While Sorley changes his outfit, I look up, squint my eyes and run to the guest room. That is, if you can call my wobbling, running. Over there I fish my sunglasses out of my bag. Did I bring sunblock? No, of course not. That thought hadn't crossed my mind when I packed. But grandma Meghan probably has some.

In a hurry, I trot to the main area where I find her in the living room.

"Do you have sunblock?"

"Sunblock? Oh, yes, I think so. Good thinking, you don't want to get burned." She stands up, rummages in a closet and then holds up a bottle that makes me doubt if the factor still is fifty. Isn't that number cut in half after a year? Then by now it's five at most, because that bottle looks ancient.

However I put on a sunny smile and with a thank you, I walk back outside.

I take the cast of my leg and put a little extra sunblock on my pale skin. After that I cover the rest of my exposed skin. The deck chair can't recline completely, so I don't need to be bothered about my back.

When Sorley returns, I giggle a bit about his white legs. I just can't help myself.

Holding the bottle up, I ask: "Shall I do it?"

I expect a witty return, or at least a suggestive smirk, instead he throws me a curious glance and looks down. Is he shy? I've rubbed in boys legs before. On beach days they always yell that they have to do the heavy lifting and pay for ice creams, so we have to repay them by rubbing in sunblock. By now Isla en me at least earned a certificate for masseuse.

Do I have to let it go and give him the bottle, or should I push? I decide to go with the latter. He should just get used to it that I will touch his legs as easily as his arms.

"Come on, get in your chair. My right shoulder is getting redder than my left and I want an equal tan, please."

Now he lifts one corner of his mouth together with one eyebrow. That's better. Obediently he moves from his wheelchair onto the deck chair – I'm admiring the muscles in his arms – and positions his legs.

When I squeeze a big white stripe from the bottle, he yelps: "Sure, go and make a mess of it."

"I have to", I shout in my defence. "This is a bottle from the dark ages, you may be lucky if it protects you even a little bit. And your legs are so white. Just because you don't feel anything, doesn't mean they have to get sunburned."

I begin to smear the sun block and look at his face after a while. That curious expression is back. When I lift my eyebrows, he says: "Doesn't it bother you?"

Now I frown. "Bother? Why? Because I touch your legs? I've touched so many boys legs before."

Okay, that came out totally wrong and laughing, I explain: "On the beach, with my friends."

His smile is tentative, not a full out laugh yet. I keep rubbing and don't look up until I'm finished. The strange expression is not entirely gone yet.

"Do you think I find it strange to touch your legs while you're not feeling anything?"

Sorley heaves a deep sigh and nods reluctantly. "I's stupid, I know. It actually has nothing to do with you. Most, well, almost most people who touch my legs, beside myself, are gran and doctors. That's different. With you ... Maybe I was unwittingly hoping that I would miraculously, suddenly felt something, merely because it's you." He hunches his shoulders with a dim smile and I smile with him.

Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind as well.

Grinning I say, as cheerfully as possible: "Well, just because I can walk through books, doesn't automatically mean I can perform miracles."

"No? I think it's pretty miraculous that you're here."

I blush and gaze at my sticky fingers. Sorley doesn't seem to mind the stickiness, because he grabs my hands and pulls me in for a kiss. Then he stretches his arms forward with a pleading expression and laughing out loud, I cover the rest of his exposed skin in a layer of sunblock.

After about ten minutes, I think, my eyes are closed, I hear footsteps and when I look up, grandma Meghan is wearing a large sun hat.

"I'm going shopping with the neighbour. Sorley, you take care your girlfriend gets something to drink?"

My eyes widen as I gaze sideways, but Sorley simply nods obediently.

Warmth spreads from my belly through my entire body. He didn't correct his grandma. Am I really his girlfriend? I won't ask him, that's stupid. Yet the words burn on my lips and I want to know so badly that I look to my left every five minutes.

At the hundredth time, Sorley grins: "Should I have said: no, gran, it's not my girlfriend?"

"No, no, that's not it, I mean, I don't care, I mean, what ever you want. It's ... it is ..." Yeah, what is it actually? I kind of like the sound of it, especially now that I can say we've really met. If my mother ever finds out, I could say he's my boyfriend since we met and that would be true. Not since the first time we met, of course, but since we met for the first time in real life, in the real world.

I still don't know where to look, but from the corner of my eye I see Sorley sitting up.

"Hey, Zara, look at me."

I take a deep breath for a few seconds and turn my head his way. He takes of his sun glasses and I follow his example. Not such a good idea. The sun is behind him, now I'm blinded.

"It's alright, isn't it? I mean, after everything, after our adventures, after that first kiss and the others, after last night ..."

My cheeks turn even hotter than they already were.

"It would be wrong not to call you my girlfriend, wouldn't it?"

