He finishes tying his bow tie and comes to sit on the coffee table in front of me. “Okay, but I just want to give you a little piece of advice first.”
“I really don’t need any.”
“I know, but humor me?”
“Ooh, Space Dad has advice!” Annie says, clapping her hands. “This has to be good!”
“Speak wisdom to us,” Quinn agrees.
Why are my friends like this?
Dad leans forward, his elbows on his knees, and says, “Amara up, Rosebud.” Then he stands, grabs his keys from the bowl on the end table, and leaves. When he’s gone, the apartment is quiet, until he starts up his beat-up Ford and it chugs out of the complex. Quinn and Annie exchange a confused look. “Amara up?”
“Princess Amara, maybe?”
Amara up, Rosebud.
Mom used to say that to me all the time when I was afraid to do something. She would kneel down to me, tap me on the nose, and say in that gravelly voice of hers, “Amara up,” every time I tried to let my what-ifs and anxieties get in the way.
Amara wouldn’t sit at home, dateless and alone, instead of going to a dance. She’s the princess of the Noxian Empire, the purveyor of justice, the hope of a dying star. She wouldn’t cower, and she wouldn’t hide. She would go—alone, if she had to.
What am I doing, letting Vance Reigns dictate how I live my life? So he pissed me off, so he blames me, so he’s making me go to this dance alone—this is my Homecoming Dance. And my best friend is going to be crowned Homecoming Overlord and they’re thinking of staying home with my sorry ass and—
I push myself to my feet and turn back to my two friends on the couch. “We’re going.” I force the words out.
Annie and Quinn blink up at me.
“Wait, what?” Annie asks. “But I thought—”
“We were going to stay here and watch Starfield reruns,” Quinn finishes.
“Sure, we can do that—after I see Garrett’s face when you take the crown from him,” I reply, and march off toward my room to squeeze into my dress and sharpen my eyeliner to kill—because I’m going out.
I TIE MY TIE—THE PERFECT SHADE OF BLUE, reminding me too much of Darien’s Carmindor uniform—at my throat in the car mirror. My hands are shaking. The night is cool but I am sweating so badly I keep tugging at my collar to make sure it’s not sticking. “I don’t even know if she’s going to be there. What if she doesn’t come?”
“She’ll be there,” Imogen replies, and resituates herself in the car. “It’s us who might not get there,” she adds under her breath, and slams on the horn again. We’re stuck in traffic a mile from the gymnasium, at least per Google, and it doesn’t seem to be moving at all. We’re sitting, at a standstill, in the middle of town, to the point where people are beginning to park and walk to Homecoming from here. In the back seat, her boyfriend, Ethan, is lying down over the seats, tapping his phone mercilessly because the gas station beside us is a Pokémon gym and he is relentless, if not predictable.
I give her a sidelong look. “But how do you know?”
“That we won’t get there? Well, the traffic—”
“No, Rosie.”
“I have it on good faith.”
“Good faith?” I frown. “Is this the same good faith that told you where I lived?”
“No, that was TMZ,” she replies, and mutters something heated under her breath. She lays on the horn again. “C’mon! What’s the holdup?”
I would rather wait in this traffic for eternity, but I know that’s only an option for cowards and Vance-of-a-month-ago, which in a Venn diagram is a circle. I smooth out the front of my tuxedo, trying to keep my patience.
Rosie won’t stay at the dance the whole night. She hates dances.
This feels like another choice in my dating sim app—
You are stuck on the main road in and out of town, and time is of the essence. The girl who has made you feel more human than anyone else you’ve ever met is waiting there, but she may be gone by the time you arrive. What do you do?
→ See what the traffic jam is.
→ Wait. Because if you miss her at Homecoming, then it was fate that you didn’t deserve her to begin with.
→ Get out of the car and run to her, you bloody prat!
“Maybe if I—Vance, where are you going?” Imogen asks as I open the door and get out. The autos aren’t moving, and I doubt they will for a while. I don’t have time to sit here in this traffic, on the only road in and out of town.
