But then there are fans like Elle—people like Elle. Even if she ends up not liking my version of Carmindor, I’m going to give it my all. Because somehow she makes me want to be better. She makes me want to play my heart out while I’m on fire, play and play until I burn up like a dying red giant.
7:49 PM
—Pshhh, let them riot.
—I’d rather you promise-swear that you’ll never stop.
Elle 7:50 PM
—Really?
7:50 PM
—Really. I like talking to you.
Elle 7:51 PM
—Why?
“Ten minutes!” someone calls, and I jump. My hands are actually shaking a little on my phone, dying to type all the things I’m thinking. Before I can stop myself, I start to type.
7:52 PM
—Because I can’t stop thinking about you.
—But that’s crazy right, because we don’t know each other? But I feel like I want to know you.
—…I’m just making a fool out of myself, aren’t I?
“Darien?” It’s Amon. “Where is that kid?”
“Here!” I jump to my feet. “Coming.”
But before I go, I sneak one last look at my phone.
Elle 7:53 PM
—I want to know you too, Car.
—I wish you were here.
—For real.
A knot swells in my throat. Because I wish I was there too, for real, but there are a hundred thousand reasons why it would never work. Why it could never work.
“Hey, hero!” my stunt coordinator hollers from the other end of the soundstage, holding up a harness. I put my phone into a pocket inside Carmindor’s jacket, trying to figure out how to tell Elle that if she ever met me, she wouldn’t like who she saw.
—
IT’S ANOTHER TWO HOURS BEFORE I’M free. And by free, I mean out in Olympic Park, running laps. Because apparently when you’re a movie star, even when you’re not working, you’re working.
Lonny grunts behind me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Besides the fact that my heart won’t stop pounding, and it’s got nothing to do with exercise.
Even though Olympic Park is in the heart of Atlanta, the world is mute. The park’s supposed to be closed at night, but when the night guard recognized me, he let me slip the fence. Perks to having a recognizable face, I suppose. Or having a gigantic bodyguard. Only me, my breath pumping in and out of my lungs, and my feet thumping against the pavement. Enough to make everything feel clear and sharp. Enough to make me want to tell Elle the truth—that I wish I were with her too. But in no universe can that ever happen, can it? All I can do is be there the only way I know how, and it’ll never be enough.
It’s been over two hours since her last text. She’s probably pissed that I haven’t texted her back, or she’s asleep. Or both.
But still, I have to try.
10:45 PM
—I have an idea.
—Let’s play I Spy.
With a whoosh of speed, my bodyguard passes me.
“What the—”
“Too slow!” Lonny throws over his shoulder, pulling ahead of me around the track. The one part of my “fitness regimen” I actually enjoyed doing—running—is the one thing I can’t do alone anymore. I’m surprised I can still pee alone, honestly. Soon Lonny’ll probably start tailing me to the urinal.
Still no text. I type another message.
10:46 PM
—I’ll start.
—I spy something big.
Please answer, I all but beg. After a moment, the typing notification appears beside her name and sends through a message with a soft ding.
Elle 10:46 PM
—Inside or outside?
10:46 PM
—Outside.
I don’t have to glance up to know it’s a clear night. The streetlights don’t even need to be on, it’s so bright out here. In fact, I can see my bodyguard’s shadow rounding up behind me. This feels like the scene from that superhero movie with a certain dude with a shield.
“On your—”
“Left,” I deadpan as he passes. “Show-off!”
Elle 10:59 PM
—I don’t know—a cloud?
—This is impossible.
—How am I supposed to guess if I’m not there to see, Car?
10:59 PM
—Tsk, tsk, patience!
—You don’t always have to be where I am for us to see the same thing, young padawan
“You’re smiling,” Lonny says as he passes me again.
I wave my hand after him. “Oh go on! Keep lapping me.”
Elle 11:01 PM
—I still don’t get it.
11:04 PM
—I’ll give you a hint.
—Look up.
—When was the last time you did?
