Fifteen
SORA
The best thing you can do on Valentine’s Day is stay home. Don’t let the commercial love machine win.
—SOLO FEBRUARY CHALLENGE
We stand on his brother’s porch in front of a tiny bungalow in Evanston, the suburb just north of Chicago where Jack and I went to grade school, patiently waiting for the door to open. Our breath comes out in big puffs, and I am oddly nervous to meet more of Jack’s people. Maybe he senses this, because Jack reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it, and I feel a little ripple of goosebumps run up my arm and they have nothing to do with the chilly February night and everything to do with his big, strong hand holding mine. Instantly, I feel calmer. Icicles hang above the small porch, and someone—I’m assuming Allie—has built a little snowman in the tiny yard and dressed it in a pink hat and matching mittens on its little stick hands.
Okay, so me helping Jack Mann babysit his adorable niece surely doesn’t violate Solo February, as there’s technically a little girl involved. An adorable, precious little girl who flings open the door and squeals as she claps her tiny, tiny hands.
“Uncle Jack!” she cries, jumping into his arms and squeezing his neck for all she’s worth. It’s so damn sweet, I nearly get a cavity. She glances over at me, big doe eyes assessing, her pink sequined bows pinning her pigtails adorably in place catching the foyer light.
“I’m Allie!” she says. “My teacher says I can’t shake hands because of germs, but we can do elbow bumps!” She offers up her adorable elbow and I tap it with my own.
Uncle Jack laughs. “Good call,” he says. “Allie, this is Sora.”
“Hey, Allie.” I elbow-bump her, noticing she’s wearing a stack of about fifteen glittery rubber bracelets, some glittery lip gloss, and shoes that light up pink and purple every time she moves. “I love your shoes!”
“Thank you,” she says, and then blinks up at me. “So is Uncle Jack your boyfriend?” she says in the blunt way only young children and old people can get away with.
“Well, uh…” I don’t know how to answer that.
“Sora pleads the fifth,” Jack says easily. “Come on, Allie, where’s your dad?” he says as he carries her inside. I follow.
“Hey, Sora.” It’s his doctor brother, Ian, who’s shrugging into a blazer in the foyer, and looking less disheveled than when I last saw him in the ER, unshaven and in his scrubs. “How’s that ankle?”
“Doing just fine,” I say. “Thanks to your fine care.”
“Is that Jack?” comes a female voice and I look up to see Allie’s mom standing on the stairs, looking like she’s ready for a cover shoot with perfect amber skin, tasteful makeup, and her jet-black hair worn straight to her shoulders. She’s part Asian like me, and I feel instantly like she could be my long-lost sister. She has Allie’s brown eyes, and is dressed in a formfitting mauve, knee-length dress and stiletto heels. When she sees me, her whole face lights up.
“Sora!” she cries. “Jack told us all about you.” He did? I glance at him, but he gives me an unreadable smile. Kylie moves quickly down the stairs. “But she’s even prettier than you said!” Kylie sends Jack a scolding look as she reaches the landing. “I’m Kylie. Ian’s wife.” I hold out my hand for a shake, but she bats it away and pulls me into a big hug. “We’re huggers,” she explains. “And I’m so, so very excited to meet you.”
“Me, too!” So Jack has been talking about me? I like that.
“Sora! Sora!” cries Allie, grabbing my hand. “Do you want to see my room?”
“Of course I do,” I say.
“Uncle Jack! Come, too. We’ll play spa.”
Jack grins at me. “Told you,” he whispers as we follow Allie as she bounds up the stairs.
An hour later, Jack has his hair up in two short pigtails and he’s wearing big plastic pink clip-on earrings and a matching necklace, as well as a pink feather boa that’s far too small for him. Allie is meticulously painting his fingernails what she calls “princess pink” and all the while Jack patiently sits at her tiny little play table, with the heart-backed chairs, and lets her do exactly what she likes.
I stifle a laugh as he wiggles his eyebrows at me. I don’t think I’ve ever found a man as adorable as I do now.
I’m sitting at the table, too, but Allie just put little glittery heart stickers on my already painted nails, telling me she liked my pale pink and that I have “very good taste.” It’s sweet seeing Allie working so hard. Her little pink tongue pokes out from between her lips as she concentrates.
