My throat tightens, but I force out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“You keep saying that. You know I didn’t release that video. I wouldn’t.”
I wince. “I know. That’s why I’m here. To apologize. I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I should’ve trusted you.”
“Yeah,” she replies, “you should have.”
I stare down at the ground, because I can feel all her classmates looking at me, I can hear them whispering, judging, though that shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. It’s par for the course for my life in LA. But this isn’t LA.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, “and I know that isn’t going to be enough, but before I leave I just wanted to tell you the truth.” And I take a deep breath. My fingers are shaking. Everything is shaking. “I like to read now because I imagine your voice in every word, and I like how happy you look in that library, and I like how you’re so stubborn, and I like how you make me want to be better, and I like how you don’t give me an inch when I mess up and—”
“Get to the point,” a redhead interrupts impatiently, and the teal-haired person beside them ribs them in the side with a look.
“The point is,” and I swallow the knot in my throat. Why is this so much harder than anything I’ve ever done before? “The point is—I’m here because I want to dance with you. Once. As myself. No masks, no fake accents, no pretenses, but now that I’m here I realize how absolutely entitled that sounds and so I just—I’m an idiot, Rosie. I’m an idiot and I love you, and I’ll understand if you tell me no, and I’ll go away, and I’ll never bother you aga—”
She presses a finger to my lips. Everyone around us begins to whisper. I see her father out of the corner of my eye, watching us carefully. I want to tell her that she is the kind of story I have been looking for, and I want to be a part of it.
So, so badly.
And I’m here, standing in the middle of this dark gymnasium, hoping that she wants me still in hers, too.
She slowly drops her fingers from my mouth, cups my face, and smiles.
“THERE YOU ARE,” I SAY.
He tilts his head into my hand. “Here I am,” he echoes back, and squeezes his eyes shut. I rub a tear off his cheek with my thumb. His chest shudders, like he’s trying to keep himself from crying.
Oh, you stupid boy.
I want to tell him that he should have talked to me. I want to tell him that it will be okay. I want to tell him that I forgive him, and that in an infuriating way it was sweet that he wanted to protect me, and also kick him in the shins for thinking that I couldn’t protect myself.
But none of those words seem right in this moment.
“Sir! Excuse me, you don’t have a ticket, you can’t be here,” one of the flustered parents says, finally clawing his way through the students to get to us. “I’ll have to politely ask you to leave.”
I give Vance a wide-eyed look. “You broke in?”
“I didn’t have a ticket,” he replies sheepishly.
“Sir,” the parent tries again.
“He’s my date,” I reply, and when the parent again repeats that he doesn’t have a ticket, I pull the extra one out from the hidden pocket of my dress, which is probably the second-best part of my dress. The first being the neckline. Because I have definitely, totally caught Vance sneaking a look at it. “He just forgot his ticket.”
“Date?” someone mutters.
“Vance Reigns?”
“But didn’t he coerce her?”
“Who’s going to tell her this is Stockholm syndrome?”
The parent takes the ticket and tears off the admittance side, and balefully hands it back to us. I don’t know if Vance takes the ticket, because I can’t quite believe he’s here.
“I’m sorry,” he says, soft and uncertain, “for yesterday. I know I’ll have to win back your trust, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but…can you let me try? Or start to try? Or—”
“Vance,” I interrupt, and he gives me a hesitant look, before I grab his cravat and pull him down toward me. “Amara up.”
And I kiss him under the starry lights of Homecoming.
SIX MONTHS LATER.
It’s the perfect night for a double feature. The skies are clear and the stars are bright, and it’s just cold enough to still need a blanket and snuggle up with your friends and eat nachos with plastic cheese and warm pretzels. The back of Quinn’s truck is parked in the dead center of the drive-in, in the perfect spot to watch the double feature of Starfield and Starfield: Resonance.
“I really hope this is gonna be good,” Annie says as she reaches over to steal a nacho from Quinn.
“No pressure or anything,” Vance mumbles, pulling the blanket tighter around us. He shivers. “It’s so bloody cold—why are drive-ins charming, again?”
“Your spoiled is showing,” I remind him, and he mutters something to himself and puts his cheek on my shoulder. “And I’m sure the movie will be fantastic.”
I’m not just saying that because we’re sharing a flatbed truck with Darien Freeman and Elle Wittimer, either, though we most definitely are. I’m trying not to stare at them too much, but honestly how can I not stare? It’s Darien Freeman! With Elle! And they’re holding hands! There hasn’t been any official news in the media about them getting back together, and I’ve had to stop Annie from asking more than a few times tonight, but honestly I want to know.
“Why couldn’t Jess come?” Elle asks.
Imogen rolls her eyes. “You know her,” she says. “She’s supporting her girlfriend’s art exhibit in Chicago this weekend.” She takes a pack of Twizzlers out of her purse, breaks open the package, and sticks one in Ethan’s mouth. “There’s no Pokémon out here, babe.”
“I know.” He sighs. “I guess I’ll just have to converse with all of you instead.”
“What a travesty,” she agrees sarcastically.
The large screen at the front of the drive-in flickers, and an animated popcorn scene jumps to life.