Of course. That makes sense. I nod at once, but there is also a ridiculous wide smile on my lips.

"Good", Sorley lies back down and mumbles: "Then gran can finally stop nagging."

---

We lie on the terrace and enjoy the sunlight until grandma Meghan returns. Sorley fetched, very attentively, a large pitcher of lemonade with ice cubes and it's almost empty when it's time to prepare dinner. I strip my cast back on and help out in the kitchen. Sorley also comes in to see if he can do something, but after bumping into me twice and me throwing the mushrooms all over him because I tripped over his wheelchair, he gets thrown out of the kitchen.

"You go and set the table."

"Aye gran."

Dinner is spaghetti, and we chat amiably about everything there is to see in the neighbourhood, about the place where I live and the differences between the two cities. After dinner Sorley and I want to lock ourselves up in his room to watch a movie, at which grandma says she'll bring us something to nibble. And because we know that can be any moment and we know perfectly well she only does that to check up on us, we behave ourselves.

How would she know we'll have all night to demonstrate how much we really are boyfriend – girlfriend. Sorley gives me one of the two books, when the film ends.

I take a shower first, for it's been such a hot day and I'd like not to go to bed all sweaty. How would that go, falling asleep inside a book? Is that even possible? You can sleep in a story, but that's different. Can you fall asleep inside a story and in the real world at the same time? We're about to find out.

At ten o'clock precisely, after texting to Isla: I have a boyfriend!!!!!!!! I turn, lying on my bed, under the thin sheet, the first page.

With a flash, I find myself lying on the grass.

Sorley is next to me and just puts an arm behind his head.

"Not to tired?" he asks.

"No", I lie.

"Look up."

I do what he says and burst out laughing. The clouds here don't have their usual cloud shapes, but actual figures. The kind of figures you can only catch a glimpse of, when you stare at the sky on a dreamy afternoon. I see a horse and a cowboy with a lasso that really turns. Further on skips a great, white, lumpy rabbit and straight above me drifts a board of checkers. Who ever came up with that? In my mind I can hear Isla say: 'Really.'

"Did you read this book before?" I ask, after staring up for a while. A third yawn leaves my mouth. Did he see it? No, luckily he didn't. Sorley is still staring up.

"Hmm? No, never. My gran bought it for me, but it's about some vague American folk tale. It later turned out she bought the same one for my mother when she was younger, so we now have two."

"Did you keep many things from your parents?"

His head slowly turns to the right and then to the left, but he keeps gazing upwards. "Not so much. Gran kept more, I think."

Eventually he gets up and pulls me with him. Now that I know he's in a wheelchair, it's really a miracle he can walk here. He's in shorts this time and I wonder is those are his pyjamas. Myself I'm wearing a tank top and shorts that work as pyjamas but also as normal clothing. Sorley sees me looking, checks me out from head to toe and whistles provocative. I grin.

"Come on, you're tired, I can see it in your eyes. The main character is about to take a trip, but when we just lie down in a bed she won't do anything and we can sleep."

"Did you ever fall asleep inside a book? For real, I mean?" I let him pull me along to the house behind us. A house made nearly completely out of glass, that reflects the surrounding forest. Oh, I want a house like this.

Tripping, because I'm gawking at the luxury, I fall over the threshold. "Woops."

We find a bedroom, that looks just as luxurious, and lie down next to each other on the king size bed. Only then Sorley answers my earlier question.

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so? But you're not sure?"

"I did go to sleep inside a story and I was pulled out because my gran came in, but I'm not sure if I actually fell asleep, or not."

I nod and this time he sees my yawn. That was hardly something he could miss, it even hurts my jaw. Sorley grins and bends over me. The kiss is slow and sweet and I almost fall asleep just from the movement of his lips on mine. But then his hand rubs my belly and some of the butterflies still seem to be awake.

I put an arm around his neck and play a little with the tufts of hair that are barely short of making curls. Grandma Meghan said he needed a haircut, but I disagree. I like it like this. A little disorderly. Good for fondling.

He moves his weight and shoves one leg over mine. That must be so strange for him, to be able to use his legs like this.

When the fingers of my other hand feel bare skin under the edge of his shirt and Sorley moans softly, I halt my distracting thoughts. Suddenly I realize what we're doing and where his hand is heading and I freeze.

Immediately he lies still as well.

"Sorry", he whispers and slides back a bit.

"No, don't, don't say sorry. I- it's just ..." I allow him to retreat until I can look in his eyes. "I just don't want us ..." I take a deep breath. "Not inside a book. Not ... the first time."

His eyebrows climb up and make his forehead wrinkle. "Oh, no, I wasn't planning to, no ..." he inhales as well, blows the air out of his lungs and more slowly adds: "I would never go so far without ..." – he blushes. So adorable – "without talking to you about it. I don't know about you, but I'm not very experienced in this area." His sheepish smile helps to relax.

