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Love has a funny way of making the world move. It gives you a glimpse into the best of what the world has to offer and pushes you up to the heights of every good thing, still leaving you yearning for more even as it fills you.
Reality must feel bitterly left out when this happens. I say this because it begins to stalk you, just waiting for the moment when you’ll let it creep back in and fall on top of you, crushing you flat.
It took about six hours for that to happen to me.
I was fine, even smiling, as Cheryl and Mark asked me what in the world I’d been doing out of the house so late. I barely reacted when they insisted I missed an important dinner. I didn’t even get short with them as they asked me why I had been going out in the mornings frequently (although I did make a point to tell them that Maurice’s cooking did nothing for my appetite).
Even though I was completely okay with handling the conversation, I skipped out early, citing the need to “use the library at school.”
My parents’ strange expressions followed me out the door, until Adam’s food-throwing celebration (tantrum) started and forced them to worry more about him.
Because of my late night, I had to skip going to Rachel’s, sadly. I made plans to go after school to make up for it. My energy would likely be depleted by then.
Maybe Raiya and I could work on our AP Gov project some, too, I thought.
“Hamilton Dinger!”
As soon as I heard Gwen’s voice, color drained from my face. I knew it was over. Reality, in the form of an angry Gwen Kessler, was coming to give me only suffering and regret.
She was the most upset I’d ever seen her. A crowd of people around us looked on, no doubt interested to see if there was a fight coming.
I decided to face my fate bravely. It was only fair, I decided. “Uh, hi, Gwen—”
“Did you forget about dinner last night?”
“Ugh.” I mentally hit myself as I recalled I’d invited Gwen to come and join us. No wonder Cheryl had been so insistent that I’d messed up this morning, I thought. Gwen had dropped Adam off and then stayed for a dinner I’d invited her to while I missed it myself. That was no doubt a big mistake in the Best Boyfriend Ever playbook.
“Is that any way to treat your girlfriend?” Gwen asked, her voice lowering down to hurt tone as she came up beside me.
It looked like she noticed the crowd, too.
“Okay, so here’s what happened—”
“I’d really love to hear what happened,” Gwen assured me bitterly. “Just as I’m sure you don’t really care what happened to me. I had to sit there, with your parents and their guests all through dinner. It was terrible!”
“I’m sorry—”
“I don’t believe that.” Gwen glared at me fiercely. “You’ve apologized so much lately, I should have realized something was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve always been all about yourself, and you don’t care about other people, and I was just so stupid to tell you I was in love with you. That just made it easier to steamroll right over me.”
I sighed. “Can you just calm down? I’m getting tired of your angry whispering.” I glanced behind me. “Others might be, too.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re tired?” Gwen asked. “I’m the one who’s been waiting on you for months. You’ve been late, you’ve left early on our dates, and it’s always about work or family or something else.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” I muttered, “I should have an excuse now, shouldn’t I?”
Gwen stopped. “I could understand if you were running late,” she said, “but I know you didn’t have work. So what kept you from coming to dinner last night?”
She crossed her arms and waited, while I shifted uncomfortably.
“I was ... I was just working,” I said, grimacing as I too belatedly realized Gwen had just said that. “With Raiya, on our AP Gov project.”
“You were working with Raiya?” Gwen’s emotions begun to flare off her, and I was just about ducked from them until I recalled I was the only one who could see them.
“Yes,” I said slowly, deciding that had been a terrible lie, but it was a good one. Gwen didn’t talk to Raiya too much, and from what I could see, while they were friendly, Raiya didn’t seem to hover around Gwen or her circle of friends.
It could work, my brain told me.
“Mikey didn’t tell me that.” Gwen sighed, finally calming down on the outside, even though her emotions were just terrifying. She was angry, and bitter, and more than willing to cause physical harm.
“You called Mikey?” I asked.
“Yes, because you don’t answer your phone anymore,” Gwen bit back.
Huh. I took it out and recalled it might not have survived getting dunked into Lake Erie.
Yep, it was dead. Really dead. Drowned and burned, by the look of it.
I showed it to her. “My phone ... got caught in Rachel’s espresso machine last night.” It wasn’t the worst story I’d come up with.
“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Gwen asked.
“Yes.” She’d bought some of my stupider explanations before.
Her eyes softened, looking like melted honey. “You can tell me the truth, you know.”
That was surprising. Suddenly I felt worried. Was it my conscience? Was I starting to feel bad about keeping my superhero identity from her, or was it possible she knew something?
The bell rang, effectively saving me from more of her tirade. For the moment, anyway.
She stared at me, and then huffed, and then, thankfully, walked away. Relief immediately returned.
