"Hey, hey. There's no need for that. It's tough on my ego, you know," he said.

Isabel grabbed him tightly and fell into a silent, slow dance with him. When she felt she was composed enough, she leaned back and looked at him. He was smiling at her, looking at her the way he had at the prom… and a thousand times before that. She hadn't seen it for a long time. Then, she hadn't taken the look seriously. But finally she had known what the look meant, because at the prom she had looked at him the same way. "Is it really you, Alex?" Isabel asked.

"Do you really doubt it?" he asked.

She looked at him closely. He looked like Alex and, more importantly, he felt like Alex. "But is it really you, or is it me

imagining you? Imagining what you'd look like, what you'd say?" Isabel asked. She realized her voice sounded a little desperate, but she didn't care.

"I don't know, Isabel. I can't tell the difference," he said, and shrugged.

"I haven't seen you like this in so long," Isabel said.

After Alex died, she had seen him in her mind and talked

with him often, but it had been a while. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she had seen him. Seen him or dreamed him? She couldn't tell the difference.

"I've been here," he said. "You just stopped coming around. You don't call, you don't write… "

"I know, I'm sorry. It's been so crazy…," she said, but it sounded weak to her own ears.

"What with, falling in love with jesse and getting married to him?" Alex said, a smile on his lips.

Isabel didn't know how to respond.

"It's okay. You had to move on. I'm stuck here, you don't have to be. And he seemed like a nice enough guy, if you like that Latin GQ type," he said.

"jealous?" she teased.

"Duh," he said.

"Aren't you supposed to be above that now?" she said.

Alex only shrugged.

Isabel smiled. "He was good to me," she said.