I tried to push her away.
I tried with everything I could.
But I knew. From the moment I first laid eyes on her, I knew I was in trouble.
She looks like Jules.
I can hear Sutty’s voice in my head now. And it makes me slam my hand against my steering wheel.
Because he’s not wrong.
She does.
So much so that it took my breath away when she ran into me in that gym locker room.
I thought I was seeing a goddamn ghost.
Like someone was playing a sick trick on me.
I saw her, and, instantly, my brain cried out.
Jules.
My legs felt weak.
There was an ache in my chest.
I questioned if I fell asleep at the wheel on the way to the gym that morning. If I’d found myself in whatever the afterlife was.
But then I took a moment.
I really looked at her.
Past the exact shade of red hair.
Pale strawberry blonde. Orange in the dark. Golden in the light. Shining like the sun.
Past the same skin.
Fair as ivory. Smooth as silk. Dotted with freckles like stars in the night sky.
Past the same red lips and rosy cheeks.
Naturally painted into her anatomy in a way that would put history’s greatest artists to shame.
I looked past all of it.
And then I saw her eyes.
Not hazel.
But pure green.
Not a trace of mystery to be found within them.
And I quickly found that to be true for the rest of her.
No mystery.