Love Over Matter (26 page)

Spilling from the sky like a child’s
hopeful finger painting is a glittery rainbow, which terminates at
our feet. Aleks steps into its glow and wraps me in a protective
hug. “I lied,” he tells me in a tone that is both apologetic and
consumed by relief.

My eyelids slide shut, my mind’s eye
opening.

“
I sense him,” he whispers,
exhaling a dizzying cloud of cinnamon. “All the time. If you want
to try again . . .”

He must be referring to the kissing.
“Sure.”

In my imagination, a healthy, carefree
George glides across the rainbow and coasts to a stop over Aleks’s
shoulder.

I tip my face up, my arms clasping
reflexively around Aleks’s back. The kiss begins the same as
before: foreign and mechanical.

But then something
. . .
happens.

The Maddens’ humid backyard
falls away, leaving George and me locked in a tender embrace, my
feathery gown shimmering in the moonlight, his bowtie marginally
askew. I reach up to straighten it. “You look so
. . .
perfect,
” I say.

He responds with a grin, takes my
wrist and gives me a twirl. For a long while we’re whirling, our
movements perfectly matched, violin music rising to meet
us.

The idea that this isn’t real nudges
the back of my mind, but I push it away.

“
It’s been so long,” I say,
my breath uneven from the dancing. “I’ve missed you.”

Again, he smiles in a way that can
only be described as heavenly.

“
Are you okay?” I ask, a
stab of pain seizing my chest.

His smile drops slightly; he
nods.

We’re close now, swaying softly in the
spotlight of a moonbeam. “I’m sorry,” I say, even though it’s
silly, “about the fight.”

He holds me tighter, nuzzles his neck
to my cheek, rubs gentle circles around my back.

I feel two things at once: the
sensation that this moment—me in George’s arms, the way it was
always meant to be—is the truest, most profound I will ever
experience, but also that our love exists in another realm, a state
of being incompatible with life.

Which leaves me no choice but to let
him go. “I love you,” I tell him, my heart swelling with happiness,
my lips stinging as they ache for him.

He doesn’t speak, but still
I hear:
I’ve always loved you,
Cass
.
And I always
will.

My
mouth is two parts hydrogen,
his
one part oxygen. And we must be
standing on a frayed electrical cord. Our lips meet in a flash of
pleasure and pain. Atoms accelerating and colliding. A luminous
rearrangement of matter. I hold on as long as I can, until my cells
vibrate to the brink of explosion.
Goodbye,
I tell him silently. And one
last time:
I love you.

As easily as it dissolved, the
Maddens’ yard blossoms back into being, Aleks’s lips wet from
coming off mine. “Wow,” is all he says.

He’s right; the kiss was exhilarating.
But it wasn’t his.

I give him a shy, thankful
smile, my arms still wrapped around his waist, something scratchy
poking at my wrist.
The map,
I think, remembering I’ve given him directions to
George’s grave.

He moves in for another kiss, and I
let him have it. It’s the least I can do to repay the gift he’s
given me. His mouth melds with mine, the map continuing to jab my
arm. I unclasp my hands and try tucking it back where it belongs,
but it won’t go.

And it’s not the map.

My heart flutters, the slick, crinkly
object jumping into my hand as if possessed by a will of its own.
With Aleks’s lips still working on mine, I pry an eye open and
squint past his ear at the item now dangling from my fingers. Even
in that compact bowtie knot, it’s immediately recognizable as a
Funyuns wrapper.

I swallow a laugh.
Nice one,
I tell George,
sneaking the wrapper back into Aleks’s pants.
You got me.

Then we finish that kiss.

ALSO BY MAGGIE BLOOM
. . .

Any Red-Blooded
Girl

by

Maggie Bloom

The last thing
fifteen-year-old Flora Fontain wants to do is spend her summer
vacation stuck in a tent with her overprotective parents and
angst-ridden brother, especially when she should be in Europe with
her best friend Jessie—sipping espresso, posing for cutesy tourist
pics, and hunting for hot Italian (or French, or
maybe
even English)
stud-muffins.

But since her parents trust her about
as much as they trust a cat burglar at the moment, Flora has no
choice but to suffer through the boyfriend-less summer of her
discontent from the back of a rented SUV,
until . . .

Fate tosses a sexy, sophisticated
gypsy boy into her path, making Flora wonder if destiny might know
best after all. That is until destiny screws up, big time. Because
just as Flora falls head over heels, an unexpected turn of events
threatens to land her in the slammer—or worse, separate her from
the man of her dreams.

Film at Eleven

by

Maggie Bloom

Life sucks and then you die, at least
as far as sixteen-year-old Flora Fontain is concerned anyway.
Because at the moment, everything in her averagely pathetic
universe has taken a gigantic leap into the Pit of Doom: She’s been
separated from the love of her life, gotten assigned the junior
year schedule from hell, gained like fifteen pounds in Twinkies
alone and, oh, the hot new foreign exchange student has a thing for
her, which wouldn’t be such a problem if Flora’s best friend didn’t
have a mad crush on the guy.

And just when things couldn’t possibly
get any more complicated, of course, they do. Because the moment
Flora starts to fall for the new hottie, her long-distance
love-muffin rolls into town, grinding her universe to a
heart-stopping, brain-wrenching halt.

If something doesn’t change, and
pronto, Flora just might end up six feet under—or, at the very
least, eating up valuable space in a rubber room. Either
way.

Good Luck,
Fatty?!

by

Maggie Bloom

Spunky North Carolina teen Bobbi-Jo
Cotton is overweight, oversexed, underloved and misunderstood. When
Dr. Harvey Lassiter—her former high school principal turned bicycle
shop owner—sponsors a charity bike race, Bobbi sees an opportunity
to test her Schwinn and her fortitude. And when Tom Cantwell, her
best (and only) friend, reveals he’s crushing on her, Bobbi figures
it’s time to quit passing out screws like they’re dentists’ office
suckers.

What Bobbi is having a harder time
letting go of is the resentment she feels toward her missionary
parents who, after abandoning her in the night, have flitted back
into her life with a surprise: she’s about to be a big
sister.

Will Bobbi win the race (and maybe
even lose the weight)? Can she overcome her promiscuous past and
earn the trust of the boy she just may love? Will her parents care
enough about her—or her new baby brother—to stick around (and if
they don’t, will she be tough enough to survive another of their
betrayals)?

The only way to find out is to come
along for the ride. The way Bobbi sees it, all of life’s questions
can be answered from the seat of a bicycle. And if they can’t, at
least your hair will look great fluttering in the
breeze.

A NOTE TO READERS:

If you enjoyed this book, please take
a moment to write a review and/or share with a friend. Reviews and
word-of-mouth are the lifeblood of authors and are greatly
appreciated. Thank you!

MAGGIE BLOOM
grew up in the ’80s, under the influence of
acid-washed jeans, hair bands, leg warmers, and John Hughes films.
She currently resides in coastal Maine with her family (and the
world’s smartest cat, Twinkle).