“Is that your subtle way of saying you missed me last week?"
"I've missed my hot chocolate. I just think of you as the guy who brings it to me. Sometimes I forget your name and call you hot chocolate guy.”
“His eyes are so intense I want to look away . . . or never look away, I can’t decide.”
“Caymen?”
“Yes?”
“You look terrified. Does this scare you?”
“More than anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t bring my mints.”
“And now the real answer . . .”
“Because I’m afraid that once you catch me, the game’s over.”
“I love you,” I whisper.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Don’t push me.”
“I love you, too,” he says. He puts his cheek against mine. “So much.”
“You two are the most in-love not-dating people I’ve met.”
“So Caymen..."
"So, Xander..."
"Like the islands."
"What?"
"Your name. Caymen. Like the Cayman Islands. Is that your mom's favourite place to visit or something?"
"No, it's her third favourite place. I have an older brother named Paris and an older sister named Sydney."
"Wow." He opens the bag, takes out a muffin, and hands it to me. The top glistens with sprinkled sugar. "Really?"
I gently unwrap it. "No.”
“A lot of people don’t get my humor. My mom calls it dry humor. I think that means “not funny,” but it also means I’m the only one who ever knows it’s a joke.”
“Sometimes it's the little things that bring that special someone back to us in some small way.”
“I wonder why some people seem to be born knowing what they want to do with their lives and others - mostly me - have no idea.”
“Sometimes it's hard for me to start something because I'd rather not try at all than fail at it”
“Feelings can be the most costly thing in the universe.”
“This is me facing failure. This is me putting everything on the line even though I know I might lose. And I'm terrified. But like you said, anything worth having is worth the risk.”
“Mrs. Spence picks up a roll of toilet paper from the counter and scrunches her nose.
“Ask Caymen about that,” Xander says.
Great, now I have to explain to his mother about my vandalism? “Your son called me with a toilet paper emergency. I rushed right over.”
She looks confused so Xander says, “She’s kidding, Mom.”
“I think unhappiness comes from unfulfilled expectations.”
“Hi, I’m stranger one and this is stranger two. Are you uncomfortable yet?”
“I slide my feet onto the seat next to him, my ankle brushing against his thigh. “No shallowness of breath? No rapidly beating heart?”
He rests one hand on my foot as he continues to mess with his phone. His eyes meet mine in amusement. “Are those the indicators? I might have an issue after all.”
“Note to self: Caymen is very good at sarcasm.”
“If you’re recording notes for an official record, I’d like the word ‘very’ stricken and replaced with ‘exceptionally.”
“I turn my head so that he doesn't see my smile and secretly curse him for making me feel special.”
“My older brother, Lucas, is twenty and away at college."
"Those are pretty normal names."
"Normal?"
"No Chets or Wellingtons or anything."
He raises one eyebrow. "Do you know any Wellingtons?"
"Of course not, but you probably do."
"No, actually I don't.”
“A week ago someone warned me not to buy the blueberry muffins at Eddie's, but I didn't listen and bought them anyway. Now at odd hours I get these insatiable cravings."
"They're laced with addictive substances.”
“I hope I'm not turning into that girl, the one who daydreams about a guy she can never have.”
“Not the “be yourself” line. I loathe that line. As if Myself and Tic have met before and gotten along, so all I have to do is make sure Myself is there this time. So illogical.”
“that’s my life: screaming without making a sound.”
“He laughs again. “You’re different, Caymen.”
“Different than what?”
“Than any other girl I’ve met.”
Considering most of the girls he’d met probably had fifty times as much money as I did, that wasn’t a hard feat to accomplish. Thinking about that makes my eyes sting.
“It’s refreshing. You make me feel normal.”
“Huh. I better work on that because you’re far from normal.”
He smiles and pushes my shoulder playfully. My heart slams into my ribs. “Caymen.”
I take another handful of dirt and smash it against his neck then try to make a quick escape. He grabs me from behind, and I see his hand, full of dirt, coming toward my face when the warning beeps of the tractor start up.
“Saved by the gravediggers,” he says.”
“How come the dog isn’t named?” He reads aloud the title on the box. “‘Peggy and dog.’”
“Because people tend to want to name animals after their beloved pets.”
“Really?”
“No. I have no idea. I can give you the number of Peggy’s creator if you want to ask.”
“You have the phone number of this doll’s creator?”
“No.” I punch the price into the register and push Total.
“You’re hard to read,” he says”
“Growing up, I never felt deprived. I was always happy. It seems only lately I've started seeing everything I didn't have.”
“...You know the difference between a 'boy friend' and a 'boyfriend'."
I roll my eyes with a smile. "Yeah, yeah."
"Just a little space,"...”
“This is like the calm after the storm. Everything has settled, and even though it left destruction in its wake, you know the worst is over.”
“I’d rather not see their eyes. Eyes can say so much. Theirs say, ‘I want to steal your soul so don’t turn your back on us.”
“And more’?”
The name of the store is Dolls and More. He’s asking what others have before him once they come into the store and only see dolls. I nod. “Dolls and more dolls.”
“How do they balance on these spindly things?”
“Hofstadter’s law tells us: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
“I wanted to bite him hard enough to express my frustration, yet sweetly enough that he’d let me do it again.”
“It's not rash," she said, a fiery tone to her words. "I've waited two years for him to realize how I felt. He's just a little slow on the uptake.”
“You look at me as if I were a conjuror,' Holmes remarked, with a laugh.”
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