My good fortune continued to rain down on me, as Raiya was absent from school and wasn’t in AP Government with us that day. Gwen couldn’t ask her whether we had actually been working on our project or not. And I could run to Rachel’s after school faster than she could.
Not that I would run, I thought to myself. That would look like I was guilty. I would walk, calmly.
It didn’t hurt that I didn’t have to worry anyway, since Gwen had play practice, and then she had to pick up my brother. I knew I had time.
“Yo, Dinger.”
I looked up to see Jason coming my way. “Jase,” I greeted.
“Hey, man.”
“So ... I’m just going to ask. What’s been up with you lately?” he asked.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“I heard Gwen was crying in the girl’s locker room all last period,” he said. “She said you were in love with someone else.”
How did she know? I was flabbergasted. “What?”
“Rumors are going around,” Jason said with a shrug. “I just thought I’d check in to see if you were okay.”
“I’m okay. Really.” If it weren’t for Gwen, I would be even better, I thought to myself. She didn’t need to make all this mess for me.
“Via Delorosa’s been going around saying you’re going to dump Gwen. She’s telling anyone who’ll listen that you’re in love with her and you regret dumping her in junior high.”
“Well, that’s Via for you.” I snorted. “She’s always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong and trying to make it about her.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Jason said.
Evan von Ponce, one of my other friends, came up behind us. “Hey, Dinger, Jason.”
“Poncey can back me up here,” Jason said.
“On what?” Poncey asked.
“Dinger’s been acting weird lately.”
“Well, he’s super busy,” Poncey said. He turned to me and said, “I mean, you are, right? Got that job at the mayor’s to worry about, and your mother’s on the case against those superheroes.”
I appreciated Poncey’s loyalty much more than I expected I would. Immediately, I felt bad that I’d taken him for granted so much.
“That’s not it though,” Jason said. “Rachel’s told me that you’ve been in her café nearly every other morning. And it’s super early, too. Are you crushing on Raiya?”
“I think he is,” Poncey spoke up.
“Just like you’ve got a crush on Brittany?” I asked.
“No.” He flushed over, angry and embarrassed, and I had an opening to escape.
“That’s not it, though, is it?” Jason asked. “I mean, I was thinking of asking Raiya out on a date myself.”
I nearly punched him as he said it. “What?!”
“Yeah, we’ve been working together for a bit on the weekends, and she’s pretty cool,” Jason said. “She reminds me a lot of Rachel.”
She does make good coffee, my mind spoke up. Fortunately, my mouth was disjointed from my brain and didn’t repeat that aloud.
“So you’re going to ask someone out on a date who reminds you of the person you liked before she married someone else?” I asked.
Poncey laughed. “He’s got a point,” he said, seeing Jason’s frown.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Jason asked.
“It’s just weird,” I said. “It’s like dating sisters.”
“They’re cousins.”
“I’d just wait for the obsession to pass,” I told him. “You might do better waiting for college.”
“We’re not here to talk about me,” Jason insisted, even though he was starting to get red-faced, too.
Before I could insist that we were indeed talking about him (because there was no way I would ever want to have this conversation with anyone), Poncey interrupted us. “You know, Dinger, we’re your best friends. We just feel like we’re missing you more than catching you lately. Don’t get upset with Jason.”
I paused for a moment. I supposed I owed Poncey, since he was pretty loyal to me and everything. And it didn’t hurt that he was right.
Besides Mikey, I hadn’t had a lot of time for my friends. It had been hard to keep up my usual social activities, especially since I’d begun to take my supernatural duties seriously.
Finally, I sighed. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Both of them looked shocked as I said it.
This is exactly why I don’t like to apologize, I thought. Too many people just don’t believe it.
“Let’s hang out this weekend some,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess you’ll need it, by the sound of it,” Poncey said as he smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. “I heard from Laura that Gwen’s so upset with you, she’s determined to ‘fix things.’” He laughed. “I guess you’re going to get beaten up and then dumped.”
“Everyone thinks you’re a great couple, you know,” Jason added. “I mean, you’re perfect together. We’re all rooting for you and Gwen.”
“Thanks,” I muttered back. “Well, I guess we’ll see.”
After that, I quickly changed the subject and started talking about schoolwork, which was something that we could all complain about enough that the previous topics were buried sufficiently.
I did my best to put the guys at ease and our friendship to rights. It was the least I could do at the time.
“Sounds great,” Jason said, happy with me once more, as I reiterated my promise we’d hang out later in the week before heading out.
“Yeah, a tournament weekend would be great,” Poncey agreed.
“We’ll need to,” I assured them as I headed out and away from them, “because the PSATs are coming up, and we’ll need loads of video games to drown out Poncey’s depression.”
The guys laughed and said they would invite Mikey and Drew, and that was it.
