I looked up to see Xander watching me with an intensity in hiseyes that I couldn’t describe. A feeling came with that gaze, like a channel from him to me, that made me feel heard. And safe. The atmosphere I wanted to build for others, Xander was making it for me, right there on that bench under the moonlight.
With maximum effort, I tore my eyes away. Because I couldn’t stay on this bench with him forever, just like I couldn’t stay at the park with him seven years ago. I had to leave his warmth and return to the cold prison of my life. Breaking free… My stomach twisted at the thought, so I pushed it away and put on a smile.
“Anyway, I’m going to design the senior prom and show them what I’m capable of. I’m hoping that once they see that it’s what I love and that maybe I’m good at it, they might give me a shot.”
“Emery—”
“Please, Xander,” I whispered. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Okay?”
Xander seemed to wrestle with his thoughts, then nodded. “Okay.”
After a few silent minutes, things grew easy between us again. Xander took a pull from his beer, which was still nearly full. He made a sour expression that was kind of adorable, scrunching his nose under his glasses.
I grinned. “Not a fan?”
“Not really, but I thought I’d give it a try, and now it’s warm.” He peered over his shoulder at the bonfire. “This is a public beach. How is everyone getting away with the underage drinking?”
“The cops know the tradition,” I said. “Certain families take care of them—financially—to ensure that we all get home safe. Just another perk of this totally-normal-but-not-normal school. Speaking of, how is that going? Even the AP-est of AP classes must be so easy for you.”
“It’s fine.”
I nudged him again. “Come on. Don’t start bullshitting me now. You must be so bored.”
“To be honest, yes. Imagine if you went back to first grade…” He shook his head. “Sorry, that sounds insulting—”
“Xander. Stop apologizing for being smart. Tell me.”
“Okay, well, I had thought coming here—my Experiment, as I like to call it—would be good for me socially. And good for my dad, because it makes him happy to be here. But my brain is going a thousand miles an hour, and it’s all just…passing me by.”
“What is?”
“All that’s out there to be known.” Xander turned his head up to the sky, and I imagined he was encompassing the entire galaxy in his eyes, trying to make sense of it all. “I don’t like mystery.”
I frowned. “That seems weird for someone in your line of work.”
“I love working toward solving that which is mysterious, but I hate sitting in it, unprepared or…undefended. I want to measure and calculate and predict so that I’m never…”
“Never what?”
Xander turned to me. “Never caught off guard again.”
I nodded, hearing the day his mother left him behind his words.
“What about love?” I asked, not quite looking at him. Not quite sure why I asked in the first place.
“What about it?” he asked slowly.
“Love is mysterious and unpredictable. It can’t be measured, it just…is. It’s forever.”
“Not always,” Xander said, his expression growing dark. “My father has told me a hundred times that my mother was ‘the one’ from the moment he saw her. Felt it in his bones, he said. And she still left him. She left me. A mother’s love is supposed to be a constant in the universe. Unconditional. They lift cars and move mountains for their kids. They’re not supposed to leave. They’re not supposed to say they’ll come back and then not come back.”
“Like a broken promise,” I said softly, realizing he’d likely felt that too when he thought I’d been ignoring his letters.
Xander nodded. He seemed so sad, and I felt it in my own heart. As if I’d lost something too because he did.
“So you don’t believe in true love?”
“I don’t believe it’s forever,” he said. “I believe it exists in finite moments, not infinite waves.”