“How often do you give Uncle Jack a makeover?” I ask Allie.
“Every time,” she says. “He needs it. He doesn’t wear any pink.” She wrinkles her nose in disapproval.
“What the princess wants, she gets,” Jack says. “I don’t want to be fed to any dragons.”
Allie just giggles. “You’re silly, Uncle Jack.” Then she swishes one last swipe of nail polish on his left pinkie nail. “All done!” she cries, and Jack looks down at his nails—which are only partially covered with nail polish, as most of it landed on his cuticles. I’ve never seen a man so patient, or so willing to play along as Jack. When I try to think about Marley or Dan getting dressed up in a feather boa, I can’t even imagine it. Jack would seriously make an excellent dad. He’s so patient. So kind.
“Beautiful,” he says. “Am I a pretty, pretty princess now?” He keeps his voice completely serious. That’s the beauty of it.
Allie stands up and studies him, serious. “Wait,” she says, and runs off to the corner of her room where she digs out a sparkling silver light-up tiara. Then she gingerly places it on his head. “Now you’re all done,” she says, and does a cute little curtsy in front of him. She giggles, covering her mouth with both hands.
Allie digs out another crown from beneath her pile of stuffed animals in the corner and puts it on her own head. “I got this in the hospital when I was sick,” she tells me.
“What was wrong?” I ask. I glance at Jack, who suddenly seems serious.
“I had…” Allie lowers her voice. “The Bad Stuff.”
“She had leukemia,” Jack explains.
I blink, shocked. Allie looks like any other healthy little girl. I can’t imagine her sick in a hospital with … cancer.
“She went into remission last summer. You kicked that Bad Stuff, kiddo.” Jack stretches his arms out for a hug, and she gives him a big one.
Allie giggles. “I sure did.” She looks at me, green eyes wide. “You know what I call the Bad Stuff? I call it a bad word.” She looks around as if the four-letter-word police will bust down the door. “I call it the S-word.”
Well, cancer sure is shitty, that’s for sure.
“What’s the S-word?” Jack asks, guard up.
She glances at me, and then at Jack, and lowers her voice so we can barely hear her. “Stupid,” she whispers, as if she’s really cursing. Makes my heart want to explode.
“Cancer really is stupid,” I agree, and she giggles at my use of the word.
“You said a bad word!” she cries, and claps her hands in glee. When she’s grown, she’s going to be a very, very fun drunk.
The doorbell rings then.
“Pizza’s here,” Jack declares, standing up, not bothering to take off his jewelry or his tiara as he moves to the stairs.
“Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” chants Allie, tearing down the stairs after Jack.
After he pays the pizza delivery guy, he grabs two pizza boxes—Allie’s small cheese and ours to share—and sets them down on the counter. In a few minutes he’s got Allie set up in the breakfast nook, with cheese pizza and her favorite cartoons on the small flat screen on the counter. Then he motions me over to check out our order. He opens it to reveal a heart-shaped meat lovers’ pizza—complete with bacon crumbles.
“I knew it wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without bacon,” he says.
I wrap my arm around his shoulders. He pulls me in for a quick, tender kiss, and with Allie’s attention elsewhere, I kiss him back, his tiny feather boa tickling my throat. I feel a shiver of delight all the way to my toes, and all I can think about is last night, when we thoroughly explored each other’s bodies. How easy it all was, how seamless. How I feel at home with Jack, now, naked, anytime.
“This might just be the most romantic thing a man has ever done for me,” I say.
“You need to get out more,” Jack quips as he offers me a paper plate. I grab a piece of pizza at the point of the heart. Jack opts for three square slices from the middle. His tiara falls forward a little, and he gently takes it and the feather boa off.
“So,” I say, voice low so Allie can’t hear me. “Leukemia?”
Jack nods, solemn. “Yeah, it was bad. And Ian is worried it might come back. But doctors say that’s just a twenty percent chance.”
I feel my heart tighten as I take my pizza and slide onto a nearby barstool near the kitchen island. “That would be terrible.”
“I know. And Ian worries about all the chemo she had, how that will affect her … later on.” Jack’s tone is somber, his mood suddenly turning serious. I can tell he’s worried, too.
