Page 76 of Wish You Were Her

Jasper squeezed Allegra’s hand and smiled kindly. “Well. Fuck that.”

“But there’s also a small part of me that wants to stop hiding it. Maybe it would help some of the more well-adjusted people understand me a little better. Maybe journalists wouldn’t jump to weird conclusions when they write about me. Maybe… maybe I could find, like, my own world.”

Jasper frowned. “Your own…?”

“World. I…” Allegra hesitated, wondering if what she wanted to say sounded too childlike, too sensitive. “I want to have my own little world, like a shelter from everything else. My life, my whole life… I feel like I’ve been watching other people live. Like they’re the ones on the screen. I’m always this expert on things that don’t happen for me. I’m like an academic on the topic of, I don’t know—some ancient civilization I can never truly be a part of. Maybe that’s what has helped me to act well. I can tell you everything about so much of life. But I don’t know what itfeelslike. I’m almost like someone who knows every bone of a bird, every mechanism of flight—except what it actually feels like to fly.”

She knew she was monologuing, in a way that was unnatural to other young adults. She knew her difference was seeping from the edges of the mask, but she didn’t care.

“So, that’s what I want,” she concluded. “My own littleworld, my own corner of something beautiful. I came here looking to find it and I just watched from the sidelines, like I always do. And I am just so sick of always meeting my old, comfortable self everywhere I go.”

The words stayed in the air. Jasper stared at the girl, clearly feeling the weight of everything that had been overshared. Yet Allegra could tell she was not uncomfortable. There was respect in her eyes. As she stood to fetch some water for the room, Allegra wondered why she had felt so open in front of this perfect stranger. Why the difficulties that other people often inspired were no longer there.

As Jasper went back downstairs, Arthur crossed the upstairs landing. He caught Allegra’s eye through the open door and smiled dryly.

“You just got Jaspered.”

Allegra nodded, wiping her last tear away. “Yes.”

He nodded, sympathetically. “She can’t help it.”

Allegra didn’t know what to say so she said nothing.

“What’s going on with you and Jonah Thorne?”

She was surprised by that. “Nothing. Nothing, why?”

He scoffed, not unkindly. “The way he looks at you? It’s not nothing.”

Jasper appeared at the top of the stairs with a large glass of water. “Arthur Lancaster, are you getting into other people’s business? Keep it moving, Grumble. It’s their private life.”

The pair of them disappeared into another room, closing the door firmly behind them. Grace popped her head in, toothbrush in hand, to say goodnight. Once Grace had gone, Allegra stripped down to her bra and underwear and slid under the duvet. She let the cool sheets caress her skin for a moment and then got up to open the window. She used one of the many newtoothbrushes in the guest bathroom drawer and the unopened toothpaste. She splashed water on her face.

She looked back into the empty, quiet bedroom. One small bedside lamp lit the room, but it was dim and inviting. The summer rain was still pouring outside, a gentle whisper against the window. It provided a touch of coolness through the slightly open window.

She turned her phone off. It was full of people trying to reach her. None of them friends, none of them people who really knew her.

It made her all the lonelier.

So, she silently slipped on a robe and went downstairs.

Jonah had folded his clothes neatly and laid them on the floor by the large sofa he was going to sleep on. The lights in the den were still lit but the lake outside the nearly transparent room was in total darkness. Wearing only his boxers, he placed a spare sheet that Jasper had handed him across the leather couch and was about to turn off the lights when Allegra appeared in the entryway.

He took in her appearance and quietly said, “Oh, God.”

She blinked. “I’m not tired.”

“Me neither.”

“Have you asked your dream girl if she’s seventy-four years old yet?”

His lips twitched. “Maybe.”

“What did she say?”

“She wasn’t happy about it.”

“Maybe you’re onto something then.”