“It’s really not. And doubly so when really it doesn’t even seem like you’re freakingfazed. I mean, look at you, grabbing my horn, putting your knee on my weird body, not even flinching when I reached for you with one clawed hand. Just taking it all in yourstride. You haven’t even screamed a single time,” he said, half marveling, half near admonishment. As if sheshouldbe screaming.
“You sound like you want me to start doing that.”
“I don’t want you to. I just don’t know why you aren’t. Like, is this some kind of delayed reaction? Is shock gonna hit in a second and make you turn blue? Let me see you, honey, I need to know how blue you are.”
He tried to turn his head again to get a better look at her.
Even though that was completely bonkers to think.
“I’m not blue at all. In fact I don’t think going blue is a real thing.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is. I’ve seen it in movies.”
“Jack, just because it’s in a movie doesn’t mean it’s real.”
“Well, it’s not my fault I didn’t know that, they’re all I’ve got to go on.”
She stopped wrestling with the horn then. She had to, because suddenly it was really hitting her. He wasn’t just different. He didn’t just not understand a few things, the way a slightly clueless person might. He wasn’t even a person at all. Every frame of reference he had was probably wrong, completely wrong, and in so many ways she didn’t know where to start with them all.
The only thing she could do was blurt out her shock.
“Oh mygod, that’s it. That’s why you rely on them. That’s why you needed my books, and my advice—because humanity is something you’ve only experienced from the outside. You had to learn it all from the ground up, every single thing, most likely, without even being able to ever ask anyone anything the way you needed to,” she said, at first just full of almost amused surprise.
But by the end, she knew her voice had dropped.
She had dropped. She sagged back into her seat, taking him all in. This different creature he was, trying to fit in. And what an effort it must have been—by god, he was something else. He hadlittle fangs that curved out and over his upper lip. An underbite for something supernatural. And he didn’t just have horns—he had pointed ears. Like a Vulcan, or an elf, only massive.
Everythingwas massive.
Suddenly his cheekbones were like bricks.
His brows were as thick as his fingers; his jaw could have cleaved granite.
Though none of this was what really struck her. No—it was his eyes that did it. His eyes when he suddenly flicked them to her, after a moment of her silence. And in a way that made her realize he’d been avoiding doing it before. Like he didn’t want her to see what they looked like, and part of her could understand why.
He had no pupils, no white around the iris.
They were all black, liquid black, like ink.
Unsettling, she thought. But at the same time, so strangely lovely—most likely because she could still see the emotion beneath. It stirred beneath the surface. It spoke just to her. Concern, she thought she could make out, and then a little ruefulness.
“To be fair, I’ve had almost ten years,” he said, and when he did she thought of how weird he’d been back when he had first appeared and she had started to see him around town. How strangely he’d reacted to simple things. How gradually he’d gotten better…
But that just made her even more sad than she already felt.
“Don’t say that like ten years makes you hopeless.”
“Well, I mean, doesn’t it? That’s a long time to not grasp the basics.”
“Dude, that long time you’re talking about isn’t even enough for ninety percent of kids who are actually born human. Have you seen teenagers when it comes to anything remotely to do with romance or sex?” she asked. Then she sat right back on her heels, and waited for that to sink in for him. She even gave him a verypointed eyebrow raise and a look over the top of her glasses to make sure of it.
And he squirmed.
He tried to say something in protest.
But eventually he sagged. He sighed.
“You wouldn’tbelievethe number of things humans just take as a given,” he said, in such a weird Jack sort of voice that it made her gleeful. Because, yeah, he looked very different right now. True, he sounded very different. But somehow he was completely the same, at the same time.
