by Nancy Werlin
Sheilah nodded. “AMT, and also at least two of the actors.” She pulled out her phone. Sebastian crowded in next to me to look at the website.
Just announced!
Special Bean Con guests of honor!
From Bleeders: Anna Maria Turner, along with Jocelyn Upchurch (Captain) and Hugh Nguyen (Torrance).
“Torrance and Captain!” Sebastian pressed both hands to his chest. “I may have a heart attack.”
Sheilah grinned at us. “You Bloodygits are going, then?”
“Of course!” Sebastian said. “Zoe lives near Boston, and so does our friend Josie! We’ll be there for sure!”
No, no, no, I thought frantically.
The next thing I knew, I was walking down a corridor beside Sebastian as he nattered on about Boston and how great it would be to meet AMT and Torrance and Captain. That he was definitely going to get his picture taken with them, no matter what it cost. That maybe we could all be in cosplay and do one big photo session together with the actors. He could just take the bus from New York to Boston, it would be excellent. We could all stay at my house, right? Just like we’d all crammed into his dorm at New York Comic Con and into Todd’s and Meldel’s rooms at Weird World.
So my brain was flashing danger, careful even before Sebastian added:
“And we can meet Simon at last.”
“Wait!” I said quickly. “Simon doesn’t understand about fandom, remember? Also, about staying at my house? I don’t know . . .”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” After a moment, he added comfortably, “We’ll figure things out. Bloodygits always do.”
I said nothing.
“Just think of it,” Sebastian said dreamily. “Every single Bloodygit in the fandom will be there, if they can possibly make it!”
I nodded, feeling miserable. “Yeah.”
Every single one except, maybe, me.
At six o’clock inside the Con Suite, Todd raised his arms above his head in triumph and yelled, “Hallelujah! We shall not after all starve!”
Many people grinned at him. He grinned back toothily.
I had thought that Sebastian would explode into the news about AMT at Bean Con as soon as he saw the others. But in the moment, he was too busy admiring the spread of food in the Con Suite. With the part of my mind that was not fraying with anxiety, I was grateful for the reprieve.
I didn’t know if I could handle Bean Con. Would having it so near home make things harder? Or easier?
“Good job, Zoe,” Liv said. “We won’t have to spend a penny on food.” They petted a “new” scarf from the clothing swap; it was green and featured Marvin the Martian.
“It actually is pretty awesome, isn’t it?” I managed.
Most cons had Con Suites in which you could find free snacks all day and into the night, provided by fans who could afford it and/or who lived locally. They would schlep in grocery bags with store-bought muffins and donuts, potato chips and cookies. There would be loaves of bread and peanut butter and jelly jars, and bowls of hard-boiled eggs. Also urns of coffee, bottles of soda, gallons of milk, flats of water.
Lilithcon took its hospitality to a new and breathtaking level.
Abundant snacks were available 24/7, yes, but the Con Suite also offered actual nutritious meals. All you needed was a reservation and an official con badge. The idea was to take care of fans who couldn’t afford food on top of their badges and travel costs.
The buffet offered barbecue chicken sandwiches on rolls or gluten-free bread, vegan or vegetarian or gluten-free spinach-and-potato curry, and side dishes and salads.
Once we were seated with food, Sebastian pounded on the table. “Attention, Bloodygits!” To gasps, he told the news, and finished: “And we’ll all stay at Zoe’s house!”
Josie said, “If that’s okay with Zoe’s parents?”
The Bloodygits looked at me.
I said carefully, “I was wondering if we should cram into a room at the hotel, instead of staying at my house. So we’d be nearby to the con. Maybe I could, um, subsidize the hotel cost.” Oh, God. Somehow.
“Ah. You don’t want us staying with you,” Todd said.
“No!” I said. “I mean, yes, I mean, no, I mean—that’s not it. That’s not why—I mean, it’s that . . . uh, so, you all remember how I haven’t exactly really told Simon about Bleeders? Or about you? I mean, I will tell him. I just haven’t yet.”
“Of course,” said Liv. “But you told your parents?”
“I did,” I said. “But I’m not sure how I could keep you all staying at my house from Simon. And, well, I’m not sure my parents would let me keep it from him.”
