Bookish and the Beast

“Don’t forget infuriating,” I add, remembering the way he glared at me Friday evening when he returned from his jog with his dog. Why does he hate me so much? I shouldn’t even be on his radar, I’m not in his league. It doesn’t make sense.

“So what I’m hearing is that he is Sond. He probably didn’t even have to act for the part.” Annie fishes for some more bug spray in her beach bag. “Sad, really.”

Quinn gives her a look. “You thought he’d be Prince Charming?”

“Well, it’d be nice—for Rosie’s sake. Wouldn’t it have been the coolest meet-cute? Two lovestruck fools meet for the first time in a sunlight-soaked library. It’s the stuff of dreams. Besides, even when you do win Homecoming—and you will, oh you definitely will—she’ll need a date for the dance.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, and it won’t be Vance Reigns. Not in any universe—oh hey”—I quickly scramble to sit up again—“the bonus scene’s on.”

On the screen, the bonus scene from the home video release flickers to life, and the crowd quiets. Carmindor steps into a courtroom filled with gnarled old men. I sort of wish that this scene had been included in the theatrical release, but I don’t think Sond was announced back then.

It’s hard to imagine it’s been a year since Starfield came out and they announced the sequel. It’s hard to imagine that Starfield was the last movie I saw with my mom before…

Well, just before.

“You’ve requested me, Father?” Carmindor asks the gray-haired man on the elegant iron-and-rust throne.

“No,” another voice interrupts, and a rush of cheers echoes through the nighttime drive-in as on-screen a white coat swishes, and a tall and broad figure steps into frame. White-blond hair, glowing uniform, striking blue eyes—my heart kicks against my rib cage. Because I remember them from a few nights ago, from the first moment I saw him, a shadow with cornflower eyes. And somehow that reminds me of the young man on the balcony, dressed as Sond, but with a smile like a galactic prince. “I requested you, Prince Carmindor.”

I let out a hard sigh from between my teeth.

Weird. So weird.

Somewhere in the audience, a few girls squeal at his entrance. Annie gives a low whistle. “Someone’s ovaries are exploding.”

“Ah, music to my ears!”

On-screen, Sond smirks as the scene fades to dark; the last to go are his light blue eyes, bright and sharp.

I shiver a little and quickly look away.

Annie slides off the air mattress in the back of the truck and stretches. “Anyway, I’m gone to pee and stretch my legs a little bit.”

“That’s not a bad idea. Anyone need concessions?” Quinn stands, too, reaching their hands above their head with a yawn. They brush off their velvet skirt and hop off the flatbed truck. “I want some more popcorn. Do you need a refill?”

“Please, you’re the best,” Annie replies, handing her large ice cup to Quinn. Then she vaults over the side of the truck and makes a beeline for the porta-potties at the back of the drive-in lot.

“Run like the wind!” Quinn calls after her. Then they turn to me and ask, “Need anything?”

“Twizzlers?”

“I think I can do that. Be back in a flash.” They set off toward the white building between the two drive-in lots. The other screen is showing the new Marvel and Disney movies, and in the quiet of the evening I can faintly hear some sort of rousing song belting from a pretty animated princess, and I think, if Vance were the spoiled villain of my story, the General Sond I met on the balcony of ExcelsiCon must be the prince.

That’s funny, just a little bit.

As I dig for another cola in the cooler, I hear the voice of the last person I wanted to see here. “Rosie! I didn’t know you liked Starfield.”

Really? I wear LOOK TO THE STARS shirts at least once a week. I fish out a cola from the cooler and turn to greet Garrett with a fake smile. “I do.”

“Carmindor’s dreamy, right?” he says as he hops up to sit on the tailgate of the truck—uninvited. “All the girls love Carmindor.”

“I mean, not all the girls.”

“No yeah, you’re right—just the ones with good taste, like you,” he replies with a wink.

“Well, that’s delightful,” I say with that same fixed smile, “because I don’t really like Carmindor. He’s way too perfect. He does everything right, and he’s the hero no matter what. Everyone wants to be Carmindor. What I really like are the villains, like Obscura or Vexel Day or the Nox King or, my favorite, General Ambrose Sond.”

