“But how can you ever believe me again?”
“How can I not? I know what it took for you to tell me this. I believe in you enough to know that you won’t lie to me again. It’s not like I’ve been perfect either, you know.”
“I thought you’d hate me.”
“Not when you’re willing to admit to the mistake,” Isabelle said. She took him by the hand. “And I guess that just makes you human, doesn’t it? It shows you can make a mistake and screw up with the rest of us.”
“Human,” John said softly.
“That’s right. Human.” She gave him an odd look. “You’re no different from Cosette, are you? For all your talk about how it doesn’t matter, all you’ve ever wanted was to be human. To bleed and dream.”
“To be real,” he said.
“I don’t know exactly what you are,” Isabelle told him, “where you came from or even how it works that I could bring you over, but the one thing I’m sure of is that you’re real. And I don’t care about any of the other questions anymore, except for one: are we going to be friends, or are you going to slip out of my life again? Because this time I’m not sending you away.”
“This time I won’t go away,” John said.
Isabelle stood up. “So let’s rejoin the party, friend.”
But when she tried to draw him to his feet, he wouldn’t budge. Instead he pulled her gently down beside him on the bench again.
“I’d rather stay here with you for a while,” he said, putting his arm around her.
Isabelle smiled. She settled into a more comfortable position, head leaning against his shoulder, legs stretched out in front of her. When she looked up, the sky was filled with stars the way it always was on the island. It was as though the normal pollution of city lights had been washed away for this one night by an aura of enchantment—an enchantment springing from the collective spirit of goodwill, rising up from the party below and being generated, here on this rooftop bench, between John and herself.
“So would I,” she said.