I loosen my tie. “I’ll get there from here,” I say, and lean back into the car to add, “Thanks—for everything.”
Ethan sits up in the back seat. “Did Vance just thank us?”
“Write that down, Ethan, it’s a miracle—”
I close the door before I can hear the rest of Imogen’s smart comment and begin to jog down the middle lane between the autos. But what if Rosie’s already there? What if she’s leaving? She asked me to Homecoming, and I never gave her an answer. I should have—
I shouldn’t have doubted her.
My feet begin to move faster.
I shouldn’t have thought the worst.
I trip, but I right myself. I start taking longer strides.
She deserves better than that.
She deserves better.
I don’t realize that I’m running until my lungs begin to burn and sweat prickles my forehead, but I don’t stop. I’ve run for the last month around this minuscule town. I always ran while she was there, I ran to get away, I ran so I wouldn’t have to deal with her.
I know the irony now that I’m running toward her.
I don’t want to miss her—I can’t. There are so many things I have done wrong in my life so far, and so many things I never bothered to apologize for, or fix. But I want to start.
At the next cross street, I find her school. When I think of American high schools, I imagine something along the lines of Riverdale or Gossip Girl or—I hate to admit it—Seaside Cove.
Rosie’s high school is nothing of the sort. It is a sprawling brick building with trailers out back for more classrooms, I suspect, and a breezeway that links to the local technology center. The gymnasium is near the back of the campus, towering like some blocky colossal god, the mural of a pouncing wildcat painted on its front, but tonight there is a banner blocking most of the mural, fluttering above the entrance to the gym, that reads GARDEN OF MEMORIES, which, I suppose, is this year’s theme.
How bloody kitschy.
The parking lot is packed with autos. Students make their way to the front of the gymnasium in everything from chinos to boat shorts to tuxes, and I feel as though I have been slightly punked, since I am wearing none of those. All of these people should make my skin itch, but I barely notice them.
I barely care that they stare at me as I race up the steps to the front of the gymnasium, my hair sticking to my sweaty neck. After I catch my breath, I right myself and adjust my jacket. It’s the first time I’ve worn anything other than shorts and a hoodie in a month and a half, and I feel weirdly exposed in a formfitting tux.
This feels like a scene from one of Rosie’s books, except—despite Imogen’s insistence—I’m not sure if Amara is waiting inside.
“TICKET?” THE BORED PARENT at the table in front of the gym asks, and I hand her one. Mine. She tears off the admittance side and hands it back to me, and Quinn and Annie hand her their tickets. A soft pop-rock beat thuds through the doors into the gymnasium, and I hesitate at the threshold.
Garrett’s going to be in there. I know he is, and I’m going to have to face him alone—
Annie and Quinn loop their arms through mine.
“Ready?” Annie asks.
I nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
And with my two best friends on my arms, I step into Homecoming. The three of us
, together. Which, come to think of it, is probably how I should’ve gone to Homecoming to begin with. The theme for this year is Garden of Memories, and the best memories I’ve ever had are with my best friends. Like a good bra, they lift me up to stand tall.
The gym is dark and there are cutouts of hedges circling the bleachers, where a few other people who also came alone sit. I don’t see Garrett anywhere, and for the moment I’m so glad my chest burns. The lights pulse with the beat of the DJ on the stage, and parents line the edges of the dance floor.
Dad’s talking with another chaperone, and I wave at him. He smiles, happy, and mouths, You look killer.
I smile back, even though all of these people are beginning to make my skin prickle.
I’m not really the dancing sort of person. This isn’t my scene at all. There’s a reason why I escaped the ExcelsiCon Ball when I could. There are too many people, and too-loud music. My friends must notice my discomfort, because Quinn squeezes my hand.
“Do you need to go?” they mouth.
