Once again, do not own anything in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

Meanwhile, at her house, Kirsty was having some difficult thoughts of her own. On a whim, she decided to turn on the radio and got the same song Johnny did. Her thoughts had drifted to him. Now she was dealing with that.

She didn't love Johnny. No way. All that 'romance' stuff was for weak-willed women who still lived as if it was eighteenth century. She was an independent, modern girl who didn't need any of that. Johnny was just a friend. That's it. Nothing else.

So why did she keep having these weird episodes when she thought otherwise? During the previous few weeks she caught herself staring at him several times. And just that day as they faced each other she had a brief fantasy of herself leaning forward to kiss him. That threw her aim off a bit, but she made up for it by taking her confusion out on the nearest killbot by beating it with its own power saw arm. But why had it happened in the first place? She wasn't in love with Johnny! And she wasn't in denial either. Denial was for people with I.Q. of under 140.

It was true that she liked being around him. But a lot of that was just for the sake of everything that happened around him. Whenever Johnny was around, mysteries, wonders and magic crawled out of the woodwork. That was it, of course. She loved extraordinary things, and the world around her was so mundane. She knew that without Johnny she could spend the rest of her life in a futile search for something exciting. So that was a good reason to be around him. Besides, truth be told he was really the only one who would be friends with her. For some reason everyone else seemed to stay away from her, no matter how much time she spent explaining to them just exactly what was wrong with them. Johnny didn't seem to mind that, though. He was patient.

She also admired his mind, the way one might admire a piece of abstract art. It was truly a work of wonder, the way he seemed to just accept everything. The downside was that this made him a bit apathetic. He didn't seem to get excited about even the most amazing things. He never wanted to do anything. He was just sort of took up space. But she knew that underneath all that uncertainty and quiet there was something extraordinary. It didn't come up much, but in cases of emergency, when even she lost all hope, when she was overcome with uncertainty, and even fear, something happened to him. For one thing he acquired strange superpowers. But he also turned into someone supremely confident, with a strange commanding presence, almost scary and at the same time knowing the solution to the problem at hand.

But most of the time he was a person who needed her help. Without her he would be totally lost. When presented with a problem he did not solve it, he just floundered. She liked helping him, actually. It made her feel good. She felt that someone like him needed someone like her. They made a pretty good team.

And...well...he was kind of cute, okay? He was sort of thin and reedy, but his face just had a nice quality she appreciated. But so what? She could control her baser instincts. It didn't mean anything. And he also had a nice personality.

But anyway, the point is, she absolutely, positively, was not in love with him!

Besides, she didn't really know how to act when in love. Would she just come up to Johnny and tell him 'you're my boyfriend now'? That would work, certainly, but still...Or would she have to resort to flirting? She had no idea how to flirt.

She lay back, turned off the radio, and grabbed a book, determined to push those thoughts out of her head. They were confusing, and better dealt with on another day.