“Oh yeah? And what should I say?”

“The truth,” she says solemnly. “Tell him how you feel.”

Fantastic, I think. I’m crying over Tucker. Not very women’s lib of me, I know. It goes against everything I believe about myself, all that my mother taught me—that I am strong, that I am capable, that I don’t need a man to make me happy—but here I am, all curled up on the couch in the fetal position, an uneaten bowl of microwaved caramel popcorn on the floor by my feet, sobbing into the cushions because all I wanted was to watch a stupid movie to get my mind off things and all Netflix has lined up for me is romantic comedies.

I’m replaying that moment on the boardwalk over and over, Allison Lowell looking up at Tucker, her brown eyes all doe-like and alluring and crap, and how she touched him the way I’ve touched him. How she smiled.

And he smiled back at her.

But he’s also apparently going to college about twenty miles from me. The possibility of that, Tucker nearby, expands into an aching, hopeful, confused mess in my soggy brain.

He might want for us to be together.

I might want for us to be together.

But nothing else has changed, has it? I’m still me, still a T-person, still Little Miss Glowworm, still having creeptastic visions that I might not survive, and if I do survive, I’m still meant for someone else. He’s still him, funny, warm, gorgeous, kind, perfectly normal and yet so extraordinary, but when I kiss him too enthusiastically, I make him sick. Because he’s human. And I’m not, mostly. When he’s eighty, I’ll look like I’m thirty. It’s not right.

Except Dad told me to follow my heart.

Is this what he meant?

I blow my nose. I wish Angela were here to tell me to take a chill pill already, to kick my butt back to okay again, but that part of our friendship seems long gone. She’s not going to be in the mood to discuss boy issues. She’d probably kill for my easy little problems right now. So you still have a thing for the cowboy, I can imagine her saying. Big whoop.

Which starts a whole new round of tears for me, because not only is my heart all confused and broken again, but I am totally, indisputably alone.

My cell rings. I sniffle and answer.

“Hey, you,” Christian says softly.

“Hey.”

He hears that something’s not quite right with my voice. “Did I wake you?”

I sit up, wiping at my eyes. “No. I was about to watch a movie.”

“Do you want some company?” he asks. “I could stop by.”

“Sure,” I say. “Come over. We could watch zombies.”

Zombies would be excellent. I scroll through the menu looking for anything zombie, and I feel moderately less devastated and worn-out.

There’s a knock on the door, and I think, Well, that was fast, but then I freeze.

Five syncopated raps.

Tucker’s knock.

Crap.

He knocks again. I stand in the hall and contemplate how quietly I can sneak out the back door and fly away. But I don’t know if I can fly when I feel this way, and Christian will be here any minute.

“I know you’re in there, Carrots,” he calls through the door.

Double crap.

I go to the door and open it. I hate that I look like I’ve been crying, my eyelids puffy, my skin all blotchy. I force myself to meet his gaze.

“What do you want, Tucker?”

“I want to talk to you.”

Cue the casual I-could-care-less shrug, which I don’t quite pull off in a convincing way. Still, I have to get points for trying. “Nothing to talk about. I’m sorry I interrupted you on your date. This isn’t a good time, actually. I’m expecting—”

He puts his hand on the door when I try to close it.

“I saw your face,” he says.

He means earlier. I stare at him. “I was surprised, that’s all.”

He shakes his head. “No. You still love me.”

Trust Tucker to just come right out and say it.

“No,” I say.

The corner of his mouth lifts. “You are such a bad liar.”

I take a few steps back, lift my chin. “You really should go.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Why do you have to be so pigheaded?” I exclaim, throwing my hands in the air. “Fine.” I turn away from the door and let him follow me inside.

He laughs. “Back at you.”

“Tucker! I swear!”

He sobers. He takes his hat off and puts it on the hook by the door. “The thing is, I’ve tried to stop thinking about you. Believe me, I’ve tried, but every time I think I’ve got a handle on my heart, you pop up again.”

“I will work on that. I will try to stay out of your barn,” I promise.

“No,” he says. “I don’t want you to stay out of my barn.”

“This is crazy,” I say. “I can’t. I’m trying to do—”

“What’s right,” he fills in. “You’re always trying to do what’s right. I love that about you.” He comes closer, too close now, stares down at me with that familiar heat in his eyes.

Then he says it. “I love you. That’s not going away.”

My heart flies up like a bird on wings, but I try to clobber it back down. “I can’t be with you,” I manage.

“Why, because of your purpose? Because God told you so? I want to see that written down somewhere, I want to see it decreed, that you, Clara Gardner, can’t love me because you’re part angel. Tell me where it says that.” He reaches behind him, and to my shock he pulls what looks to be a Bible out of the waistband of his jeans. “Because I want to read you this.”

He opens it, thumbs through to find the right passage.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. See, right there in black and white.”

“Thank you for the Sunday school lesson,” I say. “Don’t you find it a little silly that you’re quoting the Bible to somebody like me, who receives divine instructions straight from the source? Tucker, come on, you know it’s more complicated than that.”

“No, it’s not,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be. What we have, that’s divine. It’s beautiful and good and right. I feel it….” He presses his hand to his chest, over his heart. “I feel it all the time. You’re in here, part of me. You’re what I go to bed thinking about and what I wake up to in the morning.”

The tears start to slip down my face. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and crosses the room toward me, but I stumble back.

“Tuck. I can’t,” I breathe.

“I like it when you call me Tuck,” he says, smiling.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sudden understanding dawns in his eyes. “That’s what this breaking-up business was all about for you, wasn’t it? You thought I was going to get hurt. You pushed me away to protect me. You’re still pushing.” He shakes his head. “Losing you, that’s the worst kind of hurt there is.”

He reaches out and touches a strand of my hair, tucks it behind my ear, then backs off a little, tries a different approach. “Hey. How about this? You’re home for a couple more days, right? I’m home, as usual.” I see the news of his college situation rise up in his mind, but for some reason he doesn’t tell me about it. “Let’s go fishing. Let’s climb a mountain. Let’s try again.”

I’ve never wanted anything so much.

He sees the uncertainty on my face. “I should have fought for you, Clara, even if I would have had to fight you to fight for you. I should never have let you go.”

I close my eyes. I know that any minute now he’s going to kiss me, and my resistance is going to melt away completely.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper. And then, out of self-protection more than anything else, I bring the glory. I don’t warn him or anything. I don’t damp it down. I bring it. The room fills with light.

“This is what I am,” I say, my hair ablaze around my head.

He squints at me. His jaw juts out a little in pure stubbornness. He stands his ground.

“I know,” he says.

I take a step toward him, close the space between us, put my glowing hand against his ashen cheek. He starts to tremble. “This is what I am,” I say again, and my wings are out now.