Once I hear someone’s voice, I can’t help it.

I see everything they’re feeling in their auras.

Normal has always been so far out of my grasp,

I’ve never had a hope of reaching it;

easier to try to catch the moon by standing on a ladder

with a fishing pole and a thousand yards of line spinning out across the sky.

No way am I going to give up.

Not after so many years, so many miles.

So very many questions.

She is my chance to finally have answers.

Answers I’ve been seeking most of my life. Answers I need.

I like how his accent lilts and curves

as if not bound by the same rock-iron gravity we locals are.

I can almost feel the wash of ocean waves in his voice.

At least she didn’t scream, is all I can think…

The look on her face when she saw me standing there—sheer terror.

This was a mistake. A huge mistake. I should just leave now.

Words without any colors to ground them slip by so fast;

mere sounds, virtually without meaning…

I’m drowning, with no clue what truth lurks beneath Alec’s words.

I need to regain control—

my first meeting with the girl who might change my life

could only be described as a train wreck on steroids.

It’s moments like this that challenge me every single day,

each new person a cliff begging for a leap of faith.

I’ve finally learned my lesson after tumbling off that cliff

far too many times, more times than Wile E. Coyote chasing his roadrunner.

Roadrunners can fly, coyotes can’t. And neither can girls,

not even when clutching an umbrella with both hands—

they can sink, they can swim, they can fall . . . but they cannot soar free.

“I’ve been living with this all my life and I don’t really understand it, either.”

“I want to.”

He sounds wistful. “You make the world sound magical.”

He turns back to face me, his gaze as heavy as a sodden wool blanket.

His eyes have gone gray, the color of a winter lake before the ice forms.

And my hope withers, turning to ashes.

I’d forsaken everything I love to find this girl.

But now, sitting at her table, among her family and friends,

watching her laugh and seeing the life she has,

only now do I realize exactly how much my finding her will cost us both.

Her life will never be the same after tonight. And it’s all my fault.

There’s no winning.

Not against ghosts.

Two dead people I can’t even remember,

not really, more imaginary than real, and

they’re running my life from beyond the grave.

Ella will never look at me the way

she had yesterday at the diner.

How could she?

I’ll forever be the guy who walked into her perfect life

only to shatter it.