I settled deeper into the pillow and tried to relax. It was hard when I knew I was about to be flooded with memories of a life I hadn’t lived yet. Really, two lives I hadn’t lived yet. It would only seem like five minutes to Laila, but to me it would feel like a month. I concentrated on the energies around me, and everything went hazy.

I have to keep her around. She owns me.” He kissed the corner of my mouth. “You own me.

There are bands of this era that are perfectly acceptable to cry to.

A lot of people don’t get my humor. My mom calls it dry humor. I think that means “not.

At first. And then eventually it’s realized that all that annoyance and mistrust is actually romantic tension.

He hums a little. “He’s a really old guy with an English accent, he might have a goatee, and he’ll definitely be carrying around a really thick, boring book. You might be able to pry it from his decaying hands and beat him back to death with it. Or maybe just reading it to him would work.

Wait, are you saying a love interest has to annoy you?

There was nothing that made a girl feel better about a guy humiliating her than a different cute guy asking her out.

I’m going to make a man bracelet. Let me see your wrist.

The doorbell rings, and my heart flips.