“Ooh, it’s starting!” Annie taps Quinn on the leg and tells Darien, “Turn on the radio!”
He reaches up behind him and fiddles with the dial. As he does, I take out a letter from my back pocket and I show it to Vance. In surprise, he also shows me a folded-up piece of paper.
“Oh, you too?” I ask, and we trade papers.
He opens mine, first. His breath catches. “You got in?”
“Full ride,” I reply, smiling. “Your girlfriend’s about to be an English major at NYU.”
“I’m so proud of you.” He laughs and kisses my forehead. “I knew that nerdy head of yours was good for something.”
“Hey! I expect you to come visit.”
“Visit? My stepfather owns an apartment in SoHo. I might just move in. Always fancied New York City.”
I roll my eyes. “Ugh, I forgot how lucky you rich kids are.”
He laughs as I elbow him in the side, and motions to the folded-up paper in my hand. “Your turn.”
My fingers are tingling with anticipation. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I have a guess…If the rumor boards are right, then he might not be able to come visit me for a while. I unfold the piece of paper. First, I see the screenwriter, and then the logo. It looks like the first page of a script. But what script could it be?
Then I see the title.
THE STARLESS—
I gasp.
“Ugh, quiet down back there!” Annie complains as I hide the title page from view. “You’re making us miss the previews.”
Vance puts a finger to his grinning mouth, and I settle into the nook between his head and shoulder. “I hear the villain’s quite good in this one,” he mumbles into my ear, and I feel my mouth spreading into a grin.
“Worthy of a sequel?” I ask.
“Worthy of a redemption arc, at the ver
y least.”
The speakers hiss with white noise before Darien finds the station, and the triumphant Starfield theme trumpets from the boom box. The projector flings stars across the weathered screen, swirling into cosmoses, taking us into another impossible world, and I think—
Mom, you were right.
This isn’t the end of my story. It’s the beginning.
To my Rosebud,
This is only the beginning of your story, not the end.
With all my love,
Mom
“What now, ah’blena?”
Amara looks out over the impossible expanse of stars and sky, and there are so many places to see, worlds to explore. Carmindor’s Prospero streaks across the sky, on its way to some other destination in the far-off regions of the Federation. With him, a little of her heart leaves, but it leaves room, too.
For new people.
For new loves.
For new impossibilities.
“The universe is wide,” she replies as she turns on her heel, and even in the darkness of the observation deck, Ambrose’s white-gold hair glows like a crown of starlight. “And I have a kingdom to rule.”
Then she snakes her fingers into the buttons between his uniform and pulls him close to her. He quirks a singular golden eyebrow. She reaches up on her tiptoes and plants a kiss against his strong jawline.
He asks, “Where to, Princess?”
“The stars.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
OKAY SO, CONFESSION: I love Beauty and the Beast. I love it more than peanut butter, more than coffee shop AUs, more than the G note in Welcome to the Black Parade, more than Yuri!!! On Ice. I’ve consumed so many versions of Beauty and the Beast over the years—sort of like in fanfic, when you really like one particular trope (the angry bad boy ends up being soft Hufflepuff trope), you go hunting for them all. You become well-versed in what you really love (famous actor meets small-town nobody trope), and what you want to recreate (that one scene in Howl’s Moving Castle), and what you can’t live without (the getting caught in the rain trope). And you just…run with them.
And this book? It’s all of the pieces of my favorite things. It’s the soft parts of Beauty and the Beast that I love, and the hijinks of a small-town romance.
I wrote this book for me.
So, if you didn’t really enjoy this book, that’s okay! You’ll find one that you love. Like hunting through AO3, sometimes it takes a little time before you find that story that feels like your favorite song. And if you can’t find it? Then write it! Never let anyone tell you different.
Stories—fiction, extended universe tie-in novels, drabbles on Tumblr, AO3 one-shots, a dusty library bookshelf—they bring us together. We might not all like the same things. Some of us like heroes, some villains, some the Byronic brooding idiots in-between, and that’s the kind of magic that makes a bookshelf full of impossibility.
And there is always room for more.
My stories would have never been possible without my agent, Holly Root, and my editor Alex Arnold, who sharpened and honed my wild ideas into book-form, and all of the wonderful people at Quirk, past and present, who have given me the opportunity to tell a few impossible stories and fill them with all of my favorite fanfiction tropes: Blair Thornburgh, Nicole De Jackmo, and Kelsey Hoffman. Thank you to copy editor extraordinaire Amy J. Schneider, project editor Jane Morley, and designers Elissa Flanigan and Molly Rose Murphy. Thanks to Shae McDaniel who came up with the fantastic title for this book. And to Nicole Brinkley, who told me this story needed a dog.
And lastly, thank you, dear reader, for helping me make impossible stories.
Look to the stars. Aim. Ignite!
ASHLEY POSTON loves dread pirates, moving castles, and starry night skies. When not geeking out at comic cons, she lives in South Carolina with her cat named Pepper. She is the author of the Heart of Iron duology, as well as the Once Upon a Con series. She can be found online at ashposton.com.
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ONCE UPON A CON SERIES
Geekerella
The Princess and the Fangirl
Bookish and the Beast
MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Hollow City
Library of Souls
Bookish and the Beast Page 22
