Bookish and the Beast

Page 38

You knew it wouldn’t last, I think. It should’ve never happened to begin with.

A part of me wishes I could go back to who I was before the library, before the rainstorm, before the kiss, before all of it. I wish I could dig up the starstruck love I had for that boy in that midnight mask, when the world was simple and straightforward. I was happier with the stranger in my head, instead of Vance. Because knowing the real one stings too much. Knowing that he could have been someone different, that for a moment he seemed like he wanted to be someone better.

I would much rather have been in love with the phantom in my head.

Afternoon light spills into the room, and it reminds me of all the afternoons I spent in that library, sunlight falling through the windows, shining off the dust particles in the air like flecks of stars. Dad won’t be home for another few hours, and I don’t have leftover food to heat up that Elias gave me, and I don’t have a book I snuck out of the library to read underneath my covers.

I just have me.

As I roll over in my bed again, I hear a strange sound. It’s music, blasting from—from the parking lot? No, not just music…

“LOOK TO THE STARS! LOOK TO THE STARS AND SEE! FIND OUT WHERE YOU BELONG! AND FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR LOVE IN A STARFIELD, A STARFIELD, A STARFIELD OF LIGHT.”

…The theme song to Starfield?

I sit up and hesitantly approach my window. Other people are coming out onto their balconies and peeking out of their apartments toward the blaring music in the lot beneath us. And there Quinn and Annie stand with a boom box pointed at my apartment.

I quickly abandon my window and head for the door, stumbling into my shoes as I leave the apartment, and come up to the railing on the side. I try to push away the tears flooding my eyes, but I can’t seem to, and the next I know they’ve abandoned the boom box and both of them are wrapping their arms around me.

So tightly, I’m not scared of rattling apart anymore. I come undone in their arms, and I know they’ll be there to keep me in one piece.

THE LIBRARY IS EMPTY WITHOUT HER.

I should feel angry, but I don’t. I just feel…hollow.

Our bags are packed. We’re just waiting for the car now. Everything else in this house—the smaller things, the TV, the gaming console, Elias’s cooking supplies—will be boxed up by a moving company and shipped back to LA within the next few days.

My fingers find the part of the bookshelf where The Starless Throne should be, but I know Rosie still has it with her.

We all occupy space for such a short period of time, even though sometimes it feels like eternity. We’re here, and then gone, and our stuff stays behind. The things that we used, the things that we loved, the things that we treasured, and adored, and despised. Those trinkets exist far longer than we do, and I’ve always imagined them as that—just things. To be bought, sold, gathered.

But things, it seems, can persevere. Small things. Treasured things. A favorite book, an old battered album, a DVD of an old sci-fi TV series passed from father to daughter. They can cast a spell to ensure that people you’ve never met will miss you when you’re gone.

I’ve never met Rosie’s mother, but when I run my fingers along the spines of her collection, I miss her.

And…and I still have my mother around.

I’m just too afraid to talk to her, because I know she’s disappointed in me, and I know she knows I can be better than I am. I just never was, and never cared to be, so I got scared. And when my stepfather sent me here, I thought that since she didn’t stop him—she didn’t like me anymore.

That, perhaps, she’s done with trying to see the good in me.

Whatever little good she saw to begin with.

There’s a knock on the library door, and Elias pokes his head in. “The car’ll be here in about an hour. Is everything you’re taking in the hallway, mijo?”

“Yeah,” I reply softly. “First day of freedom, doesn’t it taste great?”

“Well, of course, but we don’t have to leave, you know.”

It seems like an innocent proposition, but I can’t stay here, either. I don’t belong here; I figured out that much yesterday with those cockroaches at my doorstep. Isn’t that the worst kind of twist? Your parents cast you off to some no-name town to get you out of the way for a while, and you end up liking it. Or, at least, not hating it.

I doubt they expected that twist.

“I can’t stay here forever,” I reply, and flash him a grin. “Besides, when my stepfather steps down, who’ll be there to inherit Kolossal Pictures? Sansa?”

At the mention of her name, my dog perks up on the floor and sticks out her tongue. She wags her tail gently, and it thumps on the rug.

