in the pillow.
“Try not to take it like that. Rejection’s not always as personal as it feels.”
“And how’s that?” I asked skeptically, flopping over onto my back.
“It’s just not personal, that’s all.”
“How?”
“Well… do you think the fact that I’ve been rejected by a looong line of men means there’s something wrong with me?”
“No,” I said quickly, gazing over at her… her long brown hair in cute pigtails, her pretty face. “Wait. How long of a line are we talking about?”
“Shut it.”
“I’m kidding. Guys are idiots. You’re a delight, Angeline.”
“Thank you.” She sipped her coffee. “I like to think so.”
“If I was a dude, I’d totally fall in love with you.”
“See? It’s not personal. It’s just… his deal. Maybe there’s something wrong withhim.”
I groaned. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Uh… are you kidding me? All I’ve heard from you for the last two years are all the things that are wrong with him. He’s a slut, he’s a pig, he’s a dirty rotten manwhore—”
“I know, I know. But that’s just dumb stuff I tell myself, so it makes me want to hate him.”
“He’s not perfect. Maybe he’s not hatable, but maybe he’s not right for you anyway.”
“He’s amazing,” I lamented.
“He’s not that amazing,” she said. I knew she was trying to help. But she didn’tknow. She didn’t know Xander like I did.
“No one’s ever made me feel the way he makes me feel, though.”
Angie went silent. She sipped her coffee. “Okay. Tell me again. How does he make you feel?”
I thought about that, searching for a few mere words that could sum up what I felt when I was in Xander’s presence.
“Alive,” I said. “He makes me feelelectric. There’s this electricity between us… Like everything in me comes awake when he’s there. It’s automatic and chemical and totally unstoppable.”
Angie didn’t say anything.
“I can’t stop it. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him. It doesn’t even matter how he feels about me. Even when I’m mad at him, or we’re arguing… It’s electric.”
“Has it always felt like that?”
“No. Not when I first met him.” When I first met Xander, I was eleven years old. I barely noticed him. He probably didn’t notice me. At the time, he was just another adult in my brother’s world. “I was just a kid when I met him. But then… something changed.”
“You grew up,” she said.
“Gabe died.” I looked over at her, and Angie just looked at me. She didn’t know Gabe, but she knewaboutGabe. “And nobody saw me anymore. Overnight, I became a ghost. But Xander saw me. He made me feel… real. Everyone was drowning in the wake of Gabe’s death, just trying to stay afloat any way they could. It was every man, woman and child for themselves. Except Xander. He threw me a life preserver. He was the only one who reached out and wouldn’t let me drown.”