Cody

I can't believe I really found her!

I've made up my mind that I must've fallen asleep in the field and dreamt her. Weirdville is a small town, and everybody knows everybody in the farming community around it, and yet I haven't run into her even once in the last month.

That's not possible!

I've decided to face the fact that she wasn't real or that if she were, she wasn't who I thought she was. But here she is now, and she is very real and every bit as colourful and pretty as I remember. If I had any doubts, the reaction of my soul to hers wiped them away. There's a big fat lump in my throat, and my brain has gone AWOL.

"What was that BS about the candles only being lit during the ceremony?" Jasper is complaining, reaching out to pinch out the girl's flame, but she lets go of the veil I'm still holding to protect her candle from him.

"I'm making a point," she tells him, stepping closer to me, and now I'm floating in a cloud of Lily of the Valley, and I think I'm going to pass out.

"I still have your top," I tell her, really not knowing why I'm bringing it up now, but like I said, my brain has gone. Saying those words are worth it, though, just to see the horrified expression on Jasper's face. Probably not good that I'm giving him the wrong impression, but... whatever...

"What?!" he growls.

"You can keep it if you want," the girl tells me, ignoring his interruption, smiling at me a little shyly and then she sticks out her free hand. "I'm Glitch."

I take her hand with the one holding her veil, and I know I'm grinning like a moron, but I don't care. My heart suddenly feels light, and my headache has completely gone. All that matters right now is how soft and cool her hand feels in mine.

"Hi, nice to meet you, Glitch; I'm Wally."

"What?!" This time Jasper is laughing, looking at me as if I've just sprouted a second head.

"Cody!" I say hastily, giving an extremely dorky laugh, feeling like an idiot... probably because I am one. "I'm Cody."

"Nice to finally meet you too, Cody."

Jasper makes an irritated noise, and I tear my eyes away from Glitch for a second to look at him. The guy is completely baffled and more than just a little bit frustrated. I almost feel bad. Almost.

We've been butting heads this entire week whenever we had the misfortune of running into each other during the festival preparations.

It's sad, really. Years ago, we were friends and hung out a lot whenever I came to visit my grandmother, but somewhere through the years, both of us became arseholes, and now we just clash whenever we meet.

It's not new.

Jasper has the typical frustration of an ambitious young man trapped in a small town, and I'm just... messed up, I guess. I might've been a bit over-confident and arrogant for a while and probably deserved to lose his friendship. I cannot really remember any more. Too many bad memories have taken over and shoved out the past.

I give him a shrug and turn my attention back to Glitch. Her eyes are sparkling, and she hasn't stopped smiling that sunrise smile of hers for even one second.

"So," I say, and I have to clear my throat a few times to get my voice to work properly and not revert to my pre-teen days when it was just in the process of breaking. "Will you marry me?"

Hell, never thought those weird-ass words would ever come from my mouth, and Glitch's giggle sparks a laugh from me too.

"I think I already did," she grins.

"In that case, I already married you a million times before this jerk showed up," Jasper grunts, but I can see that he recognises defeat when he sees it. He doesn't like it, but he accepts it.

"No, you just accidentally lit my candle over and over because you were practising to be a lighthouse," Glitch tells him, making no sense at all, but she is still looking at me as if she's afraid that I'll dissolve into thin air if she blinks too long. I get it. I feel the same way.

"Jasper!" I know that voice, and here comes trouble on shapely legs, with blond hair curling under a white veil. "You and me," Allie says, glaring at me, but she's clearly speaking to Jasper. "I want to win some of those amazing prizes this year. So do you, right?"

I have no idea what amazing prizes the girl is referring to. Jam, knitted sweaters, homemade fertilizer... maybe she is really excited about the painted wooden eggcups someone donated. Whatever it is, her claiming of Jasper is making Glitch's expression soften sweetly, and she is giving the girl a look soaked in affection.

So, they know each other.

Allie's determined look falters, a smile flickering across her lips for a second, and then she is glaring at Jasper. "So, you're gonna marry me."

"I am?" I cannot quite tell whether the idea makes him happy or terrifies him.

"You are," she assures him flatly.

"I thought you said you'd only marry me if I were dead."

"Can totally be arranged." I fully believe her!

"Fine," Jasper grunts, giving her a defiant look.

"Fine," she agrees, hooking her arm around his in a rather threatening way. A lesser guy would've run the other way, but to his credit, Jasper is standing his ground. The guy has never been a coward.

I share an amused look with Glitch.

"Well, eat my dust," Jasper tells me, and to be honest, I actually appreciate the blunt, almost hostile way in which he has been dealing with me since my arrival almost three months ago. He hasn't treated me with pity even once. In a weird way, it makes me feel normal.

"No thanks, I'm good."

"I hope you don't regret this, Glitch," he says, looking at her in a way that makes it clear that she could still change her mind, but only in the next few seconds.

"I won't," she assures him, smiling at me, and my brain bursts into song.

I try to ignore the withering look Allie levels on me, but I'm really grateful to her for taking Jasper out of this weird-ass equation, so I smile at her. She doesn't smile back, obviously; she simply turns her back and drags Jasper away from us.

A couple of weeks ago, she came to visit Gramma with her mom and older sister. I was resting in my room because back then, I tired very quickly, and the pain in my leg became unbearable really fast. I didn't know that the Davis women, Gramma's neighbours for as long as I can remember, were visiting. Next thing, this gorgeous girl was standing at my bedroom door, looking at me in a way that made me feel a little afraid.

"So, are we going to pick up where we left off or not?" she'd asked, and I had no idea what she was talking about. I haven't seen her in a couple of years; her family had not been around the last few times I came over for the holidays. The last time I saw her, she'd looked quite different with braces and pigtails, shorts and t-shirts with puppies on the front.

Just a kid.

The girl standing inside the door was all sun-kissed legs, soft blond waves, perfect teeth and a strapped top that moulded her perky breasts very artfully. If I hadn't been half-dead, I would've enjoyed the view.

It took me a while to realise that she was the girl I used to have clumsy kissing sessions with behind their chicken coop. Most unromantic place in the world, by the way. It's noisy, and the smell of chicken poop tends to burn right into your sinuses, but we were 13 and 14 years old at the time and curious about things like kissing... and pretty bad at it too.

I didn't recognise her, and when I told her to refresh my memory, she took it to mean something completely different and was probably hurt when I nearly broke my other leg too, falling off the bed to get away from her when she promptly sat down and tried to kiss me.

After that, she mistakenly thought that I didn't remember her, and that must've hurt. I haven't had a chance to explain it to her yet. She left too abruptly that day and hasn't been in my presence for long enough to finish a sentence. She hates my guts. It's for the best, but I'm a little afraid of her now, and I feel bad because I do remember her. Kinda fondly too.

She's not the giggly, mischievous girl I used to know, and she sure as hell is shaped very differently. Allie Davis has turned into a babe; too bad the boy she remembers has died. I don't think she's heartbroken about that; she's just angry and a bit insulted.

Swallowing, I look at the girl still holding my hand since we introduced ourselves, and I know I have no right to feel all these emotions blossoming inside me, bringing parts of me back to life that should remain dead.

And yet, I cannot stop looking at her, and I cannot stop smiling.

~~~