Eugene and I stop by my house, but I can't keep my eyes off of him the entire time, fully expecting him to drop dead on the spot. We were far from Iggy's influence by now, so there was no way that he could be the source of Eugene's life and death.

It must have been something else. Someone else.

"Is this seriously where you live, McCreepy?" Eugene interrupts my thoughts with a cackle of laughter. "It looks like a Barbie Dreamhouse."

I look over in time to see him pull out his phone and begin snapping pictures of my nauseatingly pink home to post on InstaFace. "Man, this is priceless!"

"I didn't have a say in the stylistic choices!" I snap at him, and I grip onto the steering wheel as tight as I can. "My parents are obviously sick in the head. It's a miracle that I'm as sane as I am given the circumstances."

"Really?" Eugene raises an eyebrow skeptically. "Because you seem pretty weird to me."

My dismal soul melts at his words. Had Eugene Wilder been analyzing me this whole time? I knew that he liked me, but on what level? And how far would we go?

"Just stay here, okay?" I tell him, and I throw open my car door. "I just need five minutes."

"What? And miss a chance to see your room?" Eugene gets out of the car anyway. "I wouldn't miss this for the world."

I grit my teeth and bear it, hoping to all that is holy that I've picked up my dirty underwear off my bedroom floor. Never in a hundred years had I imagined that Eugene would be entering my house, and stepping into my bedroom. It felt strangely intimate somehow, despite the fact that both of us had shared a bed last night with Igor.

"Just don't touch anything," I tell Eugene as if he's a child. And I search for my keys, surprised that my mother hadn't left it unlocked for me after not showing up last night. She knew that I enjoyed wandering around graveyards and driving myself to obscure places to stare into oblivion, so she always left the front door open for when I came back.

Eugene comes up beside me and he rests his arm on top of my head. "Why are you so uptight, Brown?" He asks me. "You're like an old woman."

Annoyance instantly surges through me. "Why are you so childish?" I retort, and I throw off his arm and open the front door.

There's a split second where I feel relief at the sight of the familiar hallway. It felt like coming home after a long trip away, and I was tempted to skip school and just crawl into bed.

"Whoa," Eugene whispers from behind me. "You live here? Is your dad rich or something?"

"I don't have a dad," I answer, and I lead him inside. "My moms are both artists."

The inside of the house was thankfully not pink like the outside was. But my parents had taken artistic liberty and hung their paintings on the walls, splashes of bright colors, pink horses, and large eyeballs with no faces.

Eugene and I walk upstairs and pass childhood pictures of me hung up on the walls in assorted outfits, steadily growing darker as we walk. By thirteen, I had fully completed my transformation from colored clothing to black and never looked back. Between both of my grinning parents, I stuck out like a demented olive placed on a child's rainbow birthday cake.

I take Eugene upstairs and lead him to my bedroom. "Wait out here, okay?" I instruct him, and I turn around, not realizing how close he is until we're face to face.

The thing about Eugene was that he had maddeningly gorgeous features. Eyes in the shade of a delicate rainfall, shifting brown or green depending on the lighting. A broad nose and a clever grin that promised me unspeakable things. Had I died now, then I would have departed this repulsive world, completely sated.

"Why?" Eugene steps forward and gently pushes me against my bedroom door.

Okay, maybe not completely sated.

"Eugene..." I turn my head and squint my eyes dramatically. "We shouldn't. Your body is stone cold and you have no reason to love a mortal like me."

"You sound crazy when you talk like that," Eugene replies. "But I'll stop it if you really want me to."

I reach up, slide my fingers into his dress shirt and then pull him down, our lips brushing. Admittedly, I was terrified that his mouth would feel like those candied, wax lips that nobody wanted on Halloween. Stiff and unyielding.

But they weren't at all like that.

There was warmth and softness to his mouth. He felt as real as anything, and I wondered how that was possible.

I reach back and grab the doorknob, both of us falling back into my gloomy abode.

"Eugene. Please!" I throw my hand over my eyes and lean against my dresser. "If you should disrobe for me, then we can never go back."

Eugene is already unbuttoning his shirt. "That's kind of the whole plan." He replies, sounding a little confused.

I turn and look at him, and then see the surgical scars on his chest and stomach.

My world turns over and the ground drops out from beneath me.

"Darcy!"