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“Really? You’re not afraid of anything.”
“No.”
“Right.” He nods but he doesn’t believe me; it’s in his tone. “What if I told you that I bite?”
“What?” I laugh.
“Yeah. They call me a monster, right? What if I told you I’m exactly what they call me and on top of that, I’ve got sharp teeth. What then? Are you gonna have nightmares tonight?”
I stare at him for exactly five seconds. Yeah, I count them. Then I bend down and fish out my half-eaten stick of Toblerone, and wave it in the air like a weapon. “Then, I’d tell you that you’re not gonna bite me.”
He stares at the chocolate with amusement. “How’d you figure that?”
“Because I’m not food. And if you really wanted to bite something, I’d give you this. My chocolate.”
He chuckles and I swallow. His chuckle sounds like his voice. Not the sound I’ve ever heard from a boy, and not from a grown-up, either.
He’s staring at me like he always does. “Then I’d tell you that I don’t like chocolate.”
My hand freezes in the air and my mouth pops open. “You don’t like chocolate?”
“Nope.”
“No way.” I grimace, my hand falling down to my lap with a thwack. “Oh my God.” I was not prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for the monster to say that he doesn’t like chocolate. Except, Abel’s not a monster and I wasn’t really going to give him my chocolate.
A short laugh bursts out of him as he stares at me. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re more concerned about my lack of chocolate love than the fact that I might seriously be dangerous?”
“Oh, please.” I wave my hand. “You’re not dangerous, but what kind of a person doesn’t like chocolate?”
“The kind who likes…” He shrugs. “I don’t know… fruit?”
“You like fruit?” I screech, then glance around to find Jessica and the gang watching our exchange. But as soon as I glare at them, they all turn away.
“This is getting worse by the minute, isn’t it?”
“Duh. How can you like fruit and not chocolate?” I shake my head, frowning. “I can’t even understand that. That’s not normal.”
Chuckling, he shrugs. “Maybe nothing about me is normal, Pixie.”
Pixie? Did he just get my name wrong?
“My name’s not Pixie.” I raise my eyebrows at him, feeling oddly disappointed and irritated. “It’s Evie.”
“Evangeline Elizabeth Hart. I know.”
Oh God.
He shouldn’t have said my name in that awesome voice of his. Now, that’s all I’m hearing. My complete name in his almost-grown-up voice, making me feel like I am a grown-up. Like I could feel things — big things that only older people are supposed to feel.
“Th-then why’d you call me Pixie?”
“Because that’s my name for you.”
“You can’t give me names. We don’t even know each other.”
Throwing me a lopsided smile, he licks his lower lip and leans closer to me. The scent of warm apples tingles my nose and I’m frozen like a statue. “Maybe if you stay a little longer when I’m around instead of running away, we can get to know each other.”
I blink. And then I blink again. I realize I want to say yes to getting to know him so strongly that I can’t say anything at all. I’m speechless. Voiceless, dumbstruck, tongue-tied and mute. On top of that, I feel like the sun is baking me even though I’m sitting inside the bus.
Chuckling, he rubs the back of his neck, sliding back and sitting propped against the window. I move too. I tear open the silver wrapper of my Toblerone and pop an almost soggy and melted piece in my mouth. As I chew, I glance at Abel to find him staring at me.
I gulp the half-chewed chocolate in. “You stare at me a lot.”
He’s silent for a few seconds before whispering, “Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I tell him, truthfully.
He throws me half a smile. “Then I won’t.”
I breathe in through my mouth as my skin breaks out in goosebumps. “I can’t be friends with you.”
He rests his head against the glass window. “I know.”
My eyes feel heavy, sleepy almost, but not really. I lower them and look at his hands in his lap. The sunlight is slashing his long fingers and strong wrists. There are smudges around the pad of his thumb. Black smudges. Did he get them from the pencil he has stuck inside the drawing pad?
“They won’t let me,” I confess.
“I know.”
I look up, feeling all kinds of restless. I need him to understand. I’m not a bad person. I’m not doing this to be mean. “I want to be, though.”
Abel’s watching me in a new way. I’ve never been watched like that. Like if he moved his eyes, I’d disappear and he’d never see me again. His look hits me in the stomach and butterflies explode in my body. I can hear them flapping their wings. I bet he can hear them too.