"Me neither", I whisper, because that's how you talk when your in a bed in the dark. "The last boyfriend I had, was in group four or five. When I was nine, that is", I clarify.

"Ah, that's indeed not really the right age for first times."

A giggle escapes me. "You, however, are quite the pro for someone who claims to be inexperienced."

See, there is that complacent smirk I was waiting for earlier this day.

"Book knowledge", he boasts and I burst out laughing.

"So", he says, when we finish laughing and I have to bite my lips because he brings his face closer to me again, "second base of third?" His eyes shine mischievous.

"Which ones are they again? Baseball is not so big a thing in the Netherlands."

"Ah, right, a lesson in baseball. First base, is this", he presses his lips on mine and I immediately throw my arms around his neck to press him against me.

"That is still first", I think I hear him mumble, but I'm not sure, because his lips left my ear and are now breathing hot air against my throat.

"Second", he mumbles, while his hand slowly pulls my top up, "goes somewhere near this."

And then I am unable to breath any more. I'm not wearing a bra, cause, who wears a bra when they go to bed? Everywhere his lips touch me, my skin tingles and when, a century later – or is it just mere minutes? – he smooths the fabric back over my belly, I'm breathing as if I've just climbed a mountain.

To my satisfaction, Sorley also has difficulties with his respiratory system.

"Now I need to stop, or else I won't be able to control myself", he says hoarsely.

I giggle. Part of me wants to repeat to him what he just did to me, however my body is protesting and my eyelids are so heavy. When another yawn escapes, Sorley presses a sweet kiss on my forehead. He lies down on his side and I copy him in a mirror image. Without touching, we breathe the same air and listen to each others heartbeats, that slow down until we fall asleep.

---

I wake up when the sun rays peek beneath the edge of the curtains. Under my head is the book and disappointed I sigh. Falling asleep together is possible, but waking up isn't. Oh well, it's better than nothing.

My heart is beating wild when I think back to the previous night and it's still beating too fast when a little later, after I've changed into a clean outfit, I walk into the kitchen.

"Good morning, grandma Meghan", I greet the woman that is already busy with making another enormous breakfast. Would Sorley always eat like this?

"Good morning, lass. Dig in, don't wait for Sorley, he'll be a bit later. He has to exercise first because he fell asleep in an odd position. On his side, what was he thinking."

She continues to mutter with her back turned to me and luckily misses the redness of my cheeks, that I quickly try to cool down. "Shouldn't he fall asleep on his side?"

"Well, shouldn't is a big word, but because he can't control the way his legs move, his hip drops in a wrong position. So he has to do some exercises to fix it. It's back to normal in no time, don't worry, dear."

Don't fall asleep on his side, I'll remember that for the next time.

Now that Sorley isn't here, I use the opportunity to ask a sensitive question. "Grandma Meghan, will Sorley ever be able to walk again? He says he sometimes feels something in his toes and that his situation has improved a lot since the beginning, but will it ever really recover?"

When Meghan turns around, she suddenly looks older than before. It scares me a little.

"We always try to have hope", she says, looking out the window closest to Sorley's part of the house. "They come up with so many new ideas, the doctors, and sometimes it really helps him. Then we try a brace for a while and get a new fitness device and Sorley is so cheerful. He does everything without complaints. It also helps the doctors a lot, you know, for their research. But they can't fix the nerves that are damaged. On their own they will probably never work again and that means he will spend the rest of his life in that wheelchair."

She focuses her gaze on me. "Think very carefully, child. I can see how fond you are of each other and it warms my heart. You came all the way out here and that proves to me you're not just in it for a bit of fun, but to share your life with an invalid, that is a completely different thing than having a crush."

Sharing my life. That hasn't even been on my mind. We're no where near that. I nod a bit witless and stab the scrambles eggs she places on my plate with my fork without seeing much. I'm only sixteen. Okay, almost seventeen, but I haven't even finished school yet. Sorley is my first, real boyfriend, should I begin to think about the future already?

Right now I can't imagine falling in love with someone else, but isn't that normal? When can you ever, when you are floating on that pink cloud?

A little confused by Meghan's words, I shovel my food in my mouth. And then I sit straighter and move the whole question about our future to the background. Some day I will have to think about it, but not right now. One day at a time. I don't have that many days, here in America. I shouldn't waste them worrying about stuff.

One thing does keep bothering me and that is the fact that Sorley seems to have more faith in a recovery than the doctors. Because he can walk in books, he thinks he might be able to walk in the real world one day, but does it really work that way? We have no one we can ask about it, no one to put our minds at ease. No one who can promise us that what we have right now, can stand the test of time.