I look up, thinking that maybe she is too.
Stars and stars for as far as the eye can see. The inky blackness is so dark it looks purple, bejeweled with abandoned bits of glitter. So many stars, white hot, flaring, burning like candles in the night sky.
I spy…
Elle 11:09 PM
—Is it the sky?
11:09 PM
—Not JUST the sky. It’s the SAME sky.
—And if we’re both looking up at the same sky, how far apart can we REALLY be? What were the odds of us being put on the same slab of rock in this huge universe?
“On your left!” my bodyguard shouts again, skirting around me. “Looks like you only got two speeds—slow and slower!”
I glare after him. “Excuse me?”
Lonny spins around and begins jogging backward. “Prove me wrong, pretty boy.”
That is it.
He has followed me. He has towered over me with that serious, terrifyingly calm face of his. He’s been a quiet, stalking Weeping Angel for as long as he’s been around. But Hades’ll freeze over before I let him throw shade like that.
I shove my phone into my jogging shorts pocket, then take off after him. He begins to pick up speed. We round the first corner, legs pumping. I gain on him, one stride at a time, my heart hammering in my throat.
“On your left!” I shout, sprinting past him to the finish line.
We slow down and double over, putting our hands on our knees. I suck in a painful breath, chest aching. I think I pulled my ego running.
“I win,” I wheeze.
Lonny begins to laugh, and once I realize how silly it all is, I begin to laugh too—and then I wince, ribs hurting.
“There you go, boss!” he says after a moment, righting himself. “You’re never going to pull ahead unless you really go for it.”
He gives his arms a shake, rolling his head to and fro, stretching his massive shoulders. I take the opportunity pull out my phone—still no answer.
Maybe Lonny’s right. I need to really go for it.
11:09 PM
—Elle, we might not know much about each other, and I might not be there, and you might not be here, but I’m glad to share this sky with you.
—Maybe we should start looking up together, ah’blena
AH’BLENA.
My heart. The words that Carmindor says to Amara in the last episode. The episode when she…when the Black Nebula…
I hold the phone to my chest and stare out my bedroom window, up and up at the clear and cloudless sky.
“We aren’t alone,” I say quietly, liking how the words fit around my lips. If this is the impossible universe, then I hope tonight was the good sort of impossible.
I want to believe.
—
BATTERY PARK IS ALREADY TEEMING WITH tourists and horse-drawn carriage tours by the time I race to the truck. Sage doesn’t even glance up when I come in, wiping her paring knife on her apron. Today her hair’s pulled back with a polka-dotted bandana, her lips a dark, deep purple-black.
“I began to think your stepmom actually cut you up into her salad,” she says.
“It’s only a matte
r of time,” I reply, dumping my bag in the corner of the truck and grabbing my apron from my peg. I tie it around my waist and pull my hair into a Magic Pumpkin cap. “So my friends online said that you can make the crown and badges with something called Wonderflex.”
“Wonderflex.”
“Yeah, and we need a heat gun. Or a hair dryer.”
“I figured as much.” Sage gives a grim nod. Beside her, Frank the Tank sits happily on his little mat on the counter, wagging his tail at all the tourists. A little kid comes up and pets him under the chin, and he gives her a big lick. She runs away screaming.
Sage just keeps chopping. I retie my apron, bunching it into knots. “Or we could skip the crown. I mean, people take cosplay super seriously. They’ve been doing this for years and we’re…”
“We’re what?” Sage stops chopping and puts her hands on her hips. “Rookies? Because last I heard, Carmindor was a total rookie before he survived the Brinx Devastation.”
“You can’t compare a cosplay competition to the destruction of an entire colony.”
She rolls her eyes, pulling the plastic gloves higher on her hands. “Look, don’t you want to win?”
I hesitate, scrubbing Franco behind the ears. “We’ll be posers.”
“Why, because we’re new? So everyone who tries something for the first time’s a poser? Come on, Elle, that’s crazy.”
