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I want to laugh. I never asked her to bargain with me, or spend her evenings with me, or weasel her way into my life and heart, but she still did all those things.

“Since when do you wait for permission?” I ask. “And also, how is that possible?”

I mean, teenage guys think with their eyes and their dicks, and Callie is beautiful the same way the sun is bright. She burns with such exquisite intensity it sometimes hurts to look at her.

“How is what possible?” she stares at her knees.

“That no one’s asked you.”

She lifts a shoulder. “I thought it was your job to understand people’s motives.”

I fold my arms. I want to slap myself upside the head. For all my understanding of people’s motives, it’s taken me until now to realize whatI’vemissed.

Despite Callie’s uniqueness, she’s still a teenage girl. She wants to be carted to some dance and swept off her feet. She wants one godsdamn day to show all her peers that she is so much more than they assumed.

She wants us to be real, if only for a night.

I can give her that.

“What?” she asks, seeing me staring.

This is a bad idea. A high school dance means rubbing elbows with lots and lots of teenagers. It means exposure. But I want her to be happy. Always happy.

“Do you want to go to the May Day Ball?” I ask.

“I don’t see how that matters.”

That’s what she says, but now that I’m looking for it, there’s a whole slew of subtext there. She wants to go, even though she doesn’t think she’s a normal girl who has normal dreams.

“It does matter,” I say. “Now, do you?”

Her lips part, but she can’t say that this is exactly what she wants.

My sweet siren.

I close the distance between us and kneel. My wings ache with the need to reveal themselves. Each day it gets harder to keep them hidden, and tonight is the worst night yet.

Going to blow my cover.

Right now it doesn’t matter. Callie’s eyes are huge, and I love this. I take her hand in mine.

I begin to smile. “Would you, Callypso Lillis, take me to the May Day Ball?”

May, 7 years ago

I procure agown for Callie, since she has nothing, and then I leave her for a little over an hour so she can get ready. Knowing what I do about women, it’s not nearly enough time for primping, but that’s all the time she has if we want to get to the dance at a reasonable hour.

When I return, I knock on her door. From here on out, I’m playing it as any normal date would.

In the hallway, some of the girls startle when they see me standing outside Callie’s door, my hands in my pocket. Their eyes move over me, then between me and the room I’m lingering outside of. I’ve visited Callie often enough to know these tittering idiots aren’t friends with her.

The door in front of me swings open, and all thoughts of Callie’s floormates vanish.

Holy shit.

Callie’s loose hair falls in waves down her back and her haunting eyes seem to be backlit. I’ve never been jealous of a dress before, but right about now I am. Her gown caresses every one of her curves.

I made a mistake, a grave, terrible mistake. In that gown, Callie doesn’t look like a teenager, she looks like my queen.