Page 75 of Lightning Angel
Cassie’s face crumbled in concern. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not what you think it is.”
“Then what is it?” Cassie wrapped an arm around her and led her back into the living room. They sat down on a couch, facing each other, and Cassie gathered her hands in hers. “Tell me.”
Alexa took a deep breath. She didn’t know how to tell her sister what had transpired in her confrontation. Cassie was likely going to freak out and keep Tristan far awayfrom her if possible.
“He came to the café to pick me as promised and I told him we needed to talk; funny that he already figured out something was wrong.” She swallowed, looking down at her hands in Cassie’s. “He brought us home and asked me what I wanted to talk about. I asked him if he had been stalking me before we crossed paths. He didn’t say yes or no, just that stalking is not the word he prefers to use. I couldn’t keep my cool, so I argued with him until he agreed to confess his intentions.
“He said he has never intruded on my privacy, that he has never misused his powers on me or anyone. Then he began a flurry of confessions that I-I couldn’t wrap around my head. He said—he said—” Alexa inhaled and exhaled before meeting Cassie’s patient, loving green eyes. “He said he loved me.”
“What?” her sister whispered, blinking in disbelief.
Alexa nodded, squeezing her eyes close. “He said he has been obsessed with me after he saw me at Dad’s funeral, that he has been watching over me since then and it became his passion, and that when I leapt from the bridge two days ago, he realized I was more than just an obsession to him…”
“He realized he loved you,” Cassie marveled.
Alexa’s eyes fluttered open to meet her sister’s wide and astonished ones. “Don’t tell me you believe that. This is reality, not fiction. What he said sounds like what I read in my books.”
Cassie smiled softly. “In that case, heisa living fictional character himself.”
“Butthisis different,” Alexa insisted. “Believing his supernaturalism is much easier than his—his confession.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Alexa parroted incredulously. “Because we barely know each other! If Jude came up to me and told meheloved me, eventhatwould feel unrealistic to me, so how unrealistic do you thinkTristan’sconfession feel in comparison?”
“Sweetheart, I understand you. I get it. But, if Tristan has been taken with you since the funeral, he’d had plenty of time getting to know you in every way. I don’t think it’s unrealistic if you try thinking it from his perspective.”
“Are you saying—”
“I’m a romance author,” Cassie cut her off. “I might have had a failed relationship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the perspectives of love from both the girl’s and the boy’s sides. Tristan’s is valuable, in that case.”
Alexa looked away and shook her head, refusing to believe it. “He couldn’t possibly—he can’t say that to me!”
“Alexa,” Cassie called her on a sigh. “I know you don’t believe in real life romance.”
“Idobelieve in it; just that it’s not inmyfuture. That’s why I’m an utter hopeless romantic bookworm.” She rolled her eyes dramatically at herself. “Our parents set a big, fat example for us.” And now Cassie’s failed relationship was one, too; but Alexa didn’t say it out loud.
She had always thought Brandon loved Cassie genuinely; everything he had done made her believe that. Their failure had been Alexa’s final straw, learning that everything Brandon had done was for to manipulate them. If men were like that, how was she going to know which one was genuine and which one wasn’t? How could sheknow what Tristan now felt toward her wasn’t merely an infatuation, the same one that her parents mistook for love and destroyed their marriage?
Alexa didn’t want to make her parents’ mistake or be betrayed like her sister. The best she could do for herself was to lock her heart away and play safe. Just she and her book boyfriends, and their thousands of adventures.
If only life was as good as those romance books. Or, better yet, if life was fiction itself. Because there was always a happy ending to every tragic story, happily ever after with their prince charming, and every wrong was made right.
Alexa sighed longingly.
Cassie stared at her wide-eyed. “Are you… Are you lettingthathold you back from your future? Our parents’ mistake?”
“Yeah, I mean, what if I make the same one?” She released her hands from Cassie’s and leaned back on the couch. “I couldn’t afford to live my life arguing with my husband and run off with another man and leave my kids behind.” She gave her sister a deadpan look.
Cassie pursed her lips and shook her head. “How come I didn’t know this?Ihave been thinking, this whole time, that the reason you never took Jude seriously was because he wasn’t the match of your heart.”
“I was simply attracted to his playboy charms,” Alexa said with a shrug. “Just like I’m now attracted to Tristan, to the allure of his mystery and his gorgeousness.”
Cassie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t believe you.”
“Are you telling me youstillbelieve in true love?”