“They like that Zoe is cheating on my brother,” said Josie.
“I am not cheating!” I flared.
“Lying. They think it’s a sign that they’re going to break up.” Josie started eating again.
“I am confused,” said Sebastian.
I pushed my hands through my hair. “My parents just think it’s a bad idea for Simon and me to go to college together. They’re not pressuring me, not exactly, but . . . I feel like I’m being torn in half. I don’t know what to do!”
Cam and Liv each had one elbow on the table, in mirror image of each other, with their chins propped in their hands and their eyes calm and waiting on my face. They had never looked more like twins.
“We love you,” Liv said. “You’ll figure this out.”
“And we don’t have to stay at your house for Bean Con,” said Cam. “It’s not a big deal.”
“My parents would welcome you,” I said desperately. “But Simon—I don’t see how I’d keep it a secret if you were at my house. I mean, I don’t want to keep it a secret any longer. I’m going to tell him on Monday. I’ve just decided! This minute, I’ve decided!”
“Then there’s no problem!” said Sebastian.
I had to stop to pull some air into my lungs. “Only, see, Simon is a person who is totally and completely honest, and he’d never lie about anything.”
Todd raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Not about anything? Ever?”
“It’s true!” I said hotly.
Josie nodded gloomily. “It is true.”
“I bow down.” Todd waggled his eyebrows. “This Simon bro is good. I need to take lessons!”
I glared at him. “Believe what you like. Simon isn’t going to understand that I lied.” I blinked several times, hard. “Bleeders wasn’t supposed to be a big thing. It was a little lie! And now I don’t know what to do.” I was whining. I couldn’t help it.
“Do you want us to skip Bean Con altogether?” asked Liv. “We can.”
“We can’t!” said Sebastian.
“No!” I cried. “Of course not! You have to go! I would never, ever ask you not to go!”
“You want us to go, but you’ll skip?” asked Meldel.
“I’m not skipping,” Josie said determinedly. “I’ll find a way on my own.”
“I want to go, too!” I said miserably. “And it would be so, so much fun if we were all camped out at my house. We could take the T—that’s the subway—into the city for the con every day. My parents . . .” I buried my face in my hands, because I could so easily imagine all my friends at my house, laughing and talking, everyone crowded together in the kitchen with my dad making pancakes. “My parents would like all of you.”
“Well, I’m creative.” Meldel propped her chin on her hand thoughtfully. “And you’re clever. And if Simon weren’t capable of being deceived, you’d never have gotten this far. Let’s just make it work. I’m totally in, so how can we fail?”
“It’ll be good, sneaky fun!” said Todd.
I shook my head. “Bloodygits, no. I’m done. I have to put Bleeders behind me. I have to become the person that Simon thinks I am. It’s my only hope.”
They looked at me.
“I can’t change what I did,” I said. “But I can stop doing it. I can do the right thing.”
“I thought you were going to tell Simon,”
said Sebastian. “Didn’t you say you were going to tell him? Just now?”
“I said that. But I don’t know if I will,” I said. “I know it’s the right thing, but he’ll hate it. I’m scared. Maybe if I just keep my mouth shut and behave from now on. Maybe that’s good enough.”
“I continue confused,” said Sebastian.
“So is Zoe,” said Liv quietly.
I closed my eyes.
“Okay,” said Liv finally. “We love you. We’ll go, and you won’t. If that’s how it has to be.”
I swallowed hard.
“Zoe will change her mind,” said Todd. “She’ll be there with us. She always is.”
“No,” I said.
Josie said, in a small voice, “Maybe everybody can stay at my house instead.”
I stared at her, appalled. “Josie, obviously that isn’t going—”
I stopped. I did a double take. There was something very weird about Josie’s expression. I said carefully, “ Wait. Josie, your mom doesn’t know about Bloodygits?” I had meant it to be a statement, but it came out as a question.
Josie cleared her throat. “I had to tell my mom. Um. Today. After we landed at O’Hare. Remember how I was gone for a long time in the ladies’ room? My mom found out I wasn’t at Lucy Wyatt’s like I said I would be. She texted me and I had to call her back and she was, uh, pretty mad.”
“She knows I’m here, too?” I already knew the answer, though.
