As always, Ms. Stein has written a very interesting book.  Her characters have a way of being a little quirky and they always manage to get under my skin and I think that is why I enjoyed this book so much.  I guess really and truly, this is a story of “opposites attracting” in some ways and a “what you see is not always what you get” story.
Serge and Beatrix couldn’t be more opposite of each other as far as appearances. Â Bea is conservative and doesn’t really want to be noticed (due to a terrible childhood) and Serge is a Mohawkish wearing badass. Â But under those appearances are two people that are very much alike and the title- “Never Loved” is spot on. Â Neither one has really experienced unconditional love and acceptance until they meet.
I really love the development of their connection with each other, it’s kind of instantaneous and neither one can deny that they just kind of “work”. Â What Bea and Serge find in each other is that perfect soft place to land. Â Bea has existed in college as who she thinks everyone thinks she should be- how she “should” act. Â Serge gives her the freedom to completely be herself with him and without him.
âI tell you what, girl. How about you hop on, and Iâll take you to where he is.â
Some of the guys around him laugh. Hell, he seems to be laughing a little, too. He even slaps the back of his bike like the punch line to this whole crazy jokeâhe knows Iâm never going to climb up on that thing. Everyone knows Iâm not going to climb up on that thing. Iâm a soft little kid, in corduroy.
Though for once in my life, I donât want to be. I want to say yes, just to show him. Just to make up for all the times when I went back to my room and changed and changed and changed until my clothes were suitable, or stayed silent because silence was golden and talking back got you the basement. I donât have to stay silent here, if I really donât want to.
But that only makes it more disappointing when my sad little mouth leaks out, âI canât do that.â
In fact, itâs so disappointing that he seems to catch some of it. He snorts, of course, as though he expected that answer all along. Yet beneath that snort I think I see something else, just sort of drifting around down there. A bitterness, I think, that carries through his otherwise amused and rather withering words.
âAfraid of bikes, huh?â
âYeah, you could say that.â
âAnd maybe afraid of me?â
âIâd have to be insane to be anything else.â
âOh, yeah? Whyâs that?â
âThink itâs pretty obvious.â
âTry me.â
âMostly itâs the size.â
He makes a face like Yeah, that makes sense.
But the shadow of that odd disappointment is still there.
âWhat can I say? Iâm a big guy.â
âAnd maybe the tattoos.â
âI sure got them.â
âAnd the hair.â
âYou donât like it?â
He runs a hand over that thick black stripe right down the center, like some lady at a salon showing off her new hairdo. And itâs funny; it really is funny. Itâs so funny that the assembled crowd laughs again to see him do it. This is probably the kind of show he does all the time, and Iâm sure none of them ever question it.
But Iâm questioning it. I can still see that serious undercurrent beneath his jokey manner, and it makes me answer him in a more impassioned way than I intend. âNo, no, itâs not that at all,â I say, though itâs only afterward that I realize how true that sentiment is.
Yeah, heâs scary as fuck. Yeah, the thought of riding off with him on that bike almost freezes my blood. But if Iâm honest with myself about liking that hair . . . I canât exactly say no. I do like it. I like a lot of things about him, in a way I donât fully understand. He should ping just about every aggressive-man fear I have, but every time I try to think of him that way, something else happens instead. I see the contrast between those black stripes and his pale blue eyes, and the way he waits for my answer in this actually interested manner, and how strange all of his clothes are and that flash of bitterness or weariness in him again, and then suddenly there it is:
The word handsome.
Dear God, I think he might be handsome, though Iâm not going to stick around long enough to find out for sure.
âIâve got to go,â I blurt out, but I immediately regret it. I should have just turned and run really quicklyânot given him warning. Now heâs got time to punish me as I ever so slowly start to walk away. Oh, look at the little college girl. Sheâs frightened, heâll say, and then someone will throw a rock at me. All of them will throw rocks at me, until Iâm a bruised and bloody pulp on the front page of tomorrowâs newspaper. Idiot Student Finds Angry Biker Handsome, I imagine, though Iâve no idea why Iâm doing it.
That doesnât even make any sense. People donât write reports about girls randomly noticing attractiveness. They write reports about girls being murdered, so really, that should be my headline. Idiot Student Has Arms and Legs Pulled Off by Handsome Biker, I try, but I canât help noticing that the word handsome is still in there.
God, I wish it wasnât still in there.
Itâs hard enough as it is to walk to my car without glancing back. Putting the word handsome in there makes it nearly impossible. My eyes want me to double-check, and not just because I probably hallucinated how good-looking he is. They want me to check because Iâm almost positive I can feel his gaze pressing into my back. I can feel it the way people in books say they can feel it, even though I usually snort and roll my eyes when I get to stuff like that. You canât sense someoneâs stare in real life. Thatâs just not the way it works.
So how come Iâm right?
I dare to glance up once Iâm inside the safety of my car, expecting to see him going about his business. Maybe heâll be in the middle of some awful drug thing, I think. Maybe heâll be making some kid pay for wanting to do something other than come right home after school. But he isnât doing either of those thingsânot even close.
Instead I see those frostbitten eyes still steadily on me, as everyone around him returns to their rowdy and brutal ballet.
