Bookish and the Beast

by Ashley Poston

  One can only hope.

  I hold my breath and creep up the stairs.

  When I reach the top, the entire floor is quiet, and I realize I don’t quite know which room is Vance’s. Which…I guess I should’ve asked Mr. Rodriguez about before we hung up. There aren’t that many rooms in the house, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. The first room on the left is sparse and neat, with a bed in the far corner, covers turned down and pillows fluffed. This must be Mr. Rodriguez’s room, neat and orderly just like him. There is a photograph of him and an older woman who looks like she might be his abuela, but otherwise the room is empty, save for the neatly hung clothes in the closet.

  They really aren’t planning to stay here very long.

  The other three rooms are an office, an unused bedroom, and a bathroom. But no book. The last door at the end of the hall is cracked open, and I give a tentative knock before I poke my head inside.

  As I thought, it’s Vance’s bedroom, and it looks like a hurricane went through it. The gray comforter is bunched in the middle of the bed, and the pillows are strewn haphazardly across it, like someone who has a hard time getting to sleep. There are clothes piled on the floor and a fifty-inch TV screen with the television logo softly bouncing from one corner to the other. There’s a gaming console hooked up to it, and a Game Boy lying on the floor, screen glowing as a Pikachu wiggles left to right, ready to fight a Hitmonchan. The eight-bit Indigo League music that flooded my childhood sings softly from its mini-speakers.

  Huh, I didn’t realize he played video games. Or that he was that much of a nerd. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling because I will not smile for Vance Reigns. I will not. I wholeheartedly refuse.

  Now where is that book?

  I cautiously begin to pick over his things, feeling a bit like Indiana Jones stealing some precious artifact from a remote region he definitely doesn’t belong in, but it isn’t on his nightstand, or his couch, or his bookshelf.

  As I turn toward the dresser, a black mask catches my eye. As I creep closer, even in the darkness of the room, I recognize it. Because it hasn’t changed in the month since I’ve seen it. It actually feels like yesterday. But it can’t be the same one, can it? Outlined in glimmering gold, speckled with the constellation of Ambrose Sond’s home galaxy.

  No, it can’t be.

  But who else would have—

  “What are you doing in here?”

  A knot forms in my throat.

  Slowly, I glance over my shoulder, his mask in my hands.

  Vance stands in the doorway in dark gray sweatpants and a cotton T-shirt spread tight over his shoulders. There are spots of sweat on his chest and under his arms, and his platinum hair is pulled up into a bun, stray hairs plastered to his neck. At his heels is Sansa, sitting with her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth, fresh from a run.

  He looks like I feel—surprised and betrayed and…

  It can’t be him.

  It can’t be.

  As my mind denies, denies, and denies again, his eyes sharpen until they could cut through the space-time continuum and blast me into the netherverse. “What are you doing in my room?”

  “I—I came to look for—for…”

  For a book.

  Not you.

  And at the same time I think, I found you.

  I wasn’t looking.

  But I found you.

  “Please leave,” he says, stepping out of the doorway. His voice is surprisingly soft, and the edges are shaking. As if I’d stumbled upon a secret he never wanted me to know.

  But why?

  My mind is reeling as I make my way out of his room.

  He clears his throat, and I glance back. “The mask,” he says, outstretching his hand.

  Oh—I’m still holding it?

  I quickly give it back to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He holds it tight to his chest. “Because I’m not who you pictured, am I?”

  No, definitely not. Not at all. But the guy I did picture—lovely and patient and kind—has evaporated from my imagination, leaving nothing but the raw look of an unwashed Vance Reigns in his wake. “I—I don’t know what I pictured,” I manage to say.

  Which is a lie.

  And he knows it. He reads me like an open book.

  He scoffs. “Oh, I’m sure I’m exactly who you pictured then, aren’t I? Vance Reigns, the guy who can’t get one thing right, who ruins everything, who screws up every good thing he gets.”

  Oh.

  “You aren’t denying it,” he adds to my silence.