I soon found myself headed out to Rachel’s, glad that the day’s troubles were over.
Or, they would be, as soon as Raiya’s temper was doused. As soon as I came into my coffee shop haven, her glare was on me, and I decided her anger wasn’t any more fun to face than Gwen’s had been.
I did decide it was easier to ignore, though. I walked over to my usual booth and sat down.
Distraction, I decided, pulling out my AP Government textbook.
Maybe I could get her focused on our project. And, I thought, I could help her catch up on notes, since she was absent from school.
Rachel waved to me cautiously, none of her usual charm or cheerfulness evident.
Oh boy, I thought. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Why did you tell Gwen you were with me last night?” Raiya asked.
I jumped. She’d appeared behind me suddenly, like she was trying to make me uncomfortable.
She’s just like me, I suddenly realized, just a bit perplexed. Raiya had a strategy to handle people, and she did a good job of it.
“Hey, it’s my favorite Raiya sunshine,” I said and greeted her with a charming sneer.
She slammed my coffee cup down on the table, before sitting down across from me. Little droplets of mocha splashed out onto some of my papers, like fresh blood from a wound, but I didn’t care. Or at least, I tried not to show that I did.
“Why did you tell Gwen you were with me last night?” she repeated.
“I don’t have to tell you,” I objected. I felt like a snoot for saying it.
“I think you should, considering all the phone calls and hate emails I’ve gotten in the last few hours.”
“What? That’s insane.”
Raiya shook her head. “I’m not lying.”
“I don’t think you are,” I admitted with a sigh. “I just can’t believe someone would do that.”
“I’m sure there is more all over social media,” she added.
“I’m sure I got a lot too,” I said. When she arched her eyebrows at me in question, I explained, “My phone’s more than dead today.”
“Was it because Rachel’s espresso machine grabbed it?” she asked.
If I hadn’t seen the small attempt to squash a laugh, I might have denied it. “Maybe,” I muttered, unable to defend myself. “You never know what crazy people will come up with.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“The truth is, we’re in high school and people are shallow and obviously devoid of any sense of moral code. At least, those who would attack you because—”
“Because they think I’ve set my sights on you and lured you away from Gwen?”
I nearly choked on my coffee. “Is that what they said?” I asked.
“One or two of them,” she admitted with a grimace.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, wondering why I felt I had to apologize so much lately. It was getting annoying. It seemed as if, after years of not getting apologies when they were due to me, and not giving them when due to others, they were just waiting for a weakness to exploit.
“Tell me the truth,” Raiya insisted again. “I’ll take that over an apology any day.” She took a sip of her own cup of mocha and added dryly, “And I’ll more likely be less mad at you, too.”
Frustration tore at me at her persistence. That was what probably made me say it. “I’m in love with someone I shouldn’t be.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could really stop them, and as I looked at her, waiting for a response, I gradually became more okay with it.
Raiya and I, without me really noticing it too much, had become something of friends in the last few months. And I trusted her with my coffee. Surely, I could trust her with my confidence.
“You’re in love with someone you shouldn’t be,” Raiya repeated back to me. She took another sip of coffee. “Gwen?”
“No.” I shrugged. “Not Gwen. I’m in love with someone else.”
“Then why are you dating Gwen?” Raiya asked.
I frowned a bit at her judgmental tone, but I decided it was a natural consequence of confiding in a woman. “Gwen told me that she was in love with me.”
Raiya pushed back her bangs a bit. Her emotions shifted from wary to empathetic, I noticed. I hadn’t even needed to use my power to see it.
I’d started to realize, over the past few months and weeks, that Raiya wore a mask of sorts; it was a cover, a fabrication, one she held in place when she interacted with other people. It wasn’t like she was hiding something, it was more like she was slowly revealing who she was. And the more I interacted with her, the more I caught glimpses of her true self behind it, and the more I liked her and wanted to know more.
As I sat there looking at her, I realized that she had seen me so many times, in my more vulnerable forms. I was suddenly getting to see what that was like.
I had never noticed so many things about her. I never noticed how she had a small dimple on her left cheek when she smirked. How delicate and strong her hands were. How her eyes never quite seemed to come out from behind her hair, which never seemed to be bound without objection.
Realization floored me as I realized I’d never noticed what color they were, in all the time I’d known her. I narrowed my gaze, and before she jerked her eyes away, I thought I saw glimpses of an interesting blue.
“What?” she finally asked. Hesitation had crept into her voice.
“Nothing,” I wheezed out.
She cleared her throat. “So, then, tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why are you in love with your someone else?” Raiya asked. She grinned as she added, “And why Rachel doesn’t know.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s silly,” Raiya objected. “There must be something.”
“Is it?” I asked. “Can we really know another person so completely that we know they’re meant for us?”
