“That’s not—”
“To make sure I’m not ruining her career? Was that what you were going to say?”
His lips press into a thin line. He can’t meet my gaze.
Oh, I’m right.
I scoff. Of course I’m right. Why would he ever want to just be nice to me? “Don’t worry Ethan, I won’t screw up your precious Jessica Stone’s career.”
“You think that’s all I care about?” he asks, clenching his fists.
“Well, the writing’s on the wall, isn’t it?”
“You don’t know the first thing about Jessica—or me—and here you are coming in to our lives thinking you know everything. Thinking that you can just mess with Jess’s life—play in it like it’s this funhouse ride. It’s not, Imogen. Jess’s life is real.”
I purse my lips. “If it’s so important, then why let me mess in it to begin with?”
“Because Jess needs to—” But then he stops himself, and looks away. “She just needed this.”
“So I’m important enough to pretend to be Jessica, but I’m not important enough to know the real reason why,” I infer, and he doesn’t correct me.
He just folds his arms over his chest, looking more uncomfortable by the moment. Finally, he says, “You should get out before security comes by.”
“You mean before I can screw up Jess’s career?” I mock.
“It’s not like you can screw up your own,” he snaps cattily, but then realizes what he said. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant—”
Oh no, he’s said enough already. I push myself up the side and out of the pool. I grab the keycard and the wig I’d stashed behind the potted plant. “No, I get it. Don’t worry, Ethan,” I snap as I leave, and he just stands there helplessly. “I won’t screw up.”
I clutch the wig to my stomach as I make my way through the lobby, where con-goers mingle with friends, some with their costumes slowly melting off them, others in pajamas. No one glances at me, no one looks twice, even though I’m sopping wet and my dress leaves a liquid trail behind me. The people who do notice me probably just see a mess of a girl, waterlogged, with runny makeup and pink hair stuck up in a spiky crown around her head.
Don’t cry, I think, unable to get Ethan’s words out of my head. Why did they make me so angry?
I think I’m angrier at myself more than anything. Because I actually thought—
I let myself think—
Because he’s so freaking insufferable, I actually—
I elbow my way through the crowds, breathing deeply so I don’t outright cry, and reach the elevators. There is a difference between loving someone and stanning someone. I can stan Darien Freeman and Vance Reigns and Chris Pine and Cole Sprouse all I want, because at the end of the day I know it’s a one-sided affair. Yeah, I freak out over movie stars. I think they’re hot or cute or SUPER ADORABLE I MEAN COME ON.
But loving someone? That’s expecting them to love you back. I don’t expect love at first sight. That heart-crushing, soul-melting, foot-lifting sort of fairy-tale romance that The Princess Bride sells you. But liking would be nice. A nice warm like that assures you that you won’t be left out on the curb during a fairy-tale ball night without a Prince Charming or a pumpkin carriage.
In the universe of Imogen Lovelace, however, that’s an impossible thing.
I push the palm of my hand against my eyes, willing myself not to burst into tears as the elevator doors glide open.
“Monster?”
The familiar voice makes me look up, and there are Milo and Bran. My brother must recognize the look on my face because in one long step he’s out of the elevator and drawing me into his arms. I press my face into his chest and he smells like the Stellar Party—vape juice and Oh No—and I try really hard not to cry.
“Let’s go get some food—I’m thinking burgers,” Bran says, and I nod against Milo’s chest, and they lead me out of the lobby and down to a diner at the end of the street.
AS IT TURNS OUT, I WAS STARVING—but for more than just food. For company. For a quiet moment like this. Harper and I laugh and talk about all of the things that I never talk about with anyone: the latest trash mag gossip, the perfect eyeshadow palette, that YA rom-com that had the most adorable kiss. We talk about her family—it’s big and loud—and we talk about our favorite bands and childhood crushes.
