Bookish and the Beast

How bloody kitschy.

The parking lot is packed with autos. Students make their way to the front of the gymnasium in everything from chinos to boat shorts to tuxes, and I feel as though I have been slightly punked, since I am wearing none of those. All of these people should make my skin itch, but I barely notice them.

I barely care that they stare at me as I race up the steps to the front of the gymnasium, my hair sticking to my sweaty neck. After I catch my breath, I right myself and adjust my jacket. It’s the first time I’ve worn anything other than shorts and a hoodie in a month and a half, and I feel weirdly exposed in a formfitting tux.

This feels like a scene from one of Rosie’s books, except—despite Imogen’s insistence—I’m not sure if Amara is waiting inside.

“TICKET?” THE BORED PARENT at the table in front of the gym asks, and I hand her one. Mine. She tears off the admittance side and hands it back to me, and Quinn and Annie hand her their tickets. A soft pop-rock beat thuds through the doors into the gymnasium, and I hesitate at the threshold.

Garrett’s going to be in there. I know he is, and I’m going to have to face him alone—

Annie and Quinn loop their arms through mine.

“Ready?” Annie asks.

I nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

And with my two best friends on my arms, I step into Homecoming. The three of us, together. Which, come to think of it, is probably how I should’ve gone to Homecoming to begin with. The theme for this year is Garden of Memories, and the best memories I’ve ever had are with my best friends. Like a good bra, they lift me up to stand tall.

The gym is dark and there are cutouts of hedges circling the bleachers, where a few other people who also came alone sit. I don’t see Garrett anywhere, and for the moment I’m so glad my chest burns. The lights pulse with the beat of the DJ on the stage, and parents line the edges of the dance floor.

Dad’s talking with another chaperone, and I wave at him. He smiles, happy, and mouths, You look killer.

I smile back, even though all of these people are beginning to make my skin prickle.

I’m not really the dancing sort of person. This isn’t my scene at all. There’s a reason why I escaped the ExcelsiCon Ball when I could. There are too many people, and too-loud music. My friends must notice my discomfort, because Quinn squeezes my hand.

“Do you need to go?” they mouth.

I shake my head. No, not until I see Quinn crowned. I can last that long. So Annie and Quinn lead me out onto the dance floor, even though I can feel that some people are staring—how many of them went online last night to look up the lies on TMZ? The video? The hot takes about how I was coerced into working for Vance Reigns? I want to tell them all that he isn’t like that; that yes, he sometimes makes some very stupid mistakes, but he wants to get better—and why can’t people let him?

If you aren’t allowed to grow, then what’s the point of changing at all?

Even after all of this, I believe that. Not that he has a chance in hell with me now, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. If I ever see him again I’m going to punch him right in the—

“Ooh, I love this song!” Annie shouts at us, and shimmies in her purple dress. I’m terrible at dancing, and I mostly just weave back and forth, but my best friends take me by my hands and spin me around, and I find myself laughing at it all. Because the last few months have been so incredibly confusing. I fell in love with a boy in a mask whose name I didn’t know. I was asked to Homecoming by one of the most popular guys in school because he felt sorry for me. I fought my way into a Starfield library. I destroyed a nearly priceless book. My best friend decided to run for Homecoming Overlord. I became friends with the most notorious bad boy of the internet.

And he gave me back a piece of my mother I thought was lost forever.

If this is where this chapter ends, I wouldn’t really mind, because now I know I have plenty more chapters to write. I thought my story ended when my mom died—because I didn’t think there was a book without her.

Because I know it was just the ending of a chapter. It was the close of part one. Even though Mom is gone, she’s still in every word of my story, because hers lives on in me. It lives on in the books that she read, and the ones she shared, and the people she met. Like mine will. There is a whole universe out there waiting to tell our stories. And for the first time since she left, life doesn’t feel like the end of a sentence. It feels like a prologue, and I have my two best friends beside me to follow wherever that adventure takes me.

And that, I decide, is what my college application essay will be about.

