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But I was so rattled at the time — I still am, by the way — that I didn’t let it penetrate.
I’m letting it penetrate now though.
He likes my cupcakes. He really, really likes them.
All my worries in the past were for nothing.
Yay.
“Well, thank you,” I say, instead of grinning like a fool. “But that still doesn’t mean —”
“So since when do you bake?”
“What?”
“And how come I never knew that you did?”
“You don’t know everything about me,” I retort.
“Actually I think I do.”
“Of course not,” I scoff. “Of —”
“I know the first time you wanted to kiss a boy,” he says, cutting me off.
“What?”
“Viktor Sullivan.”
“I… I’m… What?”
“You were five.”
I open and close my mouth, unable to form words.
Because… What?
I mean yes, there was a boy named Viktor Sullivan when I was little, but how does he know that?
“Which was the only reason I didn’t go after him. Right after you told me.”
“What reason?”
“You were five. You didn’t know better.”
“I don’t —”
Then, shrugging, “Besides I found out that he’d moved to the west coast, and since there was no immediate threat, I didn’t think it was necessary to hop on a plane.”
“What threat?” I shake my head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He doesn’t stop to explain things. Rather he goes on, “I know the first time you tasted cotton candy. At the beach with your shithead brother when you were four. And you said that it felt like you were eating a piece of cloud and that you were a unicorn.”
“I —”
“For the record, you’re not a fucking unicorn. An ugly horn in the middle of your forehead is not what I wanna picture when I close my eyes.” He looks me up and down. “You could be a Barbie though.”
“I think,” I say, breathing haphazardly, “you need to slow down a little and —”
He doesn’t.
“I also know the name of your favorite doll: Krista. You had her from the age of three to seven and the only reason you stopped having her was because your mother saw you playing with her and decided to get rid of her because of how ragged she looked. I hope you know that, like your father, your mother’s a piece of shit too. By the way, Krista is also the fake name you gave me the night I called you out on your stalking.” Then, “I know your favorite movie: any Hugh Jackman movie is your favorite movie because you’ve got a thing for burly big men. But since he’s happily married with two kids, again I didn’t think it was important for me to hop on a plane and hunt him down. Although I think he’s getting divorced now so maybe I’ll hop on that plane after all. Your favorite romance novel; why you prefer Dior over Jimmy Anthony or something when it comes to shoes. I also know that your favorite color is red but somehow you have the least amount of dresses in that color. You like summer the best but you’ll take fall too. Because winter means wearing too many clothes and you apparently like wreaking havoc on my psyche more than you like being covered. And if you were given a superpower, you’d want to be invisible so you can spy on Tessa Thompson from seventh grade, who used to make fun of your romance novels the most, and destroy her.”
He pauses here for a second so I think he’s done, but apparently not because he goes on to add, “By the way, she was dating one of my strikers back in the day. Kinda as a fuck you to her daddy. But then we found out that she didn’t just have a weakness for soccer players from the other side of the tracks but she also enjoyed snorting a little white powder that’s not very legal. And since it’s our civic duty to report these things, we did. The last I heard she was in a convent in Switzerland somewhere.”
And then he’s done.
Still standing there all casually and arrogantly and like nothing happened just now.
Like he didn’t just blow my freaking mind.
He didn’t just turn my world upside down.
By reciting random, completely unhelpful facts about me, facts that I remember now I told him.
Over several texts and phone calls.
But first.
“Did she really?” I ask, my voice sounding foreign right now. “You know, coke.”
His lips twitch slightly at my scandalized tone. “Yeah.”
“I knew it.” I shake my head. “I knew she was up to something and something bad had happened. Because no one knew why she suddenly disappeared one day and got into this prestigious school in Switzerland. Prestigious.” I scoff. “Right.”
Wait till I tell Callie.
She knows all about Tessa and how much I hated her. And how I’ve always been wondering what happened to her. And now thanks to him, I know and…