I shake my head. No, not until I see Quinn crowned. I can last that long. So Annie and Quinn lead me out onto the dance floor, even though I can feel that some people are staring—how many of them went online last night to look up the lies on TMZ? The video? The hot takes about how I was coerced into working for Vance Reigns? I want to tell them all that he isn’t like that; that yes, he sometimes makes some very stupid mistakes, but he wants to get better—and why can’t people let him?
If you aren’t allowed to grow, then what’s the point of changing at all?
Even after all of this, I believe that. Not that he has a chance in hell with me now, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. If I ever see him again I’m going to punch him right in the—
“Ooh, I love this song!” Annie shouts at us, and shimmies in her purple dress. I’m terrible at dancing, and I mostly just weave back and forth, but my best friends take me by my hands and spin me around, and I find myself laughing at it all. Because the last few months have been so incredibly confusing. I fell in love with a boy in a mask whose name I didn’t know. I was asked to Homecoming by one of the most popular guys in school because he felt sorry for me. I fought my way into a Starfield library. I destroyed a nearly priceless book. My best friend decided to run for Homecoming Overlord. I became friends with the most notorious bad boy of the internet.
And he gave me back a piece of my mother I thought was lost forever.
If this is where this chapter ends, I wouldn’t really mind, because now I know I have plenty more chapters to write. I thought my story ended when my mom died—because I didn’t think there was a book without her.
Because I know it was just the ending of a chapter. It was the close of part one. Even though Mom is gone, she’s still in every word of my story, because hers lives on in me. It lives on in the books that she read, and the ones she shared, and the people she met. Like mine will. There is a whole universe out there waiting to tell our stories. And for the first time since she left, life doesn’t feel like the end of a sentence. It feels like a prologue, and I have my two best friends beside me to follow wherever that adventure takes me.
And that, I decide, is what my college application essay will be about.
After the next song, the music quiets, and the principal climbs onto the stage with a bunch of note cards. She clears her throat and leans into the microphone. “Hello, students, I’m glad to see you all here tonight. Go, Wildcats!”
The student body cheers.
“Now’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our Homecoming King and Queen!”
Everyone cheers. I take Quinn by their hand and squeeze it tightly. They squeeze back. “Just so you know,” I whisper, “even if Garrett wins, you’re still Homecoming Overlord to me.”
The principal opens the letter. “And our Homecoming King and Queen are…”
Annie and I lean close to Quinn, hoping, praying—
“Garrett Taylor and Myrella Johnson!” she reads, and she sounds a little disappointed. My stomach feels like a lead rock in my toes. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear Garrett crow and make his way up to the stage.
Annie and I press our cheeks onto Quinn’s shoulders. They sigh. “Well, we tried.”
“I just want to thank you for voting for me,” Garrett says, before the Homecoming Queen takes the microphone out of his hands.
“This is a dream come true, thank you so much,” Myrella cries into the microphone, and honestly I’m relieved she won. “My mother took this crown, and I’m so happy that I get to have it, too. I can’t wait to tell her.” There is a commotion near the back of the gym, and I glance over my shoulder to see what’s wrong, but I’m cursed with shortness and I can’t see beyond the sea of heads. “And I just want to thank our King tonight, Garrett Taylor—”
“Congrats, you deserve it.” Garrett takes the microphone from her again, ignoring her professed love, which is a little awkward, honestly. He hops down off the stage and makes his way toward me. “Rosie, may I have this dance?” he asks, and outstretches his hand.
My skin prickles as all eyes turn to me.
No one else knows that he leaked that video of Vance from my phone, but I don’t think pointing that out will do anything. He just won’t quit, will he? I open my mouth to tell him just where he can shove that date of his—
“Thorne!”
The voice cuts through the crowd. I know it. Deep, crackly at the edges, with the softest hint of a British accent. No, it can’t be.
My heart slams against the side of my rib cage.
