The world or my heart. One of them.

Something stopped and my eyes forgot how to blink and my throat how to swallow.

Because this is impossible.

My eyes scan the characteristics of the face I recognize among thousands. The black eyebrows, angular jaw lines, the black hair that falls over his ears.

Impossible.

His eyes light up when he sees I recognize him, but he doesn't move.

Unable to stop myself, my gaze lowers, along his broad shoulders. The fabric of his jacket stretches around his upper arms. The line on his shirt: Life's short talk fast, that causes a muscle in the corner of my mouth to tremble.

Down and down, along the left hand, that shapes itself into a nervous ball then spreads it's fingers again. And the right hand, that holds a crutch with so much strength, I can see all the way from here how the knuckles are dead white.

A crutch, not a wheel.

Somewhere in my brain, that melted, it's noticing that tiny, yet oh so important detail.

No wheel, but a crutch. A crutch to support him. A crutch that stands up tall. Just like him.

And then I faint.

Yes, I know, very cliché. I think I held my breath for too long, because all of a sudden the world turned black and now there is a screaming Isla bent over me, because apparently I also fell off my chair.

At once my eyes shoot back to the place he just stood.

Where he still stands, on two legs.

My brain filters out Isla's unending stream of questions, but this time I make some effort to keep conscious.

Sorley is here.

He's just standing there, with in his eyes the most fragile expression I have ever seen and before I know what I'm doing, I get up and run to him. His one arm locks me against his chest and when he stumbles a bit, my legs catch our weight.

"Wow, gently, I haven't quite found my footing yet."

That voice, the light Irish-American accent that I still hear in my dreams, now sounds close to my ear and a hysterical laugh-cry escapes my throat.

"You're here!"

"I'm here. And so are you, thankfully. It was the only place I knew for sure you ever visited."

"How?" I take a step back, happy that his arm moves with me and doesn't let go. My right hand holds onto his open jacket for dear life and the other gestures spastically up and down in the direction of his legs. "How?"

My vocabulary shrunk.

"Your idea."

His left hand moves up, touches my cheek and my eyes flutter shut. I don't care who's watching or how much gossip is going on at the moment. Even if they put the whole thing on YouTube to get views, I don't mind one bit.

"Your amazing idea, that I responded to like a bloody lunatic. You were a genius and me a complete idiot."

I stare at him, blink my eyes, blink again and think how stupid it is that I forgot the title of the book I'm reading now. Because this isn't real. That can't be. I'm paper walking, or it's a dream.

"Eh, Zaar?"

I jump ten centimetres in the air and shriek when Isla is suddenly next to me.

She says nothing, yet her expression makes it very obvious that she very urgently needs a whole lot of answers. I burst out in a fit of giggles, but almost immediately tears run down my cheeks.

Half sobbing, I say: "Isla, this is Sorley."

Her eyes widen, her gaze goes down and up again and then she bends over to me and whispers: "Wasn't he in a wheelchair?"

Laughing and crying at the same time, I nod like crazy and then I can no longer control myself and hide in Sorley's arms.

---

"So, you took a piece of tech from a book and healed yourself with it?"

We're in my room. Bram, who doesn't seem to understand one bit, Isla, Sorley and me. His hand is firmly wrapped around mine.

"More or less, yeah."

"From a book? How-"

"Not now, Bram, I'll explain it to you some other time. What did the doctors say? Do you still have the device? Can they cure everyone, now?"

I look from one face to the other and am okay with Isla asking all the questions. My emotional outburst drained me of most of my energy and my throat is still dry, even though I've drank two glasses of water and a cup of tea before we went upstairs. In fact, I desperately need to go to the toilet, but I don't want to leave my comfortable spot on my bed.

The crutch is in a lonely corner on the other side of the room. Where mine once were.

When Sorley begins to talk, my eyes shoot back to him. He looks at me most of the time, while he explains how he got here. As if he as well still needs conformation that I'm really here.

"We didn't go to the doctors till after. I told my gran everything and she used the device on me. I put it back into the book right after that, because we can't risk anyone finding out they can have anything they want through us."

His gaze flashes to Bram one second and in the corner of my eye I see Isla stiffen.

"We won't say anything, to anybody, really. You can trust us, right Bram?"

"Eh... yeah, sure, I don't know anything, anyway. Apparently. This shit is weird."

For the first time a sentence that is longer than one word leaves my mouth. "How did grandma Meghan take it?"

This time, Sorley smiles, a little sheepishly, yet still with a happy twinkle in his eyes. "She didn't want to believe it at first. Figures. I had to prove it three times. Now she has some hat from this made up queen, a pillow from the Oval Office and Cinderella's glass slipper. Can you believe I had to walk through halve the fairytale until I could get my hands on that thing?"