Elias sighs and scrubs her behind the head. “Right. Okay. Just so you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

I have to be.

When he leaves, I sit down in one of the wingback chairs and take out my phone. My mother dominates the missed calls—almost all of them—so it isn’t very hard to find her phone number.

With a deep breath, I call her.

The phone rings once—twice—before she answers, honey and light and sweet. “Darling!”

I don’t realize how good it is to hear her voice until I do, and my throat tightens.

“Hi, Mum,” I reply softly.

“Oh, darling, I’m so glad you gave me a ring,” she says. “You know, after I saw what the gossip was about, I was going to ring you again but I figured—well, I’m glad you called. Are you okay? Is Elias feeding you well? How was your birthday yesterday?—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, my voice breaking.

“Oh, darling, you’ve nothing to apologize for,” she replies, and her voice is understanding and soft, and that’s it. Those are the words I didn’t know I needed to hear, but when I finally do my eyes sting, and I press the palm of my hand into my eye. My breath hitches, and I can’t remember the last time I cried, but it feels like a string inside me has finally come undone, the tension gone. “I love you, darling, and I can’t wait to see you home,” she adds, and I can imagine her sitting at the dining room table at home, twirling a lock of her graying blond hair, a thousand-piece puzzle stretched out in front of her. “Gregory stepped out for a moment, but he would love to talk to you, too—I can ask him to give you a ring after Shabbos?”

I hesitate, tightening my grip on my phone. “I would like that.”

“And about this gossip that’s been going around—”

Before I can gently guide her away from the topic, a familiar voice calls my name—“Vance!”

At first, I think it’s my imagination, but then when the voice calls—again—

“Vance!”

I push myself to my feet. The voice is coming from outside, when normally it’s screaming at me through the headset, telling me to revive her.

This is new.

“Can I ring you back?” I asked my mother.

“Oh, of course! Kisses!”

“Kisses,” I repeat, and put my phone into my back pocket. Then I go to the window, still hesitant that there might be paparazzi around. At first, I don’t see her—but then I’m not sure how I could miss her. She stands in the middle of the driveway, her hands planted on her hips, pink hair almost neon in the sunlight. She sees me peeking out the window and smiles at me with this sort of eat-shit smile that really itches under my skin, and waves one finger at a time. She’s wearing a purple LOOK TO THE STARS sweatshirt and holey black jeans, and she’s gotten a few new additions in her ears, earrings all sparkling different colors.

I am baffled at her being here.

“I-Imogen…?” I ask as I push the window open, thinking this must be some mistake.

“Vance!” she calls, throwing up her arms. “Get your sorry ass out here right now!”

I stare at her. “How in bloody hell did you even get here? And why?”

“Long story involving a football game where the mascot turned out to be running for Homecoming Overlord? Anyway—that’s beside the point. The point is, I’m here to punch some sense into you!”

“…What?”

She pushes up her sweatshirt’s sleeve to show her bicep and flexes. “You heard me! Get out here right now! You know she didn’t leak that video and you just—just blame her anyway!” she rages, her voice grating into a higher octave. I’d only heard that tone once before when an enemy teammate in a battle royale match had been cheating with a two-second glitch. It’s not the kind of voice you want to hear out of her.

My confusion becomes a pinpoint of fear. “She…didn’t do it?”

“No, you big dumb nerf herder, she didn’t,” Imogen replies. “Elle called me and said that one of her contacts at TMZ told her the video came from some guy.”

Some…guy? Not Rosie? My chest begins to constrict. Because I realize what I’ve done, how massive a mistake I made. And it feels like an anvil pressing against my chest. I can barely breathe. “Oh, shite.”

“Yeah, so, what are you gonna do about it?”

What am I going to do about it? What am I going to do—? Anything—everything—to get her back. Because I messed this up. I backslid and I thought the worst of her when I should have known better. When I did know better. And because I miss her. I miss the way she brightens a room like sunshine. I miss how she smiles at every book she touches, like they’re close friends, and I miss the papery smell of her hands, like warm wood and old stories, and—

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