I turn around, and there he is in the sea of people, dressed in a blue tux that’s a little bit too small for him, but he makes it work in a way that makes my stomach twist. I swallow the knot in my throat. His hair is wild, pushed back out of his face, his tie loose and suit disheveled. His chest heaves, as if he ran to get here. I always thought he was beautiful, but it just now hits me—like a ton of bricks. It hits me after I resigned myself to never seeing him again in person, to him leaving on a jet plane back to his life, leaving me here in the middle of nowhere.
But here he is.
In nowhere.
For me.
“Vance Reigns?” Garrett laughs into the microphone.
“Vance Reigns?” someone else whispers.
“…the Vance Reigns?”
“Who the hell is he?”
“Isn’t that Sond?”
Garrett grins, and it’s the kind of shit-eating grin I want to punch off his smug face. “What are you doing here, buddy? Here to ruin our night, too?”
A dangerous look flickers across Vance’s cornflower eyes. He begins to roll up his sleeves. “I assume you’re Garrett?”
“Yeah, and you aren’t supposed to be here—aah!” He dodges the first swing and scurries away. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done back in the diner when I first met you,” he grinds out, trying to grapple for him again. Wait—at the diner? So they’ve met before? I stare, gape-mouthed, at them as they, well—I guess you would call it fighting? But this is less like a fight and more like…well. They’re trying to kick and punch each other but they don’t want to get hit so they’re definitely not landing any blows and it just looks very anticlimactic.
And kind of pathetic.
Two guys are fighting over me, and I’m not even impressed.
“All right, all right, just gimme a moment,” Garrett says, pushing Vance off him. Vance eases back a little, smoothing back his hair. “You know, you surprised me. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“I surprised myself, too.”
“Then maybe you should leave!” Garrett leaps at him, again catching him off-guard, and grabs Vance by the hair. They go spiraling toward the refreshment table, slam into the side of it, and flip over it, taking the cat
ering with them. The chaperones are clawing their way through the students watching, but none of them will get here in time.
“Should we stop it?” Annie asks.
“I don’t know. I’m sort of rooting for Vance,” Quinn replies thoughtfully. “He likes Rosie the way she is and he gave her a freaking library.”
“Yes, but he apparently doesn’t trust her.”
“But Garrett thinks negging is flirting,” Quinn replies.
“Oof, this is a hard one to call.”
I look to the rafters. “This is ridiculous,” I mutter, and pry Annie and Quinn’s arms from around me. Then I step up and grab Garrett by the shoulder as he rises to stand again. “Hey, asshole.”
He spins around, his face crumbling into anger. There is a mini-donut stuck to the front of his tux. He says, “I can’t believe he has the nerve to show up here and—”
My dad taught me a lot of things. He taught me how to ride my first bike. He taught me how to rhyme in iambic pentameter. He taught me how to put books back where they belong on the library shelves.
But my mother taught me how to punch. Thumb out, fingers curled in, reel back with your body weight and—
To be fair, I probably should’ve warned him before I postmarked his nose to the North Pole, but I don’t like him enough to bat an eye at his future in modeling. I just send my fist flying into his face. He stumbles back as his nose starts gushing blood all down the front of his stark white tuxedo.
I shake my hand out, hissing in pain. Mom never told me how much punching actually hurts.
He holds his nose, cursing. He glares at me, then at Vance, disheveled, beside me. “What does he have that I don’t?” he asks.
“The ability to take no for an answer,” I reply, and then I steel myself, and I turn around and I face the boy who broke my heart. “But he better have a good reason to interrupt my Homecoming.”
PANIC CLAWS UP MY THROAT. She’s absolutely frightening when she’s angry. The way her eyebrows furrow, crinkling the skin between them, her bowlike lips turned down into the most disdainful frown. I should leave, I think, but as I turn around to escape out the side exit I came in from—preferably not running—Rosie turns to me, in that golden dress as beautiful as a sun—the same color, I imagine, Amara would have worn on page three hundred forty-seven of The Starless Throne.
Bookish and the Beast Page 21