  I bite the inside of my cheek again and whirl back around on my heel to leave. If I say anything else, I know I’ll regret it. I’m angry and confused and wishing I hadn’t come up here at all. If I hadn’t, then I would’ve never found out the truth. The spell wouldn’t be broken.

  And it occurs to me—

  He probably thinks the same.

  He realized it was me, and wished he hadn’t.

  I hurry down the stairs. I’ll tell Mr. Rodriguez I had to leave early today. I don’t want to stay anymore. My eyes are burning and I refuse—refuse—to cry in front of this jackass. But I can’t seem to shake him, either, because he follows quick on my heels.

  “Wait a moment,” he says as I leave.

  “Fine! You’re right! You aren’t what I pictured—” As I whirl back to him, I don’t realize how close my heel is to the edge of the step until I no longer feel the ground, and by then it’s far too late. Try as I might, pinwheeling my arms, I can’t keep myself from falling backward—so I grab onto the only thing I can:

  Vance Reigns.

  And I pull him down with me.

  WITH A PAINFUL GROAN, I roll off my side and onto my back. I had to twist myself to the side so I wouldn’t land on top of her, and my shoulder stings from the impact. I suck in a painful breath and push myself to sit up, and once I figure that I’m not broken anywhere, I turn around and snap at her, “Can’t you stop falling off things for two seconds!”

  But she’s already trying to get to her feet—and something’s wrong. She’s leaning too heavily against the wall, favoring her right foot, but she’s still trying to walk. Her back is turned to me so I can’t see her face. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m rushing to my feet.

  “Oi, you’re hurt,” I say, reaching for her elbow to steady her.

  She wrenches away from my touch, her eyes wide. Tears fleck her long brown eyelashes, and they make me pause. She’s crying. I’ve never been very good with people crying. She quickly rakes her hands over her eyes, smudging her liner.

  “I’m leaving, d-don’t worry—” She tries to take another step, but her ankle gives.

  I catch her, and bend down, pulling my other arm underneath her legs, and swoop her up into my arms. She yelps and wraps her arms tightly around my neck. If she tells me to put her down, I will, but she doesn’t, so I carry her over to the couch and set her down on the cushions, before I go find an ice pack. Elias put one in the refrigerator a while ago when he burned his hand in the oven. I hope it’s still—ah, there it is, right on top of the peas, where he left it. I grab it, and the first-aid kit underneath the sink, and quickly return to the living room, where she’s trying to get up off the couch.

  “Sit,” I command.

  “I’m not a dog,” she snaps in reply, to which Sansa—being a good girl on her dog bed in the corner of the living room—gives a haroomp and flops over.

  I try again: “Please sit down.”

  She hesitates, halfway between standing and leaning on the couch for support, but she must weigh her options in favor of sitting, because she slowly sinks back down onto the cushions. I go around the couch and sit opposite her, reaching for her foot, when she knocks my hand away.

  “Do you want me to look at your foot or not?”

&
nbsp; “Not would be preferable.”

  “I should at least take a look at the swelling,” I say.

  She hesitates again, and then she squares her shoulders and gives a single nod.

  I gently lift her foot to my lap. “Elias taught me,” I say before she can ask. “Said if I wanted to do my own stunts, might as well learn how to treat myself, too. He went to school for nursing. Said it wasn’t his calling—not enough pain-in-the-ass rich white kids.”

  “I can’t believe he gave up nursing to be your babysit—ah!” she gasps as I feel the underside of her foot, and bites her bottom lip hard enough to leave a white bloodless indentation.

  “Well, good news,” I say after a moment, running my fingers gently along her ankle. “I think it’s fatal.”

  She gives me a withering look. “You’re the worst.”

  “So I’m always reminded. I think it’s only sprained, but when Elias comes back we can take you to the emergency room.”

  She looks away, frowning. “I think it’ll be fine.”

  “It might not be.”

