"She was beautiful," Topher said to Claire, almost dreamily. "And exactly how I remembered. Ecept for her tattoo, she must have gotten that after she left school, but Claire! Her eyes were so - "
Claire stifled a yawn. She loved Topher, he was a lovely guy, but he had been rabbiting on about the girl he had based Echo off for hours now. And there was only so much you could say about the two minute interaction that they'd shared.
"So much deeper than I remembered. So I have to fix that, and her voice is a little huskier, sexier," Topher went on.
"That sounds great, Toph," Claire said, humouring him yet again.
"She was just so..."
Claire leaned back in her chair, watching Echo thoughtfully. In truth, yes, there was something alluring about the Doll, but she wasn't quite sure what the model had done to Topher to make him quite so infatuated. Or if anything had been done at all - considering Topher's success rate with women. And this one appeared to be out of his league. Which was probably why he had based a walking, talking, obedient doll off her.
"Toph?" Claire asked, needing to know.
"Yes?"
"Why are you so infatuated with this girl?"
"Her name is Faith," Topher informed her. "She is... I don't know. Surely, you can see she's beautiful. But there was always something so untouchable about her. She seemed lonely, though she floated from person to person, it was as if you could never know her. She still seemed that way, to be honest. Untouchable. Alone. Beautiful."
Claire fought the urge to roll her eyes. "So, she attracted you because she was aloof? That was the basis of this little crush?"
"It was so much more than that, Claire," Topher told her patiently. "More than a crush. More than her being aloof. She was like a Goddess in that school. And no one could see it but me. She was an outsider, but the boys, they used her. They tried to get so close and she would - "
Claire groaned inwardly, incredibly sorry she had asked.