#Chapter 8: Past & Present

Ella POV The new boy in class was strange, or so the other kids said. They said that he was too quiet, that he stared for too long, that his interest in paper airplanes was too obsessive. They said that he didn’t play with them on the playground because he would always ruin their games with his weirdness. And then the teacher seated him next to me, and I saw those big blue eyes and the way his face lit up when he saw me folding a paper airplane underneath my desk, and I knew we were supposed to be good friends. “It’s okay. They think I’m weird, too,” I said as we sat together in the big flower field out behind the school, making daisy crowns. “The other kids don’t like me because of what happened to my mom. They think I’m bad luck.” Liam tilted his head, a few soft golden curls falling into his eyes. “What happened to your mom?” I shrugged. “I dunno. She died when I was a baby. But that was a long time ago, and I’m a lot bigger now, so it doesn’t bo