“Yes.”
I might throw up. “So she knows I lied to Simon?”
“Yes,” said Josie.
My world was now balanced on the pointy end of a pin.
I leaned forward. “Is she going to tell him?”
“I don’t know,” said Josie. “I told her your parents already knew.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening today?” I wailed. “Why?”
“I was waiting for the right moment. Just like you’ve been! Maybe she won’t tell Simon. She knows you don’t want him to know, and she said that you weren’t her business, that I was her business.”
“Really?” I let myself hope.
“Although then again, she’s really mad. Like I said.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“That she needed to think and I was to check in with her like every hour while I’m here so she knows I’m okay.”
“And of course you’ve done that,” I said.
“Oh. Uh. I forgot.” At the look on my face, she said, “I’ll text her right now, okay? I was going to!”
I thought about choking Josie using Liv’s nice long Marvin the Martian scarf.
My phone rang. Actually rang. Not a text. A call.
I looked at it, even though I knew perfectly well who it was.
I thought about not picking up.
It rang again.
I picked up.
“Zoe,” he said.
“Simon,” I croaked.
I knew already. I knew from the hard way that he said my name. I knew even before he said, “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me that you aren’t at some stupid comic con thing. And while you’re at it, tell me that you haven’t taken my little sister there, behind her mother’s back. Do you know what that is, literally, Zoe? It’s kidnapping. You kidnapped my little sister and took her to fucking Chicago!”
Simon never raises his voice. Simon never swears.
I looked at my Bloodygits, who were staring at me with their mouths open and their eyes wide. Even Todd had stopped eating, his forkful of gluten-free potato curry suspended halfway to his mouth.
Words convulsed in my throat. I’m so sorry, please forgive me, I can explain and when I’m home, I’ll tell you everything, please just listen with an open mind. And some compassion. You love me, remember? We love each other! Remember?
I meant to say those things to Simon. I did.
Instead I said, “It’s actually not true. We’re not in fucking Chicago. Josie and I are in fucking Evanston.”
Winter Storm Natasha was in full fury outside. The wind whipped giant snowflakes beneath the yellowish light of the parking lot lamps. I hurried through the cold glassed-in hallway between the convention center and the water park. I had my thin hotel towel and my bathing suit. Maybe the storm would cause flight cancellations. Good. I could stay in Evanston late, or forever. In my head, I began a to-do list: Beg parents for help and understanding. Take the test for my GED. Get a job here doing . . . something. Attend Northwestern. Never, ever see Simon again.
It could work.
The water park was open until nine o’clock. Strings of twinkling lights above encouraged evening use, but the families had mostly disappeared. So quiet, so skanky—this water park was exactly the right place to be miserable. I gave our room number to a yawning clerk and received a purple plastic bracelet and a big black inner tube. Five minutes later, I floated alone on the Roaming River. As my inner tube drifted by a chest of plastic pirate treasure, the sound system began playing Disney music. I opened my mouth and wailed along with Elsa. She was right: it was time for both of us to let it go.
Under the fairy lights, I clutched my cell phone in front of my wet face and checked Instagram. Simon had changed his profile photo from one of him and me to a group of Senator Pratt’s volunteers holding a VOTE FOR CHANGE sign.
Wow. Somehow Simon Murawski, busy, busy Simon Murawski, had found time in his schedule full of things that were bigger and more important than me and my selfish little ordinary mind and my petty obsession with imaginary people living imaginary lives in outer space. Somehow Simon Lawful Good had found the time to announce to his entire circle that he was no longer in a relationship with me. He’d done this within, what? Fifteen minutes of breaking up with me? Impressive! Or maybe he’d done it before even talking with me. If you want something done well and quickly, Simon’s your man. I’ll give you his number. He can accuse you of things without even pausing to ask if you might just possibly happen to have your own side of the story. Because he’s never wrong, oh no, he’s never, ever wrong.
Lawful Good is a terrible, merciless character alignment.