I want to tell her everything about me. I want to tell her about my parents, and how since I became an actress they live in a big house in Nashville, and they come to visit me as often as they can, and my dad is a computer tech and my mom works with charities. I want to tell them about our dog, and about Ethan, and about how lonely it sometimes is in that posh LA apartment my agent found for me. I want to tell her how I miss going for hikes with my dad, and I want to tell her about that red carpet stumble, and what it was really like on the set of Starfield.
I want to prove that Jessica Stone is not the aloof, cold robot everyone thinks I am. I am not a serial dater. I simply never cared. It was so easy not to care because I’m not built that way.
I’m not built to take a random person into a bedroom, I’m not wired to want those things, and so it made all those dates and chaste kisses with celebrities so easy. It never went further than that. It was never falling in love—it was never even falling into like.
It’s a part to play, and so I played it.
What I am built for is falling in love slowly, page by page, like reading a favorite book. I am built for the nearness of someone, the quirk of their lips, the sincerity of their smile, the dreams just underneath their skin. I fall in love moment by moment, collecting who they are, who they were, who they want to be, into a kaleidoscope of colors.
I have only fallen in love once, and she left a hole in my heart the size of the universe. So I know the feeling, the strange beast in my stomach that shifts and growls whenever Harper laughs, whenever she says something snarky, whenever she calls me Imogen, because in my head I hear her calling me Jess.
I know this feeling, and I try to shove it down because this is not who I am. She is falling for nobody. For a girl who will be gone in the blink of an eye.
And I guarantee she will not like Jessica Stone.
“…And I swear to you,” Harper says with a laugh, telling a story about the ExcelsiCon ball last year, “it was like the entire place just canceled her. The girl went running out of the ballroom so fast, she tripped in the lobby and fell flat on her face. It was hysterical!”
“I kind of feel sorry for her. I didn’t know Darien could be that mean.”
“She was mean, too. Right down to the bone. Sage told me the whole story. If anything, that girl deserved what she got. She’s the reason Elle Wittimer’s called Geekerella. She wanted to be a beauty vlogger or something, but she’s working at her mom’s nail salon now.”
“It’s funny how sometimes we don’t end up where we think we will,” I remark.
Harper turns her dark gaze to me. “What would you do if you could do anything? Doesn’t matter if you’re talented at it or not.”
I don’t even have to think. “An astronomer.”
“Really now.”
“I love stars,” I say earnestly, and she bursts out laughing, which makes me smile sheepishly despite not knowing whether she’s laughing at me or—no, no it’s definitely at me. “Listen! I’m not kidding. I love everything about stars. I love proton stars and neuron stars and cosmic phenomena. If I could, I’d get Stephen Hawking’s equation describing black holes tattooed on me. That’s how much I love space.”
She wipes the tears from under her eyes. “You’re really serious, aren’t you.”
“Of course!” I jerk to my feet, taking her hand and pulling her up with me. She grabs her keycard as I pull her out the door, not even bothering to put on shoes. “Where are we going?”
“I’m showing you some stars,” I reply, and punch the elevator button for the top floor, where we head for the stairwell.
“Oh my God, we�
��re actually going up,” Harper says.
“I’m being totes serious right now.”
“Then you need to work on your fresh-from-Azkaban cosplay.”
“Or my drought-bringing-dog-star cosplay,” I reply.
“Ugh, nerrrdddd,” she drawls.
But it’s playful.
“I gladly take that compliment.”
“Neeeeerrrdddddddd!” she cries, her voice echoing down the stairwell as we climb to the top.
Most rooftops I’ve visited haven’t had alarmed doors, so I’m counting on this one being accessible when I shoulder it open and wedge a cement block so it doesn’t lock us out. The almost-midnight Atlanta skyline sparkles brightly around us, the city lights reflected off glass buildings that twist up like titans frozen in a dance of steel.
It’s so much quieter up here. I let go of Harper’s wrist and breathe in the humid air. Because of the light pollution, you can’t see as many stars as you can on my grandfather’s patch of land in Tennessee, where the sky is so wide you can almost fall into it, but this is a good enough view, for good enough people, on a good enough night. There are no trolls yelling in my mentions about how I’m not enough, no people dissecting how I play a character, or the way I say a word, or why I will never—no matter what I do—be good enough.