He grabs his own piece of pizza and sits on the stool next to me. His leg brushes mine, and I like the contact. Warm. Steady. Nice. “But I say she beat it, and we’ve got to be glad she did, and enjoy every day with her.” He nods at his niece, growing somber. “Only the big guy upstairs knows how much time we have. Got to make the most of it.” A look of pure determination crosses his face. I love that he’s not letting a setback define his family. It takes courage to choose to be optimistic.
“You’re brave,” I say, really seeing Jack. He is brave. He is so many things.
“I am?” He looks surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean, it takes courage to face something terrible, like cancer in the family, and keep looking for the bright side…” I realize as I’m saying these words how perfectly they fit Jack. Dan was scared—scared his wife would find out he’s a louse and has a girlfriend in the city. Marley was scared, terrified of settling down with one woman lest he miss something. “You are just about making the most of the moment. I think that’s brave.”
Jack meets my gaze. “In life, bad times come,” he says after a beat. “I know that because of all those years of bullying. I always told myself that I can’t control what other people say or do, but I can control me. What I do. How I feel. So, you have to make the most of the good times. What I’m really scared of is regret. Life is too short to sit on the sidelines. I think you should go for what you want.”
He stares at me. I feel the heat, the meaning of his gaze, all the way to my toes. Can it all really be this easy? Can love just fall into place like this, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle?
“You always know what you want?” Because I don’t. Rarely ever.
“I know some things. Like I’m going to open my own bakery.”
“You are? That’s … awesome.” I think about all the risk, too, how so few new businesses make it, but, once more, Jack is not afraid. He’s excited about the prospect of wrestling the odds. I can see it on his face. “Well, then, this is a happy Valentine’s Day for you.”
“It is. Because you’re here.” He stares at me. I stare at him. This might be one of the sweetest things anyone’s said to me.
I have the sudden urge to swipe the pizza boxes off the counter and make out with him in a way that would very likely scar Allie for life. But that would be bad, so instead, I tear my gaze away from his and shove more pizza in my mouth.
“I can’t imagine you ever having a bad Valentine’s Day,” I mumble, mouth full. Someone as sexy and warm as Jack? Someone who’s both a strong lumberjack and an adorable uncle? Please. I’m surprised women don’t rip his clothes off while he’s walking down the street.
Jack snorts. “Not true. I have the worst Valentine’s Days of all time.”
“I don’t believe you.” I glance over at Allie, chomping on pizza absently while she watches her show about some kind of computer-animated animal family.
He sighs, looking a little defeated, as he takes another bite. A crumb of crust falls into his beardstache.
“Uh … you have a little…” I point to my chin.
He swipes at it with his napkin, grinning. “Did I get it? Or are we going to need a rescue team?”
I laugh. I love this easy feeling between us. Like I’ve known him all my life. Which, I guess, I almost have. “No, you got it. Okay, so this allegedly bad Valentine’s Day? I’m going to need details.”
“Last year, the week of Valentine’s Day, I worked as a pastry chef at Alestra.”
“That five-star, one-meal-costs-your-whole-paycheck place?” I raise an eyebrow, impressed. It’s the kind of place that’s booked months in advance. You need to be a celebrity or a friend of the mayor’s to get a table there.
He looks sheepish. “Yeah, worked directly under the Michelin-star chef, Pierre Benoit.”
“Wait. I’ve heard of him! He’s on the Foodie Network.”
“You watch the Foodie Network?” he asks, surprised.
“Do you think I love bacon by accident?” I laugh.
Jack laughs, hearty and loud. We grin at each other, goofy.
“What was I even saying?” Jack asks, after a beat.
“Your worst Valentine’s.”
“Right.” He frowns as if he tastes something rotten. “So, Valentine’s Day is any restaurant’s big night. Pierre naturally asked me to work. But Mal was upset about that.”
I perk up at the mention of Mal. I’ve been wanting to ask how it ended, and I have a feeling I’m going to find out. “What? Did she think nobody wants desserts on Valentine’s Day?”
Jack laughs. “I promised to take her on the most romantic date of her life on February fifteenth, but she just wouldn’t have it. It was Valentine’s Day or nothing. She said everyone would have already posted their pictures and it would be too late. And threatened that if I went into work, she’d do something I wouldn’t like.”
“Wow.” Petulant much?