I wiped snot off my face and raised a trembling, wrinkled fingertip to change my own profile picture to a photo of an orange Leuchtturm notebook, the one with creamy, dotted A5 pages, an elastic band to keep it shut, and two bookmarks. Only I hit the wrong thing and uploaded a picture of Wentworth. Wentworth! I started to try again, but my phone slipped from my hand and fell—splash—into the Roaming River. I attempted to heave myself out of the inner tube to grab it back, but my legs were stuck to the rubber and the tube kept moving. And really, who cared? Let people think I loved Wentworth when he didn’t even like me! Fine.
It was all my fault. Everything was my fault. I was a liar and also, incidentally, Simon was correct—I was a kidnapper. Everything he said was true. He was Lawful Good, and I was not even Neutral Good. I was . . . I was . . .
Evil! I had to be evil. Evil people never think they’re evil, which is why I’d missed my own slide into the pit of wickedness. Who’d have thought it would begin by falling in love with a TV show?
Why should Simon forgive me? I wasn’t worthy of him and, actually, I never had been. I was shallow. Shallow as this so-called river! I’d be lucky if I wasn’t arrested. Josie was underage. How come I hadn’t thought that through? Also, Northwestern wouldn’t accept me. No college would! Colleges were not interested in criminals. That Simon and I were over was only the tip of the disaster. Everything I had ever wanted was gone. And whose fault was it? Mine!
Everything came down to this one truth: I had traded in my boyfriend for a TV show.
On the bright side, at least somebody had cued up classic sad songs here at the water park. I sang “Bad Blood.” I sang “Nine Hundred Miles.” I sang “Dixie Chicken.” I sang “Killing Me Softly.” I sang “Moon River.” I twisted and changed lyrics as appropriate:
Doom River
Wider than a mile
I’ve screwed it up in
style today
Dream crusher, you heartbreaker
Wherever you’re going
I’m not going your way . . .
I was wailing at the top of my lungs (Doom River . . . and meeeee . . .) when my inner tube jerked to a stop. Someone said my name. I forced open my salt-encrusted eyes.
I was at the landing. A long metal hook had caught my tube and hauled it up next to the sign that said EXIT THE RIDE VIA THE RAMP AT LEFT. Liv, who was wielding the hook, raised an eyebrow at me. The other Bloodygits stood there, too.
“We’ve been waiting for you to float by,” said Liv.
“We yelled, but you didn’t hear a thing,” said Cam.
“We heard you, though,” said Sebastian.
“Nice voice, nice lyrical improvisation,” said Todd approvingly. “Let me know if you want a part in my original video project this semester.”
I should have felt humiliated. But I didn’t, maybe because I had already hit bottom. Or maybe because . . .
They were here. Liv Cam Meldel Todd Sebastian Josie. One two three four five six. They had come to find me. My friends, my Bloodygits! They had come to pull me out of Doom River. I might be boyfriendless, but I wasn’t alone.
“You’ve shivering,” observed Meldel. “Here’s a towel.” She held it open for me. “It’s thin, but it’s clean and warm.”
My friends loved me.
I was clambering out as Todd said, “I think I smell the kiddie pee.”
Sebastian and I were in our hotel room, alone, working on his bleeder cosplay. I now completely understood why he needed help. Completely.
He had pieces of bubble wrap for each leg and arm and a giant one for his torso, which had a hole to go over his head. He had laid the pieces out on a bed, so that—with only a little queasiness—he could use a syringe to shoot “blood” (corn syrup and red dye) into the air pockets. Then it was my turn to brush a Very Special Glue over each bloody pocket while listening to Sebastian talk—and talk and talk—about Squirrel Girl.
Squirrel Girl knew exactly how blood was simulated in the movies. Sebastian could have bought fake blood instead of having to mix it, but Squirrel Girl thought making it was a better idea in this case because it might have been awkward for Sebastian to travel on an airplane with bags of blood. She was considerate that way. Squirrel Girl had laughed so hard when Sebastian told her about the ketchup. Squirrel Girl was majoring in chemical engineering, that was how she’d been able to invent this Very Special Glue, and wasn’t I impressed? Squirrel Girl’s name was Naomi. An especially pretty name, didn’t I think so, too? Squirrel Girl was reading a book about the history of the Marvel–DC Comics rivalry, which she was going to loan to Sebastian. Oh, look, her flight had landed! She’d texted; she was coming by train! She would meet us at the panel.
