“Yeah. A real date. Something official. You. Me. Tonight. We're long overdue.”

“It's unclear who moves first. We're in each other's arms, lips locked, melded, hotly fused. Our hands drag over each other, reacquainting, remembering, almost as if we're both verifying the other one is real flesh and blood.”

“Why do you care? I've ignored you for days."His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. "Yeah. You got to stop that.”

“He stiffens against me, pain written all over the mess of a face. He grabs my face in his hands. Holds me. "It's not over. We're not through, Jacinda." His eyes blister, glitter darkly."I'll find you. I will. We'll be together again.”

“You want to go out?" he asks suddenly.I blink. "As in a date?""Yes. That's what a guy usually means when he asks that question.”

“I won't leave you! Do you know how unbearable it's been without you? You're not like the rest of them." His hand swipes through air almost savagely. I stare at him, my eyes wide and aching. "You're not some well-trained puppy content to go along with what you're told. You have fire." He laughs brokenly. "I don't mean literally, although there is that. There's something in you, Jacinda. You're the only thing real for me there, the only thing remotely interesting.”

“Sudden conviction races through me, almost terrifying in its total certainty. I can't give him up. He's the other part of me. He gets what it feels like to be separate from everything and everyone, to reject the path others lay out for you. We're the same. Two sides to the same coin.”