Then Wendy pulls on my arm, and my feet magically work again, and I turn and run—oh yes, I’m that dignified—and I’m about three blocks away, around the corner, before I slow down. I wait for Wendy to catch up to me.

“Well,” she says breathlessly. “That was exciting.”

She’s not talking about the gunfight.

We take the long way getting back to my car. When we’re both seat-belted in, ready to go, she suddenly reaches and takes the keys out of the ignition.

“So you’re still in love with my brother,” she says, and when I try to grab the keys, she adds, “Oh no, we’re going to talk about this.”

Silence. I fight the humiliating urge to cry again.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s get it all out in the open. You still love him.”

I bite my lip, then release it. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on, and he’s moved on. Clearly he’s with Allison now.”

Wendy snorts. “Tucker is not in love with Allison Lowell. Don’t blow stuff out of proportion.”

“But—”

“It’s you, Clara. You’re the only one, from the first day he saw you. He looks at you exactly the same way my daddy looks at my mom.”

“But I’m not good for him,” I say miserably. “I have to let him go.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“We’re not meant to be,” I murmur.

This gets another snort. “That,” she says, “is a matter of opinion.”

“Oh, so it’s your opinion that Tucker and I, that we—”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “But I do know that he loves you. And you love him.”

“I’m at Stanford. He’s here. You said yourself that long-distance relationships don’t work out. You and Jason—”

“I didn’t love Jason,” she says. “Plus, I didn’t know what I was talking about.” She sighs heavily. “Okay, so I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, as a matter of fact. He’d kill me. But Tucker applied to college this year. And he’s going, in the fall.”

“What? Where?”

“UC Santa Clara. You see, don’t you, why this is important?”

I nod, stunned. UC Santa Clara just so happens to be in my part of California.

My heart is in my throat. I try to swallow it down. “You suck.”

Wendy puts her hand on mine. “I know. It’s my fault, partly. I kind of threw you two together that summer with the boots.”

“You really did.”

“You’re my friend, and I want you to be happy, and he’s my brother, and I want him to be happy, too. And I think you could make each other happy, if you’d give it a real chance.”

If only it were so simple.

“I think you should talk to him again, that’s all,” she says.

“Oh yeah? And what should I say?”

“The truth,” she says solemnly. “Tell him how you feel.”

Fantastic, I think. I’m crying over Tucker. Not very women’s lib of me, I know. It goes against everything I believe about myself, all that my mother taught me—that I am strong, that I am capable, that I don’t need a man to make me happy—but here I am, all curled up on the couch in the fetal position, an uneaten bowl of microwaved caramel popcorn on the floor by my feet, sobbing into the cushions because all I wanted was to watch a stupid movie to get my mind off things and all Netflix has lined up for me is romantic comedies.

I’m replaying that moment on the boardwalk over and over, Allison Lowell looking up at Tucker, her brown eyes all doe-like and alluring and crap, and how she touched him the way I’ve touched him. How she smiled.

And he smiled back at her.

But he’s also apparently going to college about twenty miles from me. The possibility of that, Tucker nearby, expands into an aching, hopeful, confused mess in my soggy brain.

He might want for us to be together.

I might want for us to be together.

But nothing else has changed, has it? I’m still me, still a T-person, still Little Miss Glowworm, still having creeptastic visions that I might not survive, and if I do survive, I’m still meant for someone else. He’s still him, funny, warm, gorgeous, kind, perfectly normal and yet so extraordinary, but when I kiss him too enthusiastically, I make him sick. Because he’s human. And I’m not, mostly. When he’s eighty, I’ll look like I’m thirty. It’s not right.

Except Dad told me to follow my heart.

Is this what he meant?

I blow my nose. I wish Angela were here to tell me to take a chill pill already, to kick my butt back to okay again, but that part of our friendship seems long gone. She’s not going to be in the mood to discuss boy issues. She’d probably kill for my easy little problems right now. So you still have a thing for the cowboy, I can imagine her saying. Big whoop.

Which starts a whole new round of tears for me, because not only is my heart all confused and broken again, but I am totally, indisputably alone.

My cell rings. I sniffle and answer.

“Hey, you,” Christian says softly.

“Hey.”

He hears that something’s not quite right with my voice. “Did I wake you?”

I sit up, wiping at my eyes. “No. I was about to watch a movie.”

“Do you want some company?” he asks. “I could stop by.”

“Sure,” I say. “Come over. We could watch zombies.”

Zombies would be excellent. I scroll through the menu looking for anything zombie, and I feel moderately less devastated and worn-out.

There’s a knock on the door, and I think, Well, that was fast, but then I freeze.

Five syncopated raps.

Tucker’s knock.

Crap.

He knocks again. I stand in the hall and contemplate how quietly I can sneak out the back door and fly away. But I don’t know if I can fly when I feel this way, and Christian will be here any minute.

“I know you’re in there, Carrots,” he calls through the door.

Double crap.

I go to the door and open it. I hate that I look like I’ve been crying, my eyelids puffy, my skin all blotchy. I force myself to meet his gaze.

“What do you want, Tucker?”

“I want to talk to you.”

Cue the casual I-could-care-less shrug, which I don’t quite pull off in a convincing way. Still, I have to get points for trying. “Nothing to talk about. I’m sorry I interrupted you on your date. This isn’t a good time, actually. I’m expecting—”