Chapter 8
I’d been smiling like an idiot all day. When Oli appeared again next to me in my English Language class (no one sat next to me, mainly because I’d been classified as an outcast), he leaned back against the chair next to mine and just stared at me. I smiled at him, waiting for his eventual comment.
“Does your face not hurt?” he asked me finally.
I grinned. “It kills.”
“But you’re still smiling like an idiot.”
“Say what you want,” I thought. “But I don’t care. I’m too happy.”
“You don’t look it. You look like you’ve just had a bad Botox injection.”
I stopped smiling and just glared at him. “I hate you. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“Happy for what?” he sighed. “Ivy, I think you should remember that there is a reason you’re here, and a reason you can’t get back. You have to realize that if you fall for Cay, you’ll never be able to be with him because if you kiss him, you’ll go back to your real world. You’ll be back with Caleb.”
I looked down at my nails and my new, slim fingers.
“I know,” I sighed. “So I just won’t fall in love with him. It’s simple, right?”
But even as I’d said those words, I knew, deep down in my heart, that I didn’t believe in them.
“Ivy Moore,” Oli sighed. “Even if you don’t believe me, then you have to at least remember from past experience that there was no way anyone can control who they fall in love with. If they could, the world would be a much simpler place. But a soulmate is not someone you can choose. A soulmate is someone who completes you, someone who makes you feel right, someone who makes you feel at home. There is only one person out there like that for you and there is no “choice” about it. The human heart is a complex thing, Ivy. It follows fate more than reason. If I could’ve controlled my own heart, I wouldn’t be here, right now.”
I stared hard at my hands, thinking about Oli’s words. A soulmate is someone who completes you, someone who makes you feel right, someone who makes you feel at home.
Isn’t that how Cay made me feel right now? I bit on my lip. What did this mean? Was Cay my soulmate? But…if he was…would I eventually have to leave him? I didn’t even know how I could begin to consider that. The idea of leaving this world, leaving Cay, hurt too much. But then…how had I felt about Caleb? Had I never truly loved him? I turned to Oli and I knew he saw the unspoken question in my mind. But he just smiled as the bell went in the background. It was the end of the school day.
“I can’t tell you, Ivy,” he said, his voice barely audible over the chair-scraping and immediate chatter. “Only you know.”
I was about to reply to him when two girls, who I vaguely remembered as two of the girls who’d introduced themselves to me a few days ago. I gave them a polite smile, glancing back at the place Oli had been. He was gone. I hated it when he did that.
I stood up and started gathering up my books.
“Poison Ivy,” the red-head one said, with a smile. “How’s school been so far?”
I stared at them, wondering what they wanted. I mean, they clearly wanted something other than have a meaningless conversation with me. But I played along.
“Great,” I smiled back. My arms now laden with books, I started making my way towards the door. They followed me. “I’m really liking it here. Javotte is a great school.”