“So, while I’m at work, she texts me a photo of herself.” Jack glances at Allie, still watching TV, and lowers his voice. “In bed with her brother-in-law.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my God. No way.”
“Yeah. That really happened.” He nods his head, a frustration line appearing between his eyebrows. “Needless to say, I’m beside myself. I don’t even finish my shift. I run home.”
“What happened?” My stomach tightens.
“Well, I was too late. He’s gone. I confront her. She admits they’ve slept together. We argue. She tells me that she had to get my attention somehow.”
I must have an incredulous look on my face, because he adds, “She had a rough childhood. Her parents neglected her. Sometimes, she acts out.”
“With her sister’s husband?” I cry, outraged.
“Well, she has issues with her sister, too.” Jack flashes me a wry smile.
“Clearly.” I shake my head, dumbfounded. Nami and I might bicker about small stuff, but neither one of us would ever cross that line. “There’s acting out, and then there’s being a child. At some point, we’re adults, and we have to take ownership of our sh—” I pause and glance at Allie, who has just at that moment tuned into our conversation. “—stuff,” I finish, flashing her a smile. Allie just nods, and turns back to the TV.
“But anyway, it gets worse. Turns out, her brother-in-law is one of Pierre’s major investors. He threatened to pull his support for the restaurant, so Pierre had no other option but to fire me. I don’t blame Pierre. I don’t. He felt terrible about it.”
“That’s awful, Jack.” I’m grateful that he trusts me enough to share this. He’s let me have my first peek behind the curtain strung across his heart, and now I see he’s also been living with old scars made from deep wounds.
“Mal just never really got why it was a big deal. She always said with her money, I didn’t need to work. Never mind that I love working. That I take pride in it. I couldn’t trust her anymore, so I called off the wedding.” Jack exhales, and his shoulders sag, his whole body seeming to fold under the weight of her dismissing his profession and, thus, dismissing him. The bitter note in his voice makes me worry he still cares a little about what she thinks.
“You called off the wedding?” I keep my voice neutral, even though I’m surprised. I actually thought Mal might have done the leaving. Because I remember Mal at the grocery store the day Jack and I reconnected. The lunch plans that were never exactly explained. After this terrible end to their relationship, how could they even be on speaking terms?
“I did,” he tells me, jaw twitching. “It was the right decision.”
“Definitely.” I hesitate, wondering if I should ask if he still has feelings for Mal. But that question seems too direct. Too dangerous. If I poke too much, I might send him running. Men have ghosted me for far less. I’ve learned the hard way that men share only what they want to share. If you ask for more, you’re greedy. Demanding. Difficult.
Of course, Jack seems different. The ice looks thick enough to walk on, but do I really want to risk it by trying?
“Have you thought about taking up country music?” I opt for a flippant joke, an orange life ring that I hope will float him to the surface, away from his painful past. Away from Mal. I hate to admit that I’m jealous of any time he spends with her, even if it’s in his mind.
“Often.”
“We could write a song about how we prefer beer to Valentine’s Day,” I offer. “It would be a huge hit.”
Jack looks up and meets my gaze once more, and the sadness has vanished. That playful spark has returned. I feel relieved that he doesn’t want to linger in that old hurt. Maybe he has put it to rest. After all, there are a million innocent reasons he could’ve had lunch with Mal that day, and I feel silly for second-guessing it.
“I think it definitely needs to be pickup trucks and whiskey are better than Valentine’s chocolates and champagne.”
“I like that even better.”
Jack takes my hand in his and draws a line down the center of my palm. I shiver, glad as much for his touch as his attention, now squarely focused back on me.
“What kind of name is Mal, anyway? Short for Malorie?” I ask, even though I don’t really care about the answer. I’m intently focused on Jack stroking my hand.
“Short for Malort,” he says.
“She’s named after the bitter liqueur people dare each other to drink on St. Paddy’s?” I snort a laugh. Actual reviews of Malort call it the taste of turpentine and sadness, with a hint of grapefruit.
Jack grins, and begins to massage my palm a bit, reminding me just how well he massaged other parts of my anatomy. “Yep. Her parents are part Swedish. And Malort, as you know, is a Swedish brand. They thought it was cheeky, I guess.”
“Turns out, the name really does fit.”
