Glory sighs, and I can’t tell if she’s relieved or disappointed. The two of us work the rest of the afternoon in a silence that’s broken only by the ringing phone and the hum of the copy machine.

All day, I’ve been desperate to see Cole. But when rehearsal time comes, I’m nervous. Especially since we’re going to be working the scene at the dance where Eden tells Orion she’s in love with him. The monologue I did for my audition.

I get down to the barn early, and Cole is waiting for me outside the theatre. He slips his arms around me. “You been okay today?” he asks, and I nod. I want to tell him about the cemetery last night. I need him to explain to me about the tombstones. How they stood tall and upright in the fog. Fresh flowers on new-dug graves.

But I don’t know how to make the words come out without it sounding like a dream.

And then Val shows up. And Lex. Jude is opening the door. And it’s too late.

It turns out working the dance scene is so much fun, that I forget to be nervous. I forget everything. At least for a little while. It’s so freeing to cast away Avril and all her questions and become Eden.

Because at least Eden knows one real thing. She’s falling hard for Orion.

We reach the end of the scene, and I lift my face to Cole’s to deliver my line. “This must be what it is to fall in love! I didn’t recognize it at first, because it doesn’t feel like falling at all.”

I’m so unprepared for the way Cole is looking at me. The depth of feeling in his eyes.

The smoldering heat of it.

We’re inside the barn, but overhead the stars blink on. Just like someone plugged them in. They shine against a black velvet sky.

I throw my arms around Cole’s neck.

“It feels like I’m flying!”

He grabs my waist, just above my hips, and I remember the feeling of his thumbs pressed there last night. He lifts me straight up off the ground with what seems like no effort at all. It really does feel like flying.

Graceful.

Free.

I’m soaring.

Safe. Because Cole is holding me. He has me. And I’m not afraid of falling.

Not anymore. Cole spins me around in a circle as I stretch my arms out as wide as I can and lift my face up to the stars.

“I’m flying in love!”

He brings me back down to earth, and when I feel my feet touch solid ground again, I have real tears on my cheeks.