Isla and I snort with laughter.

"But when she finally did believe and I told her about your idea, she became thrilled. She didn't even doubt whether it would work or not. She thought just like you did. Why would we have this weird gift, if we can't do something exceptionally remarkable with it? And so I went into the book, took the device back with me and she performed the 'operation'." His fingers make little hooks next to his ears.

"And then you could walk?"

Isla takes the words right out of my mouth.

"No, well, yeah, a little, but not right away like I do now. The feeling returned. Right after the first treatment. I got this awful tingly feeling, like you get in your arm after laying on it, you know?"

We all nod, even Bram, who still doesn't quite get what's going on. Although, considering his resigned expression, he does seem to accept the weirdness of the situation.

"We repeated the treatment four times, until I could feel every part of my legs again. But when I wanted to stand up, I fell down like a house of cards. The muscles in my legs weren't used to anything, so I needed rehabilitation. The doctors eventually called it an unexplainable healing and we played dumb. I've been through three weeks of extensive rehab and then I decided to copy your little joke."

"My joke?"

"Aye, in coming here. Only, I didn't have an address, just the name of the city and I knew you came to the library often. So I flew to Amsterdam, took the train to Alkmaar and a taxi brought me to the library. There I waited the rest of the day."

"But, what if she never showed up?" This time I glare at Isla, I was about to ask that question.

Sorley again looks at me when he says: "Then I would have booked a hotel by the end of the day and came back the next Monday. And I would have returned every day, until I found her."

"Aw, that is so cute."

We don't respond and I drown in Sorley's eyes that tell me everything. How much he missed me, how happy he is that he has found me.

Isla clears her throat. "Eh... we'll go home now, won't we Bram. Plenty of things to do, stuff. Really nice to finally meet you, Sorley. Let us know when you ehm... want to meet up or something. So ..."

I hear the sound of my door closing. However the front door opening and closing disappears like background noise, when Sorley's lips find mine.

---

Not until much, much later, he lets me go but now his expression is different.

"Can you forgive me, Zara? You risked so much by coming to see me and I know I threw complete rubbish at you with my accusations. I don't deserve to have everything back again, but I want to, so, so badly."

A lump in my throat keeps me from speaking right away. Only after swallowing twice, can I give an answer. "Of course I forgive you. I understand, really I do. Isla gave me a book, for my birthday. About a boy who ended up, just like you, with a spinal cord injury in a wheelchair. I hated her for it at first, but when I finally read it ... Everyone wanted to help him and every time that hope, that disappointment, the frustration. I felt so stupid after I read it. You only wanted acceptance and I was just the next person to give you the obvious solution."

Wildly, Sorley shakes his black hair back and forth. "No, that's just it. I was the stupid one." He shifts his position and I look at the knees that bump against mine. The legs that move. His legs that move. On their own.

"Opposed to all the others, you gave me a solution no one else could ever give me. And in stead of listening to you, I merely threw your words aside."

One of the corners of his mouth curls up in self-mockery. "Do you know that gran actually ranted at me, the day you left. She even called me a gobshite and that's a serious insult for an Irishman. She said I couldn't have done better with a darling girl like you and it was all my fault that you ran away."

I hide my burning cheeks in the space beneath his arm.

"She was absolutely right, even though I didn't want to admit it back then. Please tell me you deleted all those senseless messages."

I shake my head against his chest and hear him groan. We make a fine couple. Each trying to outdo the other in being dumb. Frankly I don't want to hear any more about how stupid he thinks he is or how wonderful I am and so I come up and kiss him.

"I forgive you, moron. Can we now forget how stupid we were?" I mumble against his lips and he pulls me tight against him.

"Aye", is his simple reply, before he presses his lips firmly on mine once more.

---

"Zara Jacobs? What is going on here?"

My mothers voice startles me so much I almost fall of the bed, but then I burst out laughing. Sorley eyes my mother with fright, but I can't seem to stop any more.

"Just, just like your, your grandma", I manage to pronounce, between the hiccups, before I'm overcome by an other fit of giggles.

When my mother however keeps looking at me with her hands on her sides and a thundercloud on her face, I calm down.

"Aw, mum, don't act like you actually care about what I do with my life."

"Hold your tongue, young lady. You're still living under my roof."

I open my mouth to give an angry retort, but change my mind and clamp my jaws together. Defiantly I look at her, waiting for her to speak her mind.

"Are you going to introduce me?"

Again an insolent answer is about to slip my tongue and again I swallow it. I don't want a cursing contest in front of Sorley.