“Yeah, well.” Jack shrugs. “She kind of had terrible parents. It’s why she’s had so many issues.” He clears his throat. “Speaking of ghosts of exes past,” he says, changing the subject, “what was the deal with you and Marley?” O-kay, well, tables turned. Now it’s my turn for show-and-tell. I tug my hand back to me, and Jack releases it.
“I mean…” Jack backtracks quickly. “You do not have to answer that question, obviously. I don’t want to be nosy.” He hesitates. “Okay, that’s a lie. I am absolutely being nosy. I just wondered why you two got married.”
“Pregnancy scare,” I say, but that answer doesn’t sound like enough. It’s the flippant answer I give to acquaintances or coworkers who might ask. It’s not the whole story. “It wasn’t just a scare,” I admit. “I was pregnant.”
Jack’s eyes widen and he sits very still.
“What happened? I mean … if you don’t mind me asking?” Jack’s face, open, warm, his eyes telegraphing to me that he really, truly wants to know. There’s his heady focus again, the way he makes me feel like I’m the only thing in the world he cares about.
I feel my throat tighten. “In the middle of my second trimester, when I think everything’s going to be fine, I go in for a normal doctor’s appointment, but she can’t find the heartbeat. They do an ultrasound and…” I feel the tears choke me. I still can’t believe all these years later, the wound feels so fresh. “The baby had died. In utero. We never knew why.” I sniff back stupid tears. My stomach feels tight. Uneasy. “Marley wanted to celebrate. He was so happy. But I was…” I remember being curled up on the couch, not being able to get up for two straight days. “I was devastated.”
Jack squeezes my hand. His fingers feel like a lifeline.
“He was celebrating. My mom and sister thought it was good news, too.” I shake my head, disagreeing with them even now. “But even though I knew it wasn’t the right time for me to have a baby, I really, really wanted that child. Even if now I can say that it’s probably best Marley and I weren’t parents, I’m still mourning her loss.”
“The baby was a girl?”
I nod. Jack grabs both my hands now, and it’s his turn to make sure I don’t sink below the surface of the past. He swings his stool to the side, so we’re knees-to-knees. He looks at me. Really looks at me.
“I’m sorry, Sora. So sorry. Sometimes, I don’t know why things happen the way they do. Sometimes, things just aren’t fair.”
I nod. And I’m stupidly relieved he didn’t tell me I have plenty of time to have another baby. That I’m young, like my mom told me, that I’ll have other boyfriends, like Nami told me, or that this was a blessing in disguise, like all my friends told me. It sure didn’t feel like a blessing. Felt like a punch in the face. Felt like the one thing I truly knew I wanted in all the world would never be mine.
“The worst part is that we stayed married nearly four more years after that.” I shake my head, remembering that dark time.
“Why?” Jack asks, surprised.
“Inertia,” I say. “I was in such a dark place after the miscarriage, nothing seemed worth doing. I should’ve left Marley, but, honestly, I just couldn’t work up the energy to do it. Nothing seemed to matter, so why not stay with Marley? Marley stayed around because he liked that together we could qualify for a mortgage and that I paid more than my share of the bills. I’d come to find out later that being married hadn’t really slowed down his dating life any. So. There’s that.”
Jack shakes his head slowly and makes a disapproving sound deep in his throat. He looks at our clasped hands. “Well, then, he’s probably not going to change for his new girlfriend. Or anyone else.”
“Probably not. It seems obvious now that I should’ve left him right after the miscarriage, but, honestly, I just went on autopilot,” I say, and as the words tumble out, I realize I’ve never really talked at any length about this time in my life. “When Marley got it in his head we should buy a condo, I said yes. When a friend of a friend put me in touch with Arial at Slick for freelancing opportunities, I went ahead with it, ignoring that small warning in my gut that makeup and fashion, as awesome as they are, just weren’t really what I wanted to write about. I was in a dark place where nothing seemed to matter, so why not just let the world decide things for me, you know? If I couldn’t control what happened to my own body, or baby, then why even bother trying to control anything?”
Jack squeezes my hands and nods. He doesn’t try to talk me out of my sadness. He just sits with me in it. Talking to Jack is nice. He doesn’t make my problems seem little, but at the same time, doesn’t let me wallow in self-pity, either. It’s that delicate balance he manages to strike every time. Jack flashes me a killer smile that looks even whiter against his beard, and the sparkle in his eyes makes my stomach do cartwheels.