“But what if…” I bite my cheek as I dump a batch of fritters into the fryer beside the sweet potato fries. They hiss and spit like vipers. “What if we are posers?”
“Impossible. You’re the most Starfield person I know,” Sage says. “And besides, you’re allowed to try new things, Elle. You’re allowed to test the waters. Don’t you want to try?”
Try. I want to try a lot of things. I want to go to the convention. I want to cosplay. I want to pretend that I have some modicum of courage in me, like Carmindor. What if Car is at the convention? What if he’s in the competition too?
And then I realize I’m not thinking about cosplay anymore.
“Well then, what do you want?
I half-shrug, half-wince. “I want something…I don’t think I can have.”
“Like what?”
Maybe we should start looking up together, ah’blena.
I don’t know how to answer, so I just shrug, shaking the fries to loosen them out of the basket. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sage shrugs and flaps a tired hand at me. “Fine, whatever.” Chopping done, she pulls out the costume from underneath the counter, along with a pincushion and thread that matches the deep blue of Carmindor’s jacket, and threads the string through the needle. “It’s that guy, isn’t it? The one you’re texting.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I repeat.
“You never want to talk about anything!” she says. “Come on, if you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to? Why don’t can’t you just confide in me? Just rant! Tell me things!”
I clench my phone. “I just…”
“Am I not a good enough fan or something?” she asks, throwing the jacket onto the counter. “Is that what this is about? Do I not meet your fangirl expectations? Why won’t you just let me be your fri—”
“Because it won’t change anything!” I say, whirling around to her. “It won’t change anything if I complain. If I tell you what I want, if I tell you that I hate my family and my life sucks and I’m falling for someone I don’t even know and that wish—oh how I wish—I was in any other universe, what difference would it make?”
My voice is so loud, the tourists across the street turn to watch. Sage opens her mouth, closes it again, opens—like a fish gobbling for water—before her eyes drift to the counter and the empty pumpkin-orange dog bed. “Where’s the fleabag?”
“What?” I blink. Glance over at Franco. Who isn’t there. Neither is the jacket.
We lean over the counter just in time to watch a fat brown wiener dog race between a family of tourists’ legs, blue fabric fluttering in his wake.
“I’m going to fry him!” Sage cries, ripping off her apron. She dodges past me and swings open the back doors to the truck with a running leap, calling for Franco.
I don’t even take off my apron as I dart after her. Franco has my costume—and who knows what he’s going to do with it. “Franco!”
Tourists line the streets both ways, cars bump by on the cobblestones, horse-drawn carriages stopping frequently to marvel at rainbow-colored houses. So many people—but no Franco. How could I have let him out of my sight?
We shout his name, dodging and weaving through tourists who loiter too long in front of the big houses with steepled roofs and grand verandas. They turn to stare like we’re some kind of weird show: two girls—one in an orange EAT ME apron, the other in a tulle tutu and checkered ribbons—tearing down the sidewalk like the Nox are on their heels.
But when we reach Rainbow Row, he’s gone. My chest constricts. “Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.”
“Hey mutt! Fleabag!” Sage adds. “Rolly-Polly Olley! Fatso!”
“That’s not helping,” I hiss.
She shrugs. “He came when I called him Frankzilla last night—oh! There!” She nudges her head toward a side street and what might be Franco’s chubbiness rounding the corner. At least we hope it is. How can a fat dog run so fast? She grabs my arm and pulls me into a gallop again, but she trips on a stroller, stumbling. I pull ahead and turn into the cobblestoned alley—and suddenly my worst nightmare is realized.
Franco is sitting, tail wagging happily, as his ears are scratched by none other than Calliope Wittimer. And she has my dad’s jacket in her grip.
“Oh!” She glances up through her loosely braided hair and quickly stands. “Elle.”
“Cal? What are you…” I chance a look at my jacket, which she knows is mine. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the country club? For lessons?”
