Juliet Immortal

brought Ben over anyway.” She turns to me, dark eyes glittering. “I really am crazy.”
    “You’re not crazy. Your dad is crazy, and wrong,” I say. “Everyone here was from a different country at some point, and everyone makes mistakes.”
    I wish I could take a stronger stand for Ben, but I need to know what really happened first. Why did he break someone’s nose? It’s so strange to imagine him hurting anyone or anything, troubling in a way that goes beyond my usual concern about my soul mates.
    “I know,” Gemma says. “But I don’t want to have that fight right now. I’m so close to going to college and getting away from him. And it would be pointless, anyway. Bob never listens or changes his mind. About anything.” She crosses the room to steal the rest of my unfinished milk shake. “You should have seen how I begged him to let me skip his stupid rally Saturdaynight. But he didn’t care because
my
life is never going to be as important as
his
life.”
    “But what about Ben? He really likes you.” He doesn’t just
like
her, he
loves
her, and Gemma seems more worried about her dad than the boy who’s her soul mate. Ben is Gemma’s One. She has to wake up and fight for him. Now.
    “You think?” Gemma swallows, her face pale in the glare of the overhead lights. “But how do I know any guy is worth fighting my family and … everything else for? It’s just scary. You know?”
    Her words help me breathe easier. There’s nothing that can strangle the life out of love faster than fear. If she’s this afraid, no wonder she and Ben are having problems. She needs to get past her fear and concentrate on loving him, and I have to help her do it. No matter how much it hurts.
    “I
guess
it’s scary, but I bet it’s also amazing. Meeting Ben could be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
    “Maybe, maybe not …” Gemma narrows her eyes. “But you can’t be trusted. You’ve only known him for a day and a half. I can’t believe he’s the one who gave you a ride. How crazy is that? And how crazy are
you
for hitchhiking?” She chucks me on the arm. “You’re just lucky Ben stopped instead of some psycho. But then, I guess you were in the car with a psycho already, so …”
    “Ben and I had a good talk last night,” I say, trying not to think about how good it was. “I think he’s special. He’d be worth—”
    “Okay, fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll call him and invite him over to my place after school tomorrow.”
    “Great!”
    “But I’m not going to tell Dad,” she warns, pointing an accusing finger at me. “We’ll sneak in the back gate after play practice. We can hit the barrels in the barn and celebrate your success as an understudy.”
    “We?”
    “You’re coming too, my lovely.” Gemma grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room.
    “But—”
    “No buts. I’ve decided, and you know I’m the boss,” she says, putting an end to the discussion. “Okay, so I’ve got the entire sound track for
West Side Story
with and without vocals. You want to sing with other people first or just go straight into it hard-core?”
    “With the voices first.” I watch her plug the phone into the sound system beneath the television, and try to tamp down the anxiety rising in my throat. It’s just a little singing; how horrible can I be?
    “Oh, come on, be hard-core, Ree!” Gemma turns back to me with a smile as music swells through the room. “Let’s do it without the voices. You know all the words!”
    “I know, but—”
    “Sing!”
    “But—”
    “Sing!”
    And so I do. And Gemma laughs, and finally I do too, giggling as my voice fights its way up and down. It cracks when I try to hold a note for too long but finds its way if I keep moving. I could be worse. At least I don’t think I’ll scar the audience for life.
    By the time we finish going over some of the choreography and Gemma heads for her car, I’ve decided the nighthasn’t gone too badly. Gemma and Ariel are reconnecting, I’m making headway convincing Gemma to take her relationship with Ben seriously, and I have plans to spend time with both of them tomorrow.
    And there are worse ways to spend time than with a friend, fried food, and singing and dancing like a fool. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that fighting for love isn’t all angst and despair and trying not to get killed. Sometimes it’s an amazing job.
    And sometimes it’s not
. Later, I lie in the dark, staring