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She laughed then. “Fine. I can’t turn down a good bus ticket.”
“You crumbled too soon,” I said. “I would have sprung for snacks if you kept haggling.”
She walked past me. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
I caught up. “So there’ll be a next time?”
“You’re very enthusiastic about everything. What’s wrong with you?”
“Lots of things,” I said cheerfully. “And I just don’t see the point in pretending I don’t like something or someone. Why would I hide it? I’m not ashamed of anything.”
She glanced at me as though trying to figure out if I were being serious or not. “I wish I could be like that.”
“It’s not hard.” I led her toward the nearest bus stop. It was empty, so we’d just missed a bus. “I like you, and if you like me back, that’s great. But if not, we can still be friends.”
We’d just have to deal with the secrets later.
She narrowed her eyes when she took a seat at the stop. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Dorian Evans.”
“I’ll bet,” I muttered. I sat down, and she shifted over. The chill she’d been projecting—somehow—began to dissipate. “You look like you’ve had a tough week. Wanna talk about it?”
She shrugged. “Do you ever think people justwantdrama in their lives? It’d be so much easier to just get along and not react to everything anyone says as though it’s personally offensive.”
I wanted to reach out and touch her, but she would probably shrink away from me. I could wait for her to come to me, if she wanted. That night at Halloween, before everything had fallen apart, I’d felt like she wanted me to kiss her. It was different after that—she’d understandably retreated, given all of the weirdness—but I wished I could help her find her old, confident self.
A bus arrived. We sat upstairs, at the front, and when I took a seat, I was surprised when Margo slipped into the seat right beside me.
She noticed me staring at her. “I wish everyone was as easy-going as you.” She sank back into her seat, staring into the distance. “I tried to join the stupid drama club. Hanging around with you apparently makes that a no go. And I tried to get a job at the café, but you have to be a townie for that one, too. It makes me crazy.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She looked at me, her eyes soft. “You were the first person to be nice to me around here. You have nothing to be sorry for. I don’t want to be a part of that crap. I don’t care if you’re from—” She frowned. “Wait, where are you from?”
“No idea.” I grinned at her expression. “Nathan found me on some mountain in Eastern Europe, but I wasn’t born there. No parents, no birth cert, so we made up my background mostly.”
“He found you,” she said sceptically. “On a mountain. And took you home. Just like that?”
“It was probably a bit more complicated.” And she would never understand. “He was travelling with his family, came across me and a bunch of other kids in a bad situation, and tried to help.”
“Were you kidnapped?” she asked. “I mean, was it some kind of human trafficking scenario?”
I shrugged. “More like I was unwanted and dumped onto a crazy old woman, far away from the authorities. It worked out for me in the end.”
“Do you ever wish you could meet your parents?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care who they are. My family is here, in this town, so I’ll do what it takes to stay with them.”
“Sometimes I wish I could talk to my biological parents.” She sounded embarrassed. “Just to find out, like, medical stuff.”
“It’s all right to want to know where you came from,” I said firmly. “It’s just I already know it wasn’t better than what I have now.”
“My parents are great,” she said. “But I wish my dad was having better luck getting work around here.”
It was my turn to sound embarrassed. “The job at my place, it’s just on hold. The work will be there, it’s just… a bad time.”
She narrowed her focus on me. “Because of what happened at Halloween.” Then she held up her hands. “I know, I know. No secrets today. So tell me widely known truths then, Dorian.”
“I am a big wuss,” I said with a smile.