“I skipped today. Sometimes I do that. Chloe doesn’t tell as long as I don’t tell Mom what she does behind the pool house with that linebacker from school.” She pets Franco’s little head. “I was wondering where this little guy went, you know, when he disappeared.”
“Here.” I hurry over and scoop up Franco, hugging him tight, eyeing the jacket, wondering if I should go for it too. Calliope frowns, looking hurt. I shouldn’t care. But I can’t get the image of her in my mom’s dress out of my head, and now she has my dad’s jacket?
I shift from one foot to the other. Maybe I can fake her out—toss Franco at her as a distraction. He’ll come at her, claws bared, and kung-fu her while I wrestle the jacket out of her grip and then—
Frank whines, wiggling in my grasp as Sage rounds into the side street beside me.
“Case solved, I guess,” Calliope says. The buttons on the jacket glint in the sunlight. She glances over at Sage. “Um, hi. I’m—”
“Calliope,” Sage replies for her.
“Cal. Elle’s stepsister.”
Sage glances between us and I can see the thought crossing her face. Cal really doesn’t look evil or conniving, with her purple glasses and braided hair. But evil rarely looks like evil should.
Hesitantly, Cal holds out the jacket to us. “Is this yours too?”
Sage takes it. “Yeah, mine. The mutt got away with it.”
“It’s the jacket, isn’t it? Carmindor’s?”
“Don’t say a word,” I say stonily. “Don’t say a word, Cal.”
Her face fractures a little. “Elle, about that dress—”
“It’s fine,” I force out, my voice tight. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But…”
“It’s fine. Thanks for catching him,” I add, heaving Frankendog higher, and turn to go. “We should get back to work. Sage?” I say when she doesn’t follow me out of the alley.
She hesitates for a moment, rubbing the back of her head. “It was nice meeting you,” she murmurs to Cal, then turns and follows me out. She doesn’t catch up until we’re halfway down Rainbow R
ow. “Hey—hey wait a second. Do you think maybe you’re wrong about her?”
“No. She’s going to tell Chloe. I know she will. Usually they’re conjoined at the hip.”
“Maybe she isn’t as bad as you think.”
I snort. “Yeah, and Darien Freeman can act. Which reminds me that I have to write a new blog post.”
“About Darien’s acting skills?”
“His inability to stay out of trouble,” I reply. “He and Frank have that in common. You move your fat butt from that cushion ever again and you’re going in a fritter, you hear me, Frank? A fritter.”
“That wouldn’t be very vegan,” Sage mutters, but then she flashes a grin. “Hey, maybe you should text that guy your blog.”
“Dream on!” I’ve had that blog since practically before I knew how to spell. The very thought of Car reading it is mortifying. “Besides, he works so much, he doesn’t have time to read my silly little blog.”
“Mm-hmm.” Sage sweeps the jacket over her shoulders to wear like a cape. “Whatever you say, Captain.”
“YOU’RE RIGHT. WHOEVER’S WRITING THOSE BLOG posts has a serious crush on you.” Jess hands me back my phone as we pull into the hotel. Three scheduled “dates”—i.e., us eating food in the same restaurant to the soundtrack of camera flashes—down, one more to go.
I ease us into the carport. “I think you mean has a serious vendetta against me.”
Jess makes a tsking sound. “No one is that vicious without some feeling behind it,” she says. “And I think she has some fair points. I mean, it’s not like she’s one of those white dudes saying you just got cast because you’re not white.”
“One, that’s ridiculous. And two, if they even watched the show, they’d know that—wait, how do you know it’s a she?”
Jess arches an eyebrow. “Seriously? Read it again. I’m totally right.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. But no one should be that vicious, period. She’s like a Dalek with a blacklist. Absolutely relentless.”
I open the passenger door for her and toss the keys to Lonny, who’s squeezing himself into the driver’s seat to go park. I wrap my arm around Jess’s waist and start for the hotel lobby, paparazzi following like a swarm of bees. Between the constant barrage of flashbulbs and questions, I’d take my fans over this any day.