Bookish and the Beast

MY CHARACTER GETS A LASER-BULLET TO THE FACE.

GAME OVER.

With a groan, I toss my controller onto the couch beside me and lounge back. In my headset, Imogen says, “Starflame, Vance, you usually aren’t this bad.”

“I’ve kinda got other things on my mind.”

“Well, get them out of your mind. I’ve got to get that trophy.” She revives me, and my character picks himself back up. We’re trying to get our team—who’re all lagging behind—to enemy territory and steal their flag. I’ve always hated this mini-game, but Imogen needs the loot from the win today, and I am bored enough to entertain her.

Her character jumps over the ravine between us and takes out two enemy aliens before she squats to try to claim the flag. I jump over beside her and start to pick off the reinforcements.

“So have you decided what you’re going to do about your mom?” she asks. I fail to dodge a bullet, and half of my health gets blasted away.

I quickly take out the sniper on the tower. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

“Seriously? Vance.”

“I’ll figure it out eventually.”

But the truth is, I’m just hoping that she’ll just stop calling if I keep ignoring her. I only have a few short weeks until I turn eighteen, and once I do my stepfather can’t keep me here. I can do whatever the hell I want, and the first thing I’m going to do is fly back to LA and pick up where I left off.

“Have any of your friends texted you back yet?” she asks. I can hear the air quotes around “friends.” She means the people I go clubbing with on the weekends.

“They’re probably busy,” I reply.

“Mm-hmm, I’m sure,” she replies. Her character ducks behind cover to dodge a hail of bullets. “You know how I feel about those people. Aren’t they the only ones who knew where the wrap party was?”

I know what she’s insinuating. “They didn’t tip off the paparazzi.”

“They’re sharks, Vance.” She spins out from behind cover and fires a shot right into the enemy’s face, and grabs their flag. She makes a run for the other side of the map to win the game.

“And I’m not?”

“Not in that way—on your left,” she adds, passing me in the game.

I hurry to follow her as we make our way back to home base. “Even if they did, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken Elle home, anyway.”

She jumps a ledge and catapults herself onto our base. The second her character reaches it, the timer runs out—and the game ends. “You know that’s not true. It was shitty of them.”

I purse my lips. Maybe it was, but I can’t blame them. What do rich kids (at least these rich kids) do when they’re bored? They make drama. I’m sure they thought it’d be harmless fun, and besides, they’re the only kind of people who I know understand me. They’re the progeny of tech philanthropists and executive producers and Wall Street wolves and high-profile lawyers. They don’t bat an eyelash when I say I’ve lived in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills beside the likes of Carrie Fisher and Leo DiCaprio. I’ve always had a bodyguard, a valet, anything and everything I ever wanted at the tip of my fingers.

It’s normal to them. They don’t want to be my friend because I can give them something—they’ve got everything already.

The one exception to my group of friends is Imogen, but our friendship is a bit diabolical in and of itself.

“Heck yeah! Got the loot trophy,” she cheers from her end as the game deals out our winnings. We’re about to queue into the next session when my phone lights up in a silent ring. Speaking of which.

“My mother’s calling,” I mutter.

“You still haven’t talked to her?”

I silence my phone and shrug, even though she can’t see it. “What’s there to talk about? She sent me here to get me out of her and my stepfather’s hair for a while. She picked a great place. Nothing around for miles. I could die and the tabloids wouldn’t find out for at least a week. I don’t see how anyone stays in this town.”

She laughs. “Maybe it’ll grow on you. Anyway, I should probably get off. Gotta go help with dinner.”

“Same time tomorrow?”

“Oh, not tomorrow—I have a hot date.”

“Ugh, with him still? What are you two going to do—go Pokémon hunting again?”

“Don’t pretend like you aren’t jealous, Vance Reigns,” she tsks.

I’m not. I don’t understand her infatuation with Jess’s assistant, Ethan Tanaka. They met at ExcelsiCon last year, and against all odds, they’re still going. “Fine, whatever. Have a great date—and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

She laughs. “Well, that’s a challenge. What haven’t you done?”

