I laugh again. “‘Handling’? No. ‘Dissociating,’ maybe.” I snap my fingers in front of his eyes, then in front of mine. “Are you even real? Am I? Is any of this? Am I caught in some dream? Have I fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole? It’s like licking to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop: The world may never know.”
“I take it back,” he drawls sarcastically. “You’re not handling it well at all.”
“Definitely not,” I admit. “But what else is a girl to do?” I pull my coat tighter around myself and squint at him. “Anyway. Enough about my coping mechanisms. You didn’t answer my question: Are you real?”
He shrugs. “Remains to be seen.”
“Well, do you have a name, Mr. Apparition? Or should I just keep calling you ‘Blue-Eyed Bastard’ in my head?”
“I suppose I’ve been called worse.” His brow lifts in
