It’s how I can ignore the shrill, multi-pitched yells that drift down the hallways. Because honestly, I don’t want to know what they’re yelling about.

I stay suspended in my pretend world for God knows how long, until I feel someone staring at me.

When I say feel, I literally feel it, just like someone is reaching out and touching my face with their fingers.

Glancing up, I suck my breath in when I find dark eyes connected to mine, eyes so dark they’re almost black, and the energy in them is enough to freeze me in place.

A boy is attached to the dark gaze.

A man.

He’s probably no more than twenty or twenty-one, but everything about him screams man. There’s no boy in him. That part of him is very clearly gone. I see it in his eyes, in the way he holds himself, in the perceptive way he takes in his surroundings, then stares at me with singular focus, like we’re somehow connected by a tether. He’s got a million contradictions in his eyes…aloofness, warmth, mystery, charm, and something else I can’t define.

He’s muscular, tall, and wearing a tattered black sweatshirt that says Irony is lost on you in orange letters. His dark jeans are belted with black leather, and a silver band encircles his middle finger.

Dark hair tumbles into his face and a hand with long fingers impatiently brushes it back, all the while his eyes are still connected with mine. His jaw is strong and masculine, with the barest hint of stubble.

His gaze is still connected to mine, like a livewire, or a lightning bolt. I can feel the charge of it racing along my skin, like a million tiny fingers, flushing my cheeks. My lungs flutter and I swallow hard.

And then, he smiles at me.

At me.

Because I don’t know him and he doesn’t know better.

“Cal? You ready?”

Finn’s voice breaks my concentration, and with it, the moment. I glance up at my brother, almost in confusion, to find that he’s waiting for me. The hour has already passed and I didn’t even realize it. I scramble to get up, feeling for all the world like I’m rattled, but don’t know why.

Although I do know.

As I walk away with Finn, I glance over my shoulder.

The sexy stranger with the dark, dark gaze is gone.

I fight the feeling, the very strange feeling, that I’ve seen him before. There’s no way that’s possible.

There’s no way I could forget someone like him.

But still.

There’s something

Something

Something.

A week later, I take my brother to Group again. When we’re inside, Finn turns to me before he slips into his room.

“There is a grief group. You should check it out.”

“Now you sound like dad,” I tell him impatiently. “I don’t need to talk to them. I have you. No one understands like you.”

He nods, because no one understands like him. And then he disappears into the place where he draws his strength, around people who suffer just like him.

I try not to feel inadequate that they can help him in ways that I can’t.

Instead, I curl up on my bench beneath the abstract bird. I pop earbuds in my ears and close my eyes. I forgot my book today, so disappearing into music will have to do.

I concentrate on feeling the music rather than hearing it. I feel the vibration, I feel the words. I feel the beat. I feel the voices. I feel the emotion.

Someone else’s emotion other than my own is always a good thing.

The minutes pass, one after the other.

And then after twenty of them, he approaches.

Him.

The sexy stranger with eyes as black as night.

I feel him approach while my eyes are still closed. Don’t ask me how I know it’s him, because I just know. Don’t ask me what he’s doing here again, because I don’t care about that.

All I care about is the fact that he is here.

My eyes pop open to find him watching me, his eyes still as intense now as they were the other day. Still as dark, still as bottomless.

His gaze finds mine, connects with it, and holds.

We’re connected.

With each step, he doesn’t look away.

He’s dressed in the same sweatshirt as the other day. Irony is lost on you. He’s wearing dark jeans, black boots and his middle finger is still encircled by a silver band. He’s a rocker. Or an artist. Or a writer. He’s something hopelessly in style, timelessly romantic.

He’s twenty feet away.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Five.

The corner of his mouth tilts up as he passes, as he continues to watch me from the side. His shoulders sway, his hips are slim. Then he’s gone, walking away from me.

Five feet.

Ten.

Twenty.

Gone.

I feel a sense of loss because he didn’t stop. Because I wanted him to. Because there’s something about him that I want to know.

There’s something about him that I feel like I do know.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, listening once again to my music.

The dark haired stranger doesn’t come back.

The rain might make Oregon beautiful, but at times, it’s gray and dismal. The sound of it hitting the windows makes me sleepy, and I itch to wrap up in a sweater and curl up with a book by the window. At night, when it storms, I dream. I don’t know why. It might be the electricity of the lightning in the air, or the boom of the thunder, but it never fails to trigger my mind to create.

Tonight, after finally falling asleep, I dream of him.

The dark-eyed stranger.

He sits by the ocean, the breeze ruffling his hair. He lifts his hand to brush his hair out of his eyes, his silver ring glinting in the sun.

His eyes meet mine, and electricity stronger than a million lightning bolts connects us, holding us together.

His eyes crinkle a bit at the corners as he smiles at me.

His grin is for me, familiar and sexy. He reaches for me, his fingers knowing and familiar, and he knows just where to touch me, just where to set my skin on fire.

I wake with a start, sitting straight up in bed, my sheets clutched to my chest.

The moonlight pouring onto my bed looks blue, and I glance at the clock.

Three a.m.

Just a dream.

I curl back up, thinking of the stranger, and then curse myself for my ridiculousness. He’s a stranger, for God’s sake. It’s stupid to be so fixated on him.

But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about him again. He does different things in my dreams. He sails, he swims, he drinks coffee. His silver ring glints in the sun each time, his dark eyes pierce into my soul like he knows me. Like he knows all about me. I wake up breathless each time.

It’s a bit unnerving.

And a bit exciting.

After two such nights of fitful sleep, rain and strange dreams, Finn and I kneel in front of plastic storage boxes, sorting through stuff from my closet. Piles of folded clothes surround us, like mountains on the floor. Rain pelts the window, the morning sky dark and gray.

I hold up a white cardigan. “I don’t think I’ll need many sweaters in California, will I?”

Finn shakes his head. “Doubtful. But take a couple, just to be safe.”

I toss it into the Keep pile. As I do, I notice that Finn’s fingers are shaking.

“Why are your hands shaking?” I stare at him. He shrugs.

“I don’t know. Do you feel like we’ve been here before? In this same time and exact place? Is your heart ok? Have you had chest pains?”

I’m alarmed because what new craziness is this?

“My heart is fine,” I tell him firmly. “I’m fine, Finn.”

He eyes me doubtfully and then presses his ear to my chest and listens and my heart beats and beats and finally he’s satisfied. I’m so used to odd behavior from him, but this is very strange.

“Finn, are you ok?”