I think that’s why I dislike Elle just a little bit. She was one of those people. She tore into Dare without even knowing him, knowing how big a fan he is, or how passionate he will always be about Starfield. The internet makes it easy for us to forget that there are people on the other side of those characters, and whether you like us or not, we’re people too. So your hot take shouldn’t dehumanize me, or tell me that I’m wrong, or that I’m worthless, or a slut who slept on some casting couch for the role.
Because I’m none of those things. And it’s so, so hard to remember that when the internet just keeps echoing it back to you.
But up here there are no echoes and no trolls, and I am just a girl wearing her heart on her sleeve, staring at the sky, asking the universe—just for a moment—to be enough.
I orient myself and point to one of the brighter stars. “See, there he is. The Dog Star. And there’s Mars over there. And over here…” I spin around, not really noticing where I’m going—
—and collide with Harper.
She’s smiling, and looking up at the sky, too. “You know, most normal people don’t go looking up at the sky.”
“I never claimed to be normal,” I reply.
In the nighttime air, with buildings towering around us, thirty stories up and far above car horns and gossip and chatter, I look down—just briefly—to her, and she’s looking at me. In the darkness, her eyes look like pools of ink I could dip a pen into and write a ballad about the way she’s looking at me. My heart trembles as she takes my hand and laces her brown fingers through my pale ones.
“I think I finally see you, Imogen Lovelace,” she says.
It’s important to see that people like us exist. Her voice echoes in my head, along with Imogen’s.
But Princess Amara is dead, and she isn’t coming back.
Not even if I want her to.
And I don’t.
Do I?
I don’t have to wear that galaxy-glitter dress that pinches me under the arms. I don’t have to run in heels or dye my hair that god-awful red. Or actively ignore most social media because of the trolls. I don’t have to eat an inedible catered salad. I don’t have to listen to Dare complain about his uniform not being the right shade of blue. Or watch Amon act out a fight scene and stub his toe on a prop.
And I probably won’t meet Harper at another con. As Imogen, or as myself.
It was an accident that I met her here.
Almost impossible—
Impossible.
Things that would never happen in real life. A fangirl with wicked stepsisters and the actor she despises falling in love. A fashion designer and Geekerella’s stepsister finding each other. Colliding with your look-alike in a con bathroom at the edge of the world and falling for her internet friend.
Impossible.
I’m not Imogen Lovelace, I want to tell her, and now is the perfect time, when the stars are bright and the sky is wide, but the words catch on my tongue as I remember all those Instagram comments. The Twitter notifications.
What if she’s one of them?
Or what if she gets mad that I’ve lied to her this whole time and never wants to talk to me again? Is this how Dare felt when he had to confess to Elle? How did he get up the courage? I don’t know much about Harper, but I want to, and I’m afraid of all the things I’ll never get to know if I tell her who I am.
So like the scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding when the ship goes under the bridge—the moment passes and there’s no going back.
In reply, because I don’t know how to reply, because replying will break her heart, I squeeze her hand tightly and point up to a star and tell her its story because I can’t tell her mine.
Just a little while longer, I pray to the impossibilities. Let me be Imogen for a little while longer.
FOOD HELPS MY MOOD, AS DOES watching my brother inhale an All-Star Breakfast in five minutes flat. I swear to God he’s a black hole. Even Bran is slightly disgusted at the sight. There is nothing quite like it. Milo doesn’t ask why I was wet, or why I smell like a pool, or what happened to make me cry. He knows I’ll tell him, or I won’t. But then he says:
“So, Jessica Stone, eh?”
I look up from my coffee and involuntarily shiver. We’re sitting in a Waffle House, and my hash browns are cold because I only picked at them, and the coffee is warming my hands. “Um…what…about her?”
Bran, sitting beside me, picks up the wig on the seat between us. It looks more like a dead rodent right now, rather than Jess’s long and lustrous locks. He arches an eyebrow. “We know.”