“He wasn’t the right man for you,” he presses.
“I don’t know if there is one, though,” I admit.
“I get it. Really. I do.” He rubs the top of my knuckle with his thumb. “But I think we can live our lives afraid, or we can live our lives like we don’t know what tomorrow brings. Because we don’t.” He grows silent. “I mean, look at her.” He nods toward Allie, who’s swinging her feet beneath her chair, eyes glued to her show. “She got a really rough deal, but she’s not bitter. She’s not afraid. She’s a little pink glitter Powerpuff.” He glances at me, brown eyes soulful. “So I’m not going to be afraid of broken hearts. That just comes with living. Just a risk we all take to find happiness.”
“You make it sound so simple.” He slips his thumb down the side of my hand, and I feel electric pulses straight up to my elbow.
“For me, it is simple.” Jack leans in closer. I want to believe him, I do. “You deserve to be happy.”
“I do?”
“For starters, you were so nice to me in grade school. You never made fun of me.” His eyes gleamed. “It’s one of the reasons I crushed on you so hard. You’re always looking after the underdogs.”
“Really?” Yet I feel warmed by Jack’s compliments, a heat that warms me from within.
“You adopted a one-eyed pit bull from the pound! You help elderly customers in the store. You have an amazing heart.”
Jack gazes at me as if I should win the Nobel Peace Prize. I hope he always looks at me like that.
I don’t think I do anything all that out of the ordinary, but I guess it is true that I have a sweet spot for outsiders, maybe because I often think of myself as one.
He interlaces his fingers with mine. “I know you’re doing the Solo February thing, and I respect that. I do.” He glances at our hands. “I’ll wait as long as you want me to.”
“You will?”
“Of course.”
Our grins fade as serious emotion takes over. I’m leaning into him, and he’s leaning into me. Dangerous hope flares up in my chest and I defensively tamp it down. Can’t start chasing rainbows and unicorns now. What would the demanding hordes of Soloists have to say?
“Are you going to kiss her, Uncle Jack?” asks Allie, who has abandoned her show, now on commercial break, and has bounded up right to us, and is looking from Jack to me, expectantly, hugging a stuffed pink rabbit to her chest. We both chuckle, the seriousness of the moment gone.
“That’s none of your beeswax, kiddo,” Jack says.
“You should kiss her,” she demands.
“Do you want us to kiss or do you want dessert?” Jack challenges. Allie considers this seriously, as if weighing which college application she ought to fill out first.
“Dessert,” she finally answers, deadly serious.
Jack kicks open a box from Margo’s that contains heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies.
“Hearts are my favorite!” she declares. “So are chocolate chips!” She pads back to her chair near the kitchen TV, commercial break done.
“She’s adorable,” I say.
“She’s relentless,” Jack corrects. “When that sugar high wears off, she’ll be back, this time asking when we plan to get married.”
I laugh. I love Allie. I love this moment. I suddenly want dozens of other nights just like this one, stretching out for weeks, or months, or more.
Jack offers me a cookie. I take it. “I do wonder, though, like, how strict is Solo February?”
“What do you mean?” I ask. Suddenly, I feel I’m right back to looking at all of my DMs, the logjam of questions from readers about the technicalities of #GoingSolo.
“I’ve got this black-tie thing. The Golden Chef Awards on February twenty-eighth. I’m up for Best Pastry Chef. It’s kind of a big deal. Like an Academy Award, sort of. But for chefs.” He digs in his pocket, and pulls out an ivory invitation with two golden-edged tickets.
“You’re inviting me to the Oscars of baking.”
He grins. “Yeah.” He shrugs his shoulders as if to show it’s no big deal. “I want you to go with me, but I respect the Solo February thing. And I do not want to cause problems with your boss.”
“Yeah.” Going on a black-tie date might just cause problems. Not just with her, but with the serious Soloists out there.
“But here, take the ticket. You’re under no obligation to go, at all. But if I’m not going with you, I don’t really want to go with anyone else.”
My heart flutters as he hands me the ticket.
“No matter if you go with me or not, if you stick to Solo February or not … you should know that whatever it is between us right now? It’s not casual. Not for me.”
I meet his gaze, dark and serious.
“I think … I think I’m falling in love with you, Sora.”