Page 105 of Okay, Cupid

Why did I let this happen?

Why?

“Cal?” I whisper his name because it’s the only word I can think of right now.

“Hmm?” I can barely see him look down at me, his usually comforting smile making me feel so much worse for no reason at all.

“He said that he loves me.”

Cal’s hand stops playing in my hair, and his brows furrow, nearly meeting in the middle. “Who?”

I hesitate. “Huy.”

What good will more lying do for me?

“He said that he’s in love with you?”

I nod, feeling so numb to everything around me.

“Huh.” Cal’s left just as speechless as I was. But the words are out there now. Cal knows, and I know, and Huy knows. And that fills me with a sense of dread that I cannot explain. Like something is going to go wrong any minute now, even though it already has. “How did you respond?”

“I told him that it can’t happen.” I sit up, wiping my nose with the sleeve of my jacket. “That whatever he wants … it can’t be.”

“That’s good.” Cal hesitates. I can tell there’s something else on his mind, something that he isn’t asking me.

“I failed,” I tell him. “Again.”

“You didn’t fail, Jude. This happens.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I slip off the side of the bed, letting myself fall to the floor so I can pull my knees up to my chest. Might as well try to make myself as small as I feel. “It’s never happened to you, to Leah, to Richard.”

“Well, you don’t know that,” Cal says to me. “I mean, it’s never happened to me. But you know how secretive Richard is.” Cal climbs off the bed just to sit down next to me. And I let my head fall to his shoulder.

“What’s wrong with me, Cal?”

“Nothing, Jude. Nothing is wrong with you.” He puts a hand on my thigh, rubbing small circles there in the denim.

“Then why did this happen? Again! What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I control my feelings, why can’t I just be a normal fucking Cupid? What the fuck is going on in my brain that makes me fall in love with these human boys?”

“Wait … Jude?” Cal sits up straight, leaving me behind. “You’re in love with him too?”

Cal turns to look at me over his shoulder, and all I can do is stare at him.

“Jude …”

I tell Cal, “I didn’t even realize it was happening again. Not until it was too late.”

“Huy falling for you is one thing, Jude. But you falling for him. You know the consequences of that.”

“I wouldn’t have let anything happen.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

I don’t, actually. Because I certainly dreamed of kissing Huy, of wondering what his lips taste like, what his hands would feel like on my waist. I’ve pictured a life with Huy, holding his hand as we walk down the street. If we were allowed to be ourselves, to follow our dreams, he could play soccer, and I could …

That’s where the dreams have to stop, a blank space left for whatever I might do. Because I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t a Cupid.

I don’t know who I am past that.