His eyebrows furrow because he didn’t expect that. “Well, I mean, you can’t actually like them.”

“No, I do. I love them. They’re great. I have a poster of Sond on my wall, actually,” I reply, and pop open the tab of my cola. Garrett fishes for something to say, because he absolutely just dissed me without even knowing it, but I can’t stand the slack-jawed look on his face, so I help him out a little. “Garrett, just a little piece of advice: if you’re trying to woo someone? Get to know them first.”

One of his friends calls his name from a few cars down. It’s one of the cheerleaders running for Homecoming Queen, Myrella Johnson, her dark curly hair pulled up into a high ponytail.

The previews for the Star Wars film begin to play.

“See you at school,” I tell him, and for once he takes the social cue. He slides off the tailgate and returns to his friends.

How come the only people who want to date me are the ones who don’t know me at all—don’t even want to know me? I’m the girl with the dead mom, I guess that’s enough, isn’t it? I guess that’s what I liked about the guy at ExcelsiCon. He didn’t know I had lost a piece of my heart. He didn’t look at me with pity, secretly glad it wasn’t his mom who died. He looked at me. He got to know me as we walked in downtown Atlanta and ate scattered and smothered hash browns from Waffle House and played Twenty Questions. It was probably one of the best nights of my life. It was a night, for a moment, when I wasn’t boring and dull Rosie Thorne, still waiting for her life to begin.

I WAKE UP WITH A PS4 CONTROLLER pressing into my cheek. What time is it even? The blackout curtains make my room dark, but between the middle seam some sort of light finds a way through. Morning, then—or at least early afternoon. I slowly force myself to sit up, wiping the dried drool from my chin. My console must’ve turned itself off at some point in the night, and I uncurl myself from the edge of my bed.

My mouth feels like sandpaper, and every one of the glasses in my room is empty.

“Elias,” I call hoarsely, but when he doesn’t answer, I pull up my hood over my greasy week-unwashed hair and crack open the door to my room. “Elias?”

Some indie-pop band blares from the speakers downstairs in the kitchen, so I highly doubt he can hear me. He must be baking—there’s a sweet scent in the air. Apple pie?

I shuffle down the hallway and descend the stairs, rubbing at my eyes. I either sleep too much or not enough and I don’t know which it is. I fell asleep at some point last night, but I can’t remember when, just a lot of shooting and dodging and capturing stupid neon-colored flags with Imogen, until she had to go to bed. She—for some terrible reason—decided to choose morning university classes, something which I will never understand.

“Elias, could you turn that trash down?” I call as I shuffle into the kitchen.

But Elias is not here.

There’s a pie in the oven, but I don’t see Elias anywhere. He must’ve gone to the loo or something. So I check the pie—definitely apple, one of my favorites—and yank open the refrigerator to grab a cup of yogurt.

And I hear footsteps.

I close the refrigerator door, about to tell him how unsafe it is to leave the kitchen while cooking when—

“Mr. Rodriguez, I’ve got a question about the organization of volumes fourteen through twenty of the Starfield extended—” The girl freezes the second she turns into the kitchen, empty pitcher in one hand, glass in the other, and realizes that it’s me. Her face closes off like the snap of a mousetrap.

In the daylight she looks just about as normal as they come—brown hair pulled up away from her heart-shaped face, framed with a fringe that curls every which way in that endearing sort of way I don’t quite understand. There is a peppering of freckles across her cheeks. Surprisingly long eyelashes framing hazel eyes. And she can’t be more than five-one, so tiny she barely reaches my shoulders.

And in the moment she reminds me of the girl I met at ExcelsiCon. Her hair had been pulled back the same way, exposing a rose-shaped birthmark just behind her left ear—

Bloody hell.

The yogurt cup slips from my hand and clatters onto the ground.

It’s her.

She blinks at me.

I know what I must look like—a tall, barely washed guy in a gray hoodie and Naruto boxers (that I am kicking myself for sleeping in). And it’s her. The girl from the balcony.

Her.

She doesn’t recognize me, does she? No, she can’t. I wore a mask that night. She did too, but that birthmark is unmistakable. I asked her about it over hash browns.