Then she logs off, and the game kicks me back to the loading screen. What haven’t I done? The list is longer than she thinks. I haven’t done most things normal teens have at my age. I’m seventeen, but I’ve never flown coach. I’ve never driven an economy car. I’ve never worn sneakers that cost less than a Kobe steak. I’ve never eaten instant ramen. I’ve never played baseball with my stepdad.

I’ve never fallen in love.

But I remember the girl on the balcony at ExcelsiCon this past August, and the way she spun the rings on her fingers and laughed at my terrible jokes. I wonder how long I could’ve gotten away with the lie that I was no one, before the spell had broken.

STARFIELD IS PLAYING AT THE BIG MO DRIVE-IN—back-to-back with the latest Star Wars—and I can’t imagine a better way to say goodbye to the last vestiges of summer. The evening is cool and the skies are wide and dark and the cherry soda tastes especially good with the fast-food fries from the concession stand.

Everything tastes better when you’re watching your favorite movie.

Quinn leans over and dips a fry into a cup of ketchup. “I can’t believe you’re working at that weird castle-house. What if it’s haunted?”

“Nah,” I reply as I take another swig of cherry cola. “It isn’t old enough to be haunted.”

“But what if someone got murdered in the house?” Annie asks. “It’s so creepy.”

“It did smell a little like old blood,” I agree, earning a slap from Quinn. “Ow! Okay, okay—it’s just a normal house. It was kinda clean on the inside. Pretty. Like it’s been freshly renovated. And the library…” I sit back in the bed of Quinn’s truck and sigh. On the large screen at the front of the drive-in theater, Princess Amara kisses Carmindor goodbye for the last time.

In the next car over, a guy sniffles and wipes his eyes.

I really can’t blame him; the scene is beautiful. The way Princess Amara kisses Carmindor, soft and bittersweet, and then traps him on the bridge so he can’t stop her. How she boards the escape shuttle with the photon missiles. How she arcs the ship up into the Black Nebula, with swirls of blues and greens and purples curling around the wings of the ship like ribbons. It reminds me of the colors of the library, how the bindings unfurled across the room in muted, faded galactic shades.

“The library was beautiful,” I whisper.

Annie tsks playfully. “Don’t go falling in love with a library, now. Especially one you can’t own.”

“Can’t I fall in love just a little? At least books won’t break my heart.”

“Then clearly you haven’t read the books I have,” Quinn mutters, scooping up the last few fries.

On the screen, Amara’s starship explodes and bathes the entire drive-in in a blanket of white. The last scene of the movie is solemn and quiet. It’s the funeral of Princess Amara, a menagerie of all the different people she and Carmindor met along their adventure. There are a few nods to the TV series—some Ingarians, two Voltures, a small robot named CL30 bobbing beside a green-skinned rogue named Zorine, all of the characters lost or forgotten in the TV series and the extended universe of the novels.

The last scene fades to black, and the title screen reappears as the triumphant soundtrack plays—STARFIELD. People in their cars cheer and beep their horns, and some turn on their headlights to leave before the Star Wars film.

We sit back and wait. Even if we were going to leave before The Rise of Skywalker, we wouldn’t do it before the end of the credits. That’s a rookie move for any nerd.

Annie props herself up on her elbows as the credits begin to roll. “Okay, so, dish.”

I give her a blank look. “About what?”

“Mama needs that sweet, sweet Vance Reigns gossip.”

“…Oh.”

“Please don’t call yourself mama,” Quinn says, fishing out a can of red soda that turns their tongue pink. They toss another to Annie, who pops it open and quickly slurps up the fizz bubbling over the tab.

I shrug. “I haven’t really seen much of him.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be helping you?” Quinn asks.

“Yeah, as if.” I laugh.

Annie sighs. “Well, that’s disheartening. So he really is just like all the rumors say? Hot, spoiled, selfish,” she counts, listing off his finer qualities on one hand. “Hot. Did I mention super hunkin’ hot?”