She was an abstract sort of beauty that made me rethink the whole concept of the word.

Hours after I finished Miles's book, this one sentence stuck in my head. This, along with a few others from the book, sprinkled in the character's thoughts or statements, made me wonder if he wasn't writing from personal experience.

It all came across as too real, soul-baring, and much too private to be on a page, just waiting for the rush of criticism.

Reading his book hadn't felt at all like reading his smiles, as I had assumed, but what his tears would probably look like.

It was a wonder in itself that I hadn't started it right after meeting him. The book had taught me more about him than he had in between superficial playfulness and unnecessary taunts.

He was human under the smiles.

I wanted to get to see it—him, the genuine version—but I mostly didn't. I doubted I would react any differently than I had when I heard Mom crying. He'd open up to the feeling that vulnerability brought of being seconds away from impact after diving off a cliff.

Under the much safer shelter of indifference, I'd reach that perfect balance between silence and shock.

No, I didn't deserve to see it.

I blamed my emotional state—expressed through strands of red hair sticking out of a loose ponytail and the beginning of a coffee cup collection on my center table—on his book. It might have also been the agent of destruction that brought me to call a certain writer at six in the morning.

I called him first thing as soon as the idea crossed my mind before rational thoughts could remind me of all the reasons why I shouldn't.

The phone rang a few times before Miles picked up. I glanced at it to check that I was using the number Alec had given me. I was debating giving up when he finally answered.

"It's been so long since anyone's called me that it took me a while to realize the ringing wasn't from my ear." The cheeriness of the very timbre of his tone managed to reach me from the other end of the line. "Kelly?" he asked, and his guess stole a smile from me that I couldn't get rid of.

I didn't suppose many other people would call him so early in the morning. But something still skipped around in my gut and made it an exhausting task to even attempt speaking again.

"Kelly?" he repeated, concern clouding his voice after I had gazed into the phone for seconds without saying anything.

"What kind of ending was that?" I asked when I had recovered control over myself.

"You didn't like it?"

Though I had probably imagined the hesitation in his statement, I still hurried to speak whatever was the closest thing to reassuring words, as I could think of under pressure.

"I loved it. But this was the most depressing thing ever. 'Hope looming in the background'?" I quoted with a scoff, trying to remember the exact phrase he had used the day before. "Please."

His voice dropped to a lower octave I wasn't used to, as though it was his last resort to erase the playfulness that otherwise constantly stained it. "Thanks for reading it."

"Anyway," I said to distract myself from the mush left of my brain at the simple words that sounded so much more meaningful than they were. "That's not why I called."

I debated how to introduce the thought that had persisted since I stepped out of his car yesterday. It fought for my attention through the breaks that I took from writing what appeared to be one of the most terrible poems I had ever written to personify a watch. It didn't relent until I fully entertained it.

"Does that invitation to the wedding still stand?" I asked and bit on my hands for no particular reason except that it was all I could do not to scream during that silent moment he seemed to have constructed with an evil grin.

"Are you interested?"

Was I? My only reason to go was that I'd much rather spend an evening just observing him in his habitat than at home, working on this poem. Or worse: entertaining Mom.

"I might be. I'm particularly excited about meeting your mother," I joked more to ease my nerves than to make him laugh.

"Is that your only reason?"

Everything went quiet in my brain, the most inconvenient power outage, as though waiting for the second embarrassing truth would come bubbling out of my mouth.

"This reminds me of another minor technicality," he said. "What I showed you that day is still my best attempt at writing the toast so far."

I left my spot on the floor to settle at the small desk in the corner of my room, pulling a pencil and sticky notes to me. "Here's what we're going to need," I told him after setting up my workspace. "A vague general sentence about love, your favorite memory of your mom and her groom, and a closing best-wishes line."

The basic toast structure would have enflamed Mr. Crawford into a speech he had only given hundreds of times before.

Miles laughed, then stopped when he realized I wasn't kidding. "On it."

By the time we had structured a toast I was happy with, the sun had fully risen, waiting outside my window for me to let it in.

"Perfect. I'll see you on Sunday."

"It's a date."

I scoffed. "It's not a date."

"You're going to be meeting my mother, Kelly. I'm pretty sure that makes it a date." The taunting note that highlighted every word was much too obvious to miss.

"In that case, I'll be sure to avoid anyone that looks remotely like you."

He laughed again, and the sound reverberated across every wall of my brain, making hundreds of copies to replay later.

"Will you make an exception for me?"

"I'm still making up my mind about that."

After I hung up, I read the silly poem I had scribbled hours earlier, trying too hard to draw a parallel between a rusting old watch and wasted time. I crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it towards the trash, not bothering to check that it had made it inside.

I stared at the blank page in front of me and allowed my fingers to begin a new poem with "Smile" as the inspiration word as I tried to keep my brain from squeezing in and getting in my way.