In English I say: "Mum, this is Sorley. Sorley, meet my mother." I don't explain anything else and when Sorley properly replies: 'nice to meet you', my mother also backs down and politely responds with a 'you to.' She turns back to me and says in Dutch: "I'll talk to you later. Dinner's in an hour, I expect both of you in the kitchen."

She turns around before I can say anything and disappears. Slowly I exhale and say, with fake cheerfulness: "Well, that was my mother. I'll try to behave as best I can, then hopefully you can stay here. Did you even bring anything?"

"It's in a safe, at the station. I didn't know how long I would be staying here, so I took enough with me and I didn't want to have to carry it with me all the time. I only think my jacket is a bit to thin."

"Oh, we'll take care of that. I've discovered this neat new hobby, thanks to Isla."

I take a quick break to visit the toilet and then find my comfortable spot on his lap again. Softly I hear him humming.

When I look up at him, he says with a smile: "It feels good to feel your weight on my legs."

"Are you calling me fat?" I can't keep the quasi-angry expression on my face for long and begin to giggle.

A peck on my nose melts my body and with a sigh I ask: "What story do we tell the rest of the world? I mean, your grandma knows I spend a week at your place, this summer, but I'd rather keep my parents in the dark. At least until I move out."

"Are you moving out?"

"One day." I stare through my window. "Sooner rather than later. At first I figured I could go and live with my dad, but I'm afraid he'll ask and expect much more of me. For that matter, I have a lot of freedom here. I also don't know what I want to do after school and ..." I fall silent. Fire creeps up my face until my cheeks are burning and when Sorley moves because I remain quiet for so long, I know he's looking at my face.

"What is it?" he whispers.

"Well, now that you're here and we're ... together, right? I mean, we were just dating and such, when we got into a fight, so then we broke up and now, now it's back ... on? isn't it? At least, I hope so, or else I don't know how I'm going to explain this to my mother." I almost ramble in my haste to throw out the words, hoping they'll sound less dorky that way.

"And because we're together now and you live in America, I might not want to stay here after school. Because of course we can see each other in books everyday, but that's not quite real."

I breath in a cloud of air and very slowly release it again. My heart is racing.

The silence behind me makes me turn around. There is a terribly sweet smile on Sorley's lips and I feel my cheeks pull themselves in a silly smile.

"I would very much like for you to be my girlfriend and I would think it totally amazing if you would live with me. Near me, somewhere near my house." He quickly corrects himself and I grin when his cheeks also flare up.

"However, if you prefer to stay here in the Netherlands, that's also fine by me. I'll find a place over here. I'll simply learn Dutch, get a job. Although I might need to get an education first."

"Simply."

"Aye, simply." We grin at each other.

I like the prospect. Me in America, or him here in the Netherlands, it doesn't matter much to me. Us together. I like the sound of that.

---

An hour passes quickly and when we sit at the dining table in the kitchen, we endure the must uncomfortable meal I've ever lived through. Naturally my mother wants to know where Sorley's from and how we ended up kissing on my bed. I make up some incoherent story about how we met online on a forum about books. That he flew all the way over here from the States, just for me, she finds, I believe, incredibly strange. I don't think my mother is a very romantic person, because she only shakes her head disapprovingly and continues eating. I shrug at Sorley and we spend the rest of the meal in near complete silence.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but we really have to get Sorley's bag and considering neither of us can drive, we need my mother.

"Mum?" Making myself useful, I rinse the plates and cutlery before placing them in the dishwasher. I even put the empty lasagne bowl under water after putting the leftovers in a container. "Can Sorley stay here? In the guest room?" I quickly add. "He doesn't have a place to stay and his things are still at the station. Can we go and pick them up? I'll take care of everything, you don't need to worry about a thing."

She looks at me with an exaggerated frown and I can only guess which accusations she throws at me in her mind. Her gaze shifts to Sorley and I follow her line of sight. The expression on his face is polite and expectant and when I turn back to my mother, I see she lets go of her hostile attitude. With relieve I exhale the air I was holding.

Twenty minutes later I'm making the bed in the guest room with the dorky flowery wallpaper. Sorley didn't exaggerate when he said he brought a lot. I'm only glad with that. The more stuff, the longer he can stay.

Right before we say goodbye – my mother keeps a close eye on us from the doorway – he gives me something and when I look at it, I pinch my lips to refrain from laughter. It's his grandma's book. The one he has two of.

I receive a wink, give him a chaste kiss on his cheek and hastily retreat into my room. I put my pyjamas on, brush my teeth, close the door and turn my night light on. I text I'm ready, receive a reply one minute later. Three – two – one, flash.

We don't stay awake for long, because somehow I'm exhausted.

"I've missed this so much", I whisper. Sorley's arm lies across my waist and my fingers brush his cheek.

"Me too." His smile is sleepy. "Sweet dreams, Zara."