didn’t want to have to introduce a girl that he liked to his mother unless he knew she could handle it. Alex, who will never date anyone. Alex, who’s gone because of me.
I swallow those thoughts down, despite the tightness in my throat, and focus on Cecily. I want her to be happy.
She blushes but doesn’t say anything.
“He is pretty cute,” I add. He’s also immature and drives me a little out of my mind, but I can’t deny that he’s nice to look at.
Cecily laughs and shakes her head. “He is.” Then she pauses and adds, “And he’s funny, too, you know? Like super funny. Every time I see him, he makes me crack up about something. Plus, I can’t help being surprised at how thoughtful he is. He always does really nice little things for me.”
She says it like there’s a “but” coming.
“So, what’s the problem?” I laugh a little, but Cecily doesn’t join in.
“This is terrible. I mean, I kind of want to like him.” She sighs. “I just can’t. I don’t know. I guess he’s just not really my type.”
I know what she means. About wanting to like someone and just not being able to. Kevin’s tried to hook me up with half the guys in his unit, and then of course, there’s Nick. A date or even a little romance would be such a welcome distraction from everything going on, but all I see when I look at another guy is someone who’s not Ben Michaels.
Since the day he left, I’ve been looking everywhere for Ben. Remembering his dark brown eyes; the way his hair falls in his face; the way he reached out, touched my cheek, and pulled me into one last kiss; the way he took slow steps backward toward the portal, as if he didn’t really want to leave; the way he said my name and told me he loved me.
The way the portal swallowed him up and he disappeared.
But mostly I think about how he said, I’ll come back for you.
“Okay, don’t laugh,” Cecily says suddenly, doing me a favor and pulling me from thoughts I should be able to let go. “But I kind of have a thing for the bad boys, like from afar, but still. Give me a leather jacket, a devilish smile, a guy my parents wouldn’t approve of, and you know, someone who needs to be saved.”
Ben didn’t have the leather jacket or a devilish smile. But he was definitely the kind of guy my dad would’ve been wary of. And he did need to be saved.
Only I’d saved him, and now he was gone.
“It wouldn’t hurt either if he had nice eyes,” Cecily adds.
I smile, thinking of Ben’s dark, deep-set eyes and the intensity in them when he looked at me.
Every five or ten minutes, Cecily carts an armload of popcorn bags out to the field. When we finally have them all passed out, we pick through the crowd to find my brother, Jared, and Kevin and his friends. There’s one extra bag of popcorn, and because we’re feeling gluttonous, we keep it.
I barely watch the movie because I’m more interested in watching Jared, who can’t take his eyes off the screen.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve missed more than half of the movie. Or that it’s black-and-white and from 1946. It doesn’t matter that the popcorn is too buttery, that the wool blanket itches my skin every chance it gets, or even that I’m tired and sweaty from the stove.
With about fifteen minutes of the movie left, Struz finds us and sits next to Jared, whose eyes are a little watery.
And then Struz winks at me.
I glance at Cecily, who just smiles. It’s a smile I know well. The one that says, So there, or I was right, or any other I told you so type of phrase. I give her the finger, because there’s not much else to do.
She was right.
Popcorn and movie night were exactly what we needed.
Maybe this day was a little magical after all.
07:00:45:13
The next morning, the magic has worn off. That tends to happen to me when I have to get out of bed before the sun is up, especially on my day off. The reason I’m up is that Struz is sending Cee and me on a supply run up to Camp Pendleton. He chose us because we’re charming—or, more accurately, Cecily is charming.
And it works. She manages to sweet talk everyone we run into. I’m just there to