“You…know what?” I try to play dumb, pretending that there’s a coffee ground floating in my cup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She was at the Stellar Party,” Milo says, finishing off his fried egg in a single swallow. “So we know about it. Well, kinda. She was with Harper.”
I wince. “Has Harper found out?”
“No.” Bran shakes his head. “She thinks she’s you, and I think there’s something going on between them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I think J—” But he’s cut off when Milo kicks him under the table. They give each other a meaningful look, as if I didn’t just witness that. Bran clears his throat and says, “I think Jess is having a great time. Being you, I mean. And she isn’t half bad.”
That’s a relief, anyway. “I’m glad.”
“And you being Jess…she’s not worried you’re going to,” Milo makes a motion with his fork toward me, “you know, the Save Amara stuff?”
Of course he’d ask. He’s like the sixth member of the Scooby gang, looking for clues to the murder of my life. I breathe in through my nose and then smile because I’ve found that I lie easier when I’m smiling. “Nah.”
“Then why are you impersonating Jessica Stone?”
“She asked me to. She said she wanted to take a break for a while.”
Bran almost spews his coffee. “You don’t believe her, do you?”
“Of course not, but she hasn’t told me the truth yet, either. And I haven’t really been looking. I’m just, you know, enjoying the ride. It feels nice being seen.” The last part kind of slips out, and all three of us fall silent.
Somewhere near the kitchen, someone drops a coffee mug and it shatters on the tile floor and someone else calls for an order of hash browns scattered and smothered. I grab the ticket from the table but then hesitate when I realize I don’t have my wallet. Bran plucks the bill from me and scoots out of the booth.
“I’ll get it. Finish your hash browns, though,” he adds as he walks over to the register.
I sit quietly with Milo. He studies me with th
ose dark green eyes, and I pick up my fork and start shoveling the cold, congealed potatoes into my mouth so I don’t have to answer whatever question I know he wants to ask. We’re siblings, and we’re close. I’ve told Milo everything over the years, and he’s told me everything, too. I was the first person he came out to in his freshman year of high school, although with our parents it didn’t really matter.
“But I wanted to tell you first,” he had said. This was back when he was scrawny and a little shorter than me, and I could still suplex him splendidly in the community pool. “Because you’re my best friend, Monster.”
“You’re mine, too, bro,” I had replied, and scrubbed his curly head.
But how could I tell him that I can’t live up to the example he sets? That I’m just not built that way. That I’m afraid of being nothing in his shadow.
He sets down his fork, a frown tugging at the edges of his mouth. “Monster…”
I chase the hash browns with a gulp of coffee. “Let’s not talk about it, okay? And don’t tell anyone about me and Jess—not even our moms.”
“Of course not, but why do you think—”
“Okay.” I slide out of the booth to end our conversation, grabbing the wig as I go. Helplessly he lets the topic drop and we wait for Bran to pay, and they escort me back to the hotel before hitting up another all-night showing of Galaxy Quest. I wave goodbye from the lobby and head inside.
The problem is, I can’t get into my own room without my keycard, and guess who shockingly forgot to take it? Along with my phone, credit card, and bag. I’ve got no choice but to shuffle up to Jess’s suite.
I barely insert the key into keylock before the door jerks open.
Ethan towers in the doorway, vibrating like a human-looking sock puppet full of angry bees.
Uh-oh. That’s definitely not a happy face.
His fists are clenched, his shoulders jarringly straight, his mouth set into a thin line. He glares down at me from behind the shadow of his glasses. He’s changed into dry clothes, sweatpants and a loose tee, although with one look I remember the sight of his wet shirt clinging to his shoulders and chest. I quickly put those thoughts out of my head as fast as I can. His hair is kind of wild and dry, not gelled like it usually is, and he has a cowlick on the right side that I never noticed before. A part of me wants to lick my palm and try to flatten it, but he looks like a tower of angry cats and I fear for my hand. The way the muscle in his jaw throbs, I think he might just want to strangle me.
The Princess and the Fangirl Page 16