After the next song, the music quiets, and the principal climbs onto the stage with a bunch of note cards. She clears her throat and leans into the microphone. “Hello, students, I’m glad to see you all here tonight. Go, Wildcats!”

The student body cheers.

“Now’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our Homecoming King and Queen!”

Everyone cheers. I take Quinn by their hand and squeeze it tightly. They squeeze back. “Just so you know,” I whisper, “even if Garrett wins, you’re still Homecoming Overlord to me.”

The principal opens the letter. “And our Homecoming King and Queen are…”

Annie and I lean close to Quinn, hoping, praying—

“Garrett Taylor and Myrella Johnson!” she reads, and she sounds a little disappointed. My stomach feels like a lead rock in my toes. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear Garrett crow and make his way up to the stage.

Annie and I press our cheeks onto Quinn’s shoulders. They sigh. “Well, we tried.”

“I just want to thank you for voting for me,” Garrett says, before the Homecoming Queen takes the microphone out of his hands.

“This is a dream come true, thank you so much,” Myrella cries into the microphone, and honestly I’m relieved she won. “My mother took this crown, and I’m so happy that I get to have it, too. I can’t wait to tell her.” There is a commotion near the back of the gym, and I glance over my shoulder to see what’s wrong, but I’m cursed with shortness and I can’t see beyond the sea of heads. “And I just want to thank our King tonight, Garrett Taylor—”

“Congrats, you deserve it.” Garrett takes the microphone from her again, ignoring her professed love, which is a little awkward, honestly. He hops down off the stage and makes his way toward me. “Rosie, may I have this dance?” he asks, and outstretches his hand.

My skin prickles as all eyes turn to me.

No one else knows that he leaked that video of Vance from my phone, but I don’t think pointing that out will do anything. He just won’t quit, will he? I open my mouth to tell him just where he can shove that date of his—

“Thorne!”

The voice cuts through the crowd. I know it. Deep, crackly at the edges, with the softest hint of a British accent. No, it can’t be.

My heart slams against the side of my rib cage.

I turn around, and there he is in the sea of people, dressed in a blue tux that’s a little bit too small for him, but he makes it work in a way that makes my stomach twist. I swallow the knot in my throat. His hair is wild, pushed back out of his face, his tie loose and suit disheveled. His chest heaves, as if he ran to get here. I always thought he was beautiful, but it just now hits me—like a ton of bricks. It hits me after I resigned myself to never seeing him again in person, to him leaving on a jet plane back to his life, leaving me here in the middle of nowhere.

But here he is.

In nowhere.

For me.

“Vance Reigns?” Garrett laughs into the microphone.

“Vance Reigns?” someone else whispers.

“…the Vance Reigns?”

“Who the hell is he?”

“Isn’t that Sond?”

Garrett grins, and it’s the kind of shit-eating grin I want to punch off his smug face. “What are you doing here, buddy? Here to ruin our night, too?”

A dangerous look flickers across Vance’s cornflower eyes. He begins to roll up his sleeves. “I assume you’re Garrett?”

“Yeah, and you aren’t supposed to be here—aah!” He dodges the first swing and scurries away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done back in the diner when I first met you,” he grinds out, trying to grapple for him again. Wait—at the diner? So they’ve met before? I stare, gape-mouthed, at them as they, well—I guess you would call it fighting? But this is less like a fight and more like…well. They’re trying to kick and punch each other but they don’t want to get hit so they’re definitely not landing any blows and it just looks very anticlimactic.

And kind of pathetic.

Two guys are fighting over me, and I’m not even impressed.

“All right, all right, just gimme a moment,” Garrett says, pushing Vance off him. Vance eases back a little, smoothing back his hair. “You know, you surprised me. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“I surprised myself, too.”

“Then maybe you should leave!” Garrett leaps at him, again catching him off-guard, and grabs Vance by the hair. They go spiraling toward the refreshment table, slam into the side of it, and flip over it, taking the catering with them. The chaperones are clawing their way through the students watching, but none of them will get here in time.