“Exactly,” she argues, “so if I say you read a lot, then it means you reada lot.”
Idospend most of my time on the bus with my nose in a book.
“What is that?” Kay asks. “It looks cool.”
I stretch towards the nightstand and grab my copy of Holly Black’sValiantbefore dropping it in her hands.
“What’s it about?”
I laugh. “You’re holding it. Read the back.”
“I’m too tipsy to concentrate. Tell me about it.”
“Looks like Matt’s in for a fun night, then.” She swats me with the book, and I give in to her request. “Um, okay. So it’s this urban fantasy book. You know, like...supernatural beings and magic and stuff, but in a grungy, badass city setting. It’s one of the first actual novels I read in English. My friend Monroe, who I lived with when I first came to Montreal, owned the whole series, and I always wanted to speak good enough English to read them.”
“So is it a love story?”
“Kind of,” I explain. “There is a love interest involved. He’s a troll.”
“Atroll?” Kay shrieks, and we both burst out laughing.
“Ouais, but like, a sexy troll!” I manage to choke out.
“That’s a thing?”
We’re both struggling to breathe now.
“Yes. Yes it is,” I affirm.
It takes us a minute or two to get ourselves under control before I can finish my synopsis.
“Anyways,” I finally continue, “so it’s about this teenage girl named Val who runs away to New York City because her life is all fucked up—as in, she finds her mom screwing her boyfriend level of fucked up—and she meets this band of street kids who it turns out are all hooked on this supernatural drug they get from the, uh...sexy troll.”
I have to pause for a second so Kay and I can hold back another laugh attack.
“The street kids run errands for sexy troll guy in exchange for the drug, and Val joins in. The troll—his name is Ravus—is all scary and gruff, but Val ends up getting close to him, and they start to fall for each other, but they can’t be together because, well, he’s a troll, and he’s scared of hurting her, and she’s also kind of stupid about it, and...What? Why are you staring at me like that?”
Kay’s lying on her side with her head propped in her hand, watching me with thinly disguised sympathy that instantly makes me start to feel defensive.
“Runaway teenager falls in love with a gruff and scary stranger? May I hazard a guess and say you feel like you can relate to Val?”
“I mean sure, there are some similarities...”
Kay tilts her head.
“Okay,severalsimilarities, but what I like about it is that it’s not all about the love story. Mostly it’s about Val, and how she finds herself and sorts her shit out. She’s such a badass. You should read it. It’s really good.”
Kay nods. “I think I will.”
She runs her finger up and down the sword embossed on the cover and opens and closes her mouth a few times, like she’s working up the nerve to speak.
“You don’t have to answer this,” she finally begins, “but...why did you come to Montreal? I’ve always wondered. I would never have had the guts to leave home at sixteen.”
“I guess that’s another thing I have in common with Val,” I admit. “My life was fucked up too.”
“Like...your mom was screwing your boyfriend kind of fucked up?”
“More like the other way around.”