The sound of my bedroom door opening put a stop to my frantic writing.

Mom tucked her head in. "Busy?"

I waved her in and let go of the pencil. "You left really early this morning."

"I really needed a jog," she said. "It's been too long." She stretched, then her eyes landed on the sleeping mat still on the floor. "Kelly."

I gave her a sheepish grin as I picked it up to drop it into the closet. "Last time, I promise."

"I ran into the loveliest woman on the stairs. I told her she could come by for a drink sometime. I hope you don't mind."

My eyes narrowed as something connected in my head. "As in Crazy Marge?"

Mom's expression morphed into confusion as she fell onto the bed to take off her running shoes. "Marge, yes. She seemed like a perfectly reasonable woman to me. In fact, she used to be a counselor."

Chuckling, I asked, "Is that what we're calling fortune-tellers these days?"

I spun around in the swivel chair, shrugging off the pain every time my feet hit the table. The pressure in my chest had eased a bit at the sight of a nearly completed poem waiting for me.

Mom dismissed the comment with a small smile. "She worked in counseling first. When she retired, she thought it would be fun to put all her psychological tricks and cold reading skills to good use."

I laughed at the image of Marge in a regular job. She didn't seem the type to fit into an office environment, couch or no couch.

The few times I had run into her around the building, she had shot me a knowing grin, with some random words of advice basked in cookie dough wisdom.

"What's with you?" Mom eyed me with a suspicious look on her face as I continued to laugh. "You're acting silly."

"Oh, nothing. By the way, I'll be out on Sunday evening."

The flutter in my chest that felt something close to excitement took me by surprise.

➷➷➷

Emma rose to the occasion, soaring feet above my head, when I mentioned I needed a dress.

We hadn't hung out alone in months, and I assumed she had months of pent-up frustration she was dying to get off her chest.

"Ace gave up on photography," she announced as we entered a store with a French name I couldn't pronounce or understand—still waiting for these hours of French lessons to kick in.

"Too bad. I thought that one suited him."

As she walked in front of me, I noticed that she was walking with difficulty. Clumsy steps replaced her typically graceful gait.

"Um, Emma? Did you notice that you're limping?"

She chuckled, and her shoulders lifted with a slight shrug. "It's nothing big. Sebastian and I were rehearsing, and I slipped. It doesn't really hurt. I'm just avoiding putting much pressure on the ankle."

"I know that I don't know much about dance, but I don't think you should be exerting yourself. You have at least another month before the performance. Besides, you've probably memorized every step of that choreography already. You can afford to take it easy."

My eyes tracked the woman in a wedding dress as the clerk helped her adjust the laces and the frills.

"Sebastian is sort of a perfectionist, and I guess I am too, so our rehearsals never really end. I admire his drive. He never takes a break," Emma said as we wandered in one aisle after the other and avoided the crowded ones.

Her eyes caught just the information she needed from rows and rows of clothes in mere seconds.

"How's Ace doing?"

Her attention strayed from the dresses for a moment as she turned to me. "I don't know. He's been acting a little weird unless my nerves are acting up. Do you think I overreact when I'm stressed out?"

"Just a little." I caught brief glimpses of colors as she continued to guide me through the store.

"He didn't use to miss any of the rehearsals, but he hasn't been to any of them lately," she continued. "I mean, I don't mind, but I think I dance better when he's around." She flashed me a brief smile then pulled out a dress from the display before putting it back. "We also haven't really hung out in a while, so I never get a chance to ask. I thought it was the new hobby or his constant search for his passion, but, I don't know, it feels different this time."

My mouth clamped shut to keep myself from spilling everyone's secret struggles. I couldn't say anything without diving into miscommunication issues that had nothing to do with me.

"Talk to him. I'm sure things will—" I realized mid-sentence that I didn't actually have any insightful advice to give.

She didn't seem to notice. "How about this one?"

The blue dress she picked out from the flux of dresses was my style, which was precisely why I chose to shop with Emma instead of Mom. Emma knew what I wanted before I could figure it out myself.

It had a minimalistic design with short sleeves and a thin trail of silver that outlined the bottom.

"It's a much lighter shade than your eyes," she said, almost to herself. "But I think it will work out perfectly for your wedding date."

"Not a date. We agreed on that and everything."

"It's a wedding, Kells." She grinned as she limped through the aisles to find the fitting rooms towards the back.

Her laughter followed me into the room, and I scoffed.

"It's so not a date," I mumbled and nodded to my reflection in the mirror, satisfied with the reassuring phrase.

A/N: Hi, you! Thanks for reading!

We're exactly halfway through (if my outline works out)--which means that things are heading into madness-ville! So strap on your seatbelts!

-D.T. ➷