PART ONE
Just because you’ve picked up this book, you know, doesn’t mean it belongs to you.
Quite a lot went on before you even arrived. There was a spark of an idea one day, which ignited into a fire of imagination. Each lick of flame burned a line of text, spreading from chapter to chapter.
And where were you? Probably in some other book, not even aware that this was happening someplace in the universe.
From this blaze came smoke, and from that smoke came silhouettes, marching across the pages, each with a voice to be heard. As they spoke, their edges grew sharper and more defined. Their features rose to the surface. And soon they were characters in their own right.
They picked up the lines that had been laid across the page and carried them on their shoulders, wrapped them around their waists, tugged and twisted, and became the story.
And still you weren’t here.
Then one day you reached onto a shelf, and out of all the books in the world, you chose this one.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if you’re not important. For the moment you opened this tale, your mind awakened the characters. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it really fall? If a character sits in a book and no one reads it, is he truly alive? As your eyes moved across the pages, as you heard the story in your head, the characters moved for you, spoke for you, felt for you.
So you see, it’s quite difficult to know who owns a story. Is it the writer, who crafted it? The characters, who carry the plot forward? Or you, the reader, who breathes life into them?
Or perhaps none of the three can exist without the other.
Perhaps without this magical combination, a story would be nothing more than words on a page.
DELILAH
I’ve been waiting my whole life for Oliver, so you’d think another fifteen minutes wouldn’t matter. But it’s fifteen minutes that Oliver is alone on a bus, unmonitored, for the first time, with the most ruthless, malicious, soul-sucking creatures on earth: high school students.
Going to high school is a little like being told you have to get up each morning and run headlong at sixty miles an hour into the same brick wall. Every day, you’re forced to watch Darwin’s principle of survival of the fittest play out: evolutionary advantages, like perfect white teeth and gravity-defying boobs, or a football team jacket keep you from falling prey to the demons that grow to three times their size when they feed on the fear of a hapless freshman and bully him to a pulp. After years of public school, I’ve gotten pretty good at being invisible. That way, you’re less likely to become a target.
But Oliver knows none of this. He hasalwaysbeen the centerof attention. He’s even more undeveloped socially than the boy who enrolled last year after nine years of being homeschooled in a yurt. Which is why I’m actually breaking a sweat, imagining everything Oliver could be doing wrong.
At this point, he’s probably ten minutes into a story about the first dragon he ever encountered—and while he might think it’s a great icebreaker, the rest of the bus will either peg him as the new druggie in town, who puts ’shrooms in his breakfast omelet, or as one of those kids who run around speaking Elvish, wearing homemade cloaks, with foam swords tucked into their belts. Either way, that kind of first impression is one that sticks for the rest of your life.
Believe me, I know.
I’ve spent my entire school career asthatgirl. The one who wroteVD Rocks!on all her second-grade valentines and who literally walked into a wall once while reading a book. The one who recently reaffirmed her subterranean spot on the social-status totem pole by accidentally punching out the most popular girl in school during swim practice.
Oliver and I make afabulouscouple.
Speaking of which . . . I kind of still can’t believe weareone. It’s one thing to have a boyfriend, but to have someone who looks like he just stepped out of a romantic comedy—well, it doesn’t happen to people like me. Girls spend their lives dreaming of that perfect guy but always wind up settling when they realize he doesn’t exist. I found mine—but he was trapped inside a fairy tale. Since that’s the only world he’s ever lived in, acclimating to this one has been a bit of a challenge. How hecame to be real—and mine—is a long story . . . but it’s been the biggest adventure of my life.
So far, anyway.
“Delilah!” I hear, and I turn around to see my best friend, Jules, barreling toward me. We hug like magnets. We haven’t seen each other all summer—she was exiled to her aunt’s house in the Midwest, and I was totally preoccupied with Oliver’s arrival. Her Mohawk has grown out into an Egyptian bob, which she’s dyed midnight blue, and she’s wearing her usual thick black eyeliner, combat boots, and a T-shirt with the name of her favorite band du jour: Khaleesi and the Dragons. “So where is he?” she asks, looking around.
“Not here yet,” I tell her. “What if he called the bus his trusty steed again?”
Jules laughs. “Delilah, you’ve been practicing with him the whole summer. I think he can handle a fifteen-minute bus ride without you.” Suddenly she grimaces. “Oh crap, don’t tell me you guys are going to be Gorilla-glued together, like BrAngelo,” Jules says, jerking her head toward Brianna and Angelo, the school’s power couple, who seem to have an uncanny ability to be making out on my locker at the exact moment I need to get inside. “I think it’s great that you have a hot new boyfriend, but you better not ditch me.”
“Are you kidding?” I say. “I’m going to need your help. Being around Oliver is like when you’re babysitting a toddler and you realize the entire house is a potential danger zone.”
“Perfect timing,” murmurs Jules as Oliver’s bus pulls up to the front of the school.
You know how there are some moments in your life when time just slows down? When you remember every minute detail: how the wind feels against your face, how the freshly cut grass smells, how snippets of conversation become a dull background buzz, and how in that instant, there’s only the beat of your heart and the breath that you draw and the person whose eyes lock with yours?
Oliver is the last one to step off the bus. His black hair is ruffled by the breeze. He’s wearing the white shirt and jeans I picked out for him, and an unzipped hoodie. A leather satchel is strung across his chest, and his green eyes search the crowd.
When he sees me, a huge smile breaks across his face.