  To that she huffs, but she doesn’t rebuke me again. I gently wrap her ankle with an Ace bandage and prop it up on the coffee table, and go rifling into the first-aid box. “Want some pain relievers? Are you allergic to anything?”

  “You.”

  I offer her a bottle of ibuprofen and the ice pack. “Who isn’t?”

  She frowns, shifting uncomfortably again, though I can’t tell whether it’s from her ankle or something else. “…Are you okay?” she finally asks.

  That surprises me. “Oh. Yeah. Of course I am.”

  The garage door opens, and Elias comes in, laden with two bags of groceries. “Is that Rosie’s car still out front?” He rounds into the kitchen when he sees us on the couch in the living room. Then he notices the ice on her ankle, and the first-aid box, and drops the groceries on the ground. He turns an accusing eye to me. “What did you do?”

  I give him a withering look.

  Honestly, not everything is my fault.

  Except for, maybe, this.

  THE POLITE (AND INCREDIBLY HOT) ER NURSE said that my ankle was sprained, so he gave me crutches and told me not to lean on my foot too much over the next few days. Which meant that I would go from uncool to super uncool, especially when my dad insisted on taking me to school, which was mortifying enough when your dad is the Super Hot Dad that everyone thirsts over (the last time he graced the halls was for an open house, and the theater kids nearly erected a shrine in his honor), but because I picked Quinn and Annie up every morning, he also offered to take them to school, too.

  I want to die.

  “Space Dad taking us to school is a blessing in disguise,” Annie says with a sigh, pressing her hands together in prayer. “My crops are watered and my skin is clear.”

  I wish I could hobble faster into the school, but alas, crutches only have one speed—painstakingly slow. In the carpool lane, Dad pokes his head out of the window and yells, “Make good choices! Bye, Rosebud!”

  I try to ignore him, but Quinn and Annie wave back with, “Bye, Space Dad!”

  Traitors.

  As Dad pulls away—earning a few looks from some of my classmates in the drop-off area—Quinn and Annie catch up to me. A part of me wonders if I can just toss the crutches and deal with the pain, but as soon as I try to stand on my foot, a sharp jab shoots up my ankle. Nope—no. Bad idea, abort mission.

  Quinn holds the breezeway door open for me as I navigate my crutches inside, Annie bringing up the rear. “Hey, maybe Space Dad can do a PSA for me and I can get it aired on the morning announcement,” they say.

  Annie gasps. “That’s an excellent idea!”

  “No, it’s not,” I deadpan, but neither of them listens to me as they slowly meander with me to my and Annie’s lockers. “Y’all—aaahh—” My nose tickles, and I let out a sneeze that almost tips me over my crutches.

  “Whoa there,” Annie says, steadying me. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”

  I sniff and rub my nose. “The ER was crawling with snot-year-olds last night.”

  Quinn makes a crossing motion with their fingers toward me. “Don’t give it to me! I have to go on the announcements tomorrow morning for a Homecoming thing, and the Space Dad PSA was a joke.”

  “Oh, so I can’t snot all over you?”

  “Negatory, Bob—oh, that reminds me.” They fish something out of their backpack and hold it up to me triumphantly. “Here, take this. My mom swears by it. Remember when I got that cold this summer? I took this and—”

  “It kicked the demons right out,” Annie fills in.

  “Something like that,” Quinn agrees. “It works.”

  I flip over to the back of the packet and read the ingredients. “This is basically orange sugar water.”

  “Don’t spill it on a white shirt,” they advise. “You can also dye things with it.”

  “And you want me to drink it?”

  “Well, if you don’t want it, give it back.”

  “I never said that.” I slip it into my back pocket. I’m not opposed to some questionable medicines, honestly, even if it is just glorified Kool-Aid. “Too bad it can’t heal my ankle.”

  Annie closes her locker and asks, “How did you end up spraining it, anyway?”

  I took a tumble down the stairs while trying to get away from Vance Reigns, who I found out was the guy I had been dreaming about for the last month, I want to say, but then that’ll just birth more questions, like What dreams? and When did you meet him? and Is that what you did when we couldn’t find you at ExcelsiCon?

