The first time she sees him, he's staring at her underneath a banquet table.

He's scrawny and quiet and has a stupid name, but he helps her find her favorite barrette.

---

His mother never pretends to like Shannon.

On most days, she doesn't pretend to like Boone, either.

He's eleven when he calls Mr. Rutherford "Dad" for the first time.

Shannon likes it.

She also likes the way he screams it when a giggle turns into an asthma attack.

She likes him bent over her, fumbling with the inhaler.

She likes the way his lips curl when Dad pats him on head and says, "Good job, Boone."

She likes when he adds, "You have to look after her from now on, okay?"

She loves it when Boone nods and fixes his eyes on her and never really looks away.

---

Somewhere between Antigua and Barbados, he turns twelve.

Sabrina doesn't remember and Dad doesn't know. Shannon spends the whole day sunbathing on the foredeck. Boone spends the day staring off into the ocean.

Three minutes before midnight, she pads over to his bed, and ties a macaroni necklace around his neck.

"See?" she tells him. "No one else will ever love you this much."

He turns his face away when he says, "I wouldn't want them to."

---

For her eleventh birthday, she wants a dog.

Dad would buy her one, she knows, but Sabrina puts a finger to his chest and says, "Honey. She won't take care of a dog. She won't feed him or walk him or clean up after him."

Boone jumps out of his chair and shouts, "Shut up! You don't know, so shut up!"

Shannon never asks for a dog again.

Because she's already got one.

---

His first kiss is with a girl who doesn't know his name.

So Shannon spends the rest of the night on the balcony, dropping pebbles at half of Newport.

Three minutes after midnight, long before the party is over, he climbs up the lattice and lets her kick him.

"You can't like her, Boone."

He flicks a pebble and says, "I won't."

---

Aspen is cold and has mistletoe.

She slides off the gondola a second too late and bruises her knee.

He's waiting for her in the lobby, smiling at a cute waitress.

Shannon pushes her goggles up and mumbles, "Boone. It hurts."

Boone hesitates.

So she drops her mittens on the ground and points at her knee. "Kiss it. It hurts."

And under the mistletoe, he rolls his eyes, but does what she tells him.

---

When Shannon turns thirteen, Sabrina gives her the best birthday present, ever.

She leaves.

And Boone stays.

"Your choice, Shannon," he says with a grin. "Pigging out all day, or systematically destroying every piece of art Mom owns?"

She sprawls across his bed and smiles. "Kiss me."

Boone freezes with his back to her.

"Boone. My choice, remember?"

It's the last time she asks, and the first time Boone disobeys.

---

"It's not healthy, Adam."

"Sabrina—"

"She's hurting him, and if you think I can turn a blind eye like you can—"

Still hiding, Shannon curls into the stairway and promises herself she'll stop.

"Make sure you do something, Adam. Before it's too late."

The next summer, they move Shannon's room to the opposite side of the house.

---

Shannon doesn't like herself.

But everyone else does.

She meets his gaze in the cafeteria and flips her hair.

"So, like, yesterday, I went out with that hot senior," she brags loudly.

The girls around her coo and smile and swoon.

"Like, oh, my God, you two make such a cute couple!" one of them whines.

From across the quad, Boone's friends stare at her legs and breasts and lips, so Shannon smiles at them, but her eyes are firmly fixed on his.

"Oh, I know," she drawls, nibbling on a pencil.

Quietly, Boone glares at her over his elbow.

But later, behind the gym, he brings her the inhaler she forgot, and never tells anyone.

---

One day, Boone decides to save the whales.

Then the rainforests.

Then the manatees and the elephants and the world.

And when Shannon fails math and art and science, Boone decides he has to save her first.

"I did it on purpose," she tells him later, painting her toenails.

He corrects her homework and nods. "I know."

---

Cancun is a blur.

It's Shannon's spring break, and Boone's first mistake.

When he sobers up, he's outraged and won't buy her a ring.

"But Shannon Carlyle sounds better," she mumbles.

He stares at her, then buries his face in his hands.

She gets her hair braided on a beach while he files for an annulment.

---

Her poster of Marky Mark is down, her father is six feet under, and she's ready to tolerate his New York now.

But Boone is running back to California.

"Don't ruin this opportunity for him," Sabrina tells her.

So Shannon doesn't.

---

Boone doesn't retain information well.

It goes tequila, salt, lime.

And check pulse, breathe twice, compress.

"Boone. I'm in Australia. Help me."

Boone doesn't learn.

---

The first kiss tastes sour.

"You're in love with me," she tells him.

And he believes her.

---

Oceanic Flight 815 is it.

He'll put the mask on her first, but before that, he'll cover her body with his.

The second kiss is purgatory.

---

When Claire asks her, "Is that your boyfriend?" Shannon pauses.

"My brother," she tells her. And you can't have him.

---

On the island, Boone says, "You speak French."

And for a moment, she thinks she can translate Mandarin or Urdu or Farsi, if Boone really wants her to.

---

Every night, after Boone falls asleep, Shannon paints his toenails hot pink.

Every morning, he yells at her, then gives her a bite of his mango.

"I so own your ass," she laughs.

With a small smile, he follows Locke into the jungle.

---

She was going to tell him.

Both of them.

She was going to tell Sayid she couldn't.

And then maybe, eventually, she was going to tell Boone she always had.

Instead, Shannon looks up at Jack and waits.

"He just said to... tell you," he says and rubs his temples.

Kate crowds closer. "Tell her what?"

Jack looks uncomfortable, so Shannon kisses Boone for the third time.

And then she completes his thought like she's always done.

Tell Shannon I forgive her.