“I don’t believe in being ‘meant for someone.’”
“Really?” I frowned. “Even after living with Rachel and her ‘one true love’ stuff?”
Raiya blushed over a bit. “Love is something people naturally want,” she said. “I think getting to choose your soul mate is more ... supernatural.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “I love the idea that you can have such a powerful say in your destiny.”
“Maybe it’s both.” I smiled. “I can see a weird combination of both.”
“I’ll concede to that,” Raiya agreed. “So why do you love your someone else?”
“She’s someone I can forgive.”
I don’t recall if I had really planned that answer or not, but it was there.
“What do you mean?” Raiya asked, obviously confused.
“You know me pretty well,” I said. “You know I don’t have an easy time forgiving people.”
“Yeah, your ego’s pretty delicate.” She smirked at me, and I knew she was teasing me as much as telling the truth.
“I just found out that I could forgive her, and it was more important to forgive her than it was for me to be angry at her.” I shrugged. “I think that’s pretty big.”
“So that’s your requirements for love?” Raiya asked.
“Of course there are more things that go into it,” I said. “But that was a new level for me.”
“So you’d forgive her for lying to you?”
“I have.”
“And hurting you?”
“It took a while at first, but I did.”
“What about tricking you?”
I frowned. “Is there a reason for these questions? Cause they’re getting annoying.”
“Sorry.” She rolled her eyes, and we said nothing for a long moment.
“I don’t think forgiving her is just it,” I said for good measure. “Maybe it’s more. More like, she makes me believe in miracles.”
Silence again. Finally, Raiya spoke up again. “So, tell me about Gwen.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyebrows arched. “Tell me what you’re going to do about Gwen if you’re in love with someone else.”
“Oh.” I shrugged, trying to shake off the feeling of uneasiness. “Well, I don’t know if it’ll work out with the other girl.”
“And it will work out with Gwen?”
“No, but Gwen’s just, you know.”
“Tell me. Use your own words.”
“Gwen’s just a really nice person. She’s smart, and pretty, and kind, and loves ... stuff like fun and kids and people.” When Raiya didn’t say anything, I sighed. “I just don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“So you’re dating her, but you don’t love her, because you don’t want to hurt her feelings?” Raiya shook her head and then slumped over.
When I realized she was laughing, I snapped. “Hey! It’s not funny.”
Raiya breathed in deeply. “It’s just ironic. Sorry.” She smothered down another round of giggles before asking, “Have you told your someone else how you feel?”
“She knows how I feel.”
“So you did tell her?” Raiya leaned forward. “You told her, specifically, that you love her, and you want to be with her?”
“I guess not. At least not in those exact words.”
“The words matter.”
“But I did tell her it was up to her and that it was important.” I was fully expecting Raiya to laugh again. But she had a thoughtful look on her face when I peeked up at her.
“Ultimately,” she murmured, “you still have to choose.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Made some bad choices, bad decisions, you know.”
“You just can’t live with some decisions,” she said quietly.
I frowned a bit at her tone, but she was right. It was as though she was confirming my thoughts.
“Hamilton ... ”
I ignored her as I thought about it. Was it possible that Aleia had been right before? That both Starry Knight and I would find our relationship more precious in rebuilding it, especially because it had been broken?
“I guess you’re right. I don’t think I ever said the words,” I said, catching her eyes with mine. “Next time I see her, I’ll be more clear about it, I promise.”
Raiya snorted into her cup. “You don’t have to promise me anything,” she snarled.
Where had that come from? “Whoa. No need to be a bear about it,” I said. I guessed our time for friendly conversation had passed, and it was back to arguing about things. “Besides, you’re the one who asked.”
“Asking for information is not the same thing,” she insisted. She stood up. “Excuse me. I have to go.”
“Oh? Why—”
She hurried off before I could stop her. I grumbled to myself as she left. I hoped she wasn’t going to repeat anything I told her over the Internet. I’ll admit to deserving some scorn for Gwen’s troubles, I thought, but I definitely didn’t need the Internet hounding me and trying to shame me.
“‘In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo,’” Grandpa Odd recited, as he came up behind me.
I sighed. “Hey, Gramps,” I said. “How are you today?”
“‘Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse,’” he continued, ignoring me.
“I don’t really care,” I told him. “Just get to the point, please.”
“‘I have measured my life out in coffee spoons,’” Grandpa enunciated, pulling up a show.
“Okay, enough,” I said. “I’m leaving.”
And before he could herald me or block my path, I ducked around him. Grandpa Odd had an odd way of making me feel uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it. And I especially didn’t need it, after Raiya had made me feel a bit uncomfortable as well.
I felt even more uncomfortable as I walked straight into Gwen and Mikey.
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