  And I would rather not answer any of those questions. Not because I don’t love them, and trust them, but because…

  Because it was mine. The moment, the night. It was mine. I know that’s selfish, and it’s silly, but I was afraid that if I told them about Sond and that night, then it would just…disappear. That it would just become a thing that happened, not this magical dream that existed in my memories. I knew I’d never meet him again, and I’d never learn his name, and we’d go about our lives and never cross paths again and…

  Fool me once, universe. Fool me once.

  “I fell reaching for a book,” I lie.

  Quinn scrunches their nose. “Isn’t Vance supposed to help you?”

  I give a one-shouldered shrug. I don’t want to think about Vance. I don’t want to think about how long he’d known I was the girl from the ball, because then I’ll just think about why he didn’t say anything earlier, and isn’t the answer obvious? Because he didn’t like that it was me. That’s the only reason I can think of.

  I hike my bookbag onto my shoulder and push my crutches under my arms again. “Let’s get to class before we’re late—again.”

  * * *

  —

  A PART OF ME DOESN’T WANT TO GO into the castle-house today. Not even to see the books. And because I can’t drive—well, more like my dad refused to let me—he picks me up, having taken a late lunch, and drops me off at the estate. And I can’t tell him that I don’t want to go today because then I’d have to admit that I lied to him about how I broke my ankle, and he’s already rooting for me to quit—I think he still has his checkbook in his suit pocket to whip out at any moment—and as I keep saying:

  I am stubborn as hell. It’s part of my charm.

  He glances up the driveway as I open the door and toss my crutches out. “You know, Elias will probably let you off today if you want to just go home.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

  “But—”

  “I’m fine,” I repeat, pushing myself out of his car. I grab my bookbag and close the door behind me. Dad doesn’t linger for very long, because he’s on a rather tight lunch break, but he does give me one last look—to make sure that I’m certain—before he drives off.

&n
bsp; As I crutch my way up the driveway, I glance up to see if there’s any movement in Vance’s window, praying that he took Sansa out for a very long walk, and there’s nothing. Maybe he’s out exploring the town—for once.

  I head into the kitchen, where Mr. Rodriguez is checking on something in the oven. “Whatever you’re cooking smells incredible,” I tell him as I dump my bookbag on the island barstool.

  “It’s a secret tamale recipe passed down from my abuela,” he replies, wiping his hands on a towel that he then throws over his shoulder. He’s wearing a pale pink button-down today and gray chinos. “I made enough, if you want to stay for dinner.”

  “My dad’s expecting me home. We’re having Chinese tonight.”

  Mr. Rodriguez perks. “Oh? He cooks?”

  I laugh. “I wish! I’m picking up Chinese from the place down the street, is what I meant. Their egg rolls are to die for.”

  “Ooh, I’ve been meaning to try that place!”

  “Highly recommend.” And then—though I don’t know why—I add, “Maybe we can all do dinner one night and order out.”

  The moment those words leave my mouth, I think I should regret them, but I…don’t? Dad needs some friends, and Mr. Rodriguez looks about my dad’s age, but I really can’t tell with any man over twenty-five. They all look old to me, and it doesn’t help that he’s always smiling and whistling, and a part of me can’t believe that he hasn’t quit working for the likes of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named yet. He’s like a bubbly Hufflepuff.

  Then again, I heard Slytherins and Hufflepuffs go together like peas in a pod.

  Mr. Rodriguez grins. “I think that’s a great idea. We should plan that.”

  “I’ll let him know.” My watch beeps. Four o’clock. “I should probably get to work.”

  “Have fun!—Oh!” he adds as I turn toward the library. “The bathroom downstairs is out for the day. We’re having a plumber coming in to fix it but he hasn’t shown up yet,” Mr. Rodriguez says, wiping his hands on his KISS ME, I’M NOXIAN apron. “You can use Vance’s upstairs if you don’t mind the stairs? I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he adds, eyeing my crutches.