My eyebrows crinkle. “You’re going to enter?” I try not to laugh, I really do. “Come on, Chloe. You don’t even watch Starfield!”

She smirks. “Which is why we want your opinion on our costume.”

Oh this should be good. Catherine couldn’t have given them the money for a well-made costume from Etsy—she hates Starfield, there’s no way she would. So I have to see what nylon-spandex hybrid monstrosity they bought. The sooner I do this, the sooner I can write about that idiot Darien Freeman getting himself trapped on a roof.

“All right,” I say. “What are you cosplaying—”

But the moment I step into their room, the words die in my throat.

Cal can’t even turn to me as she frantically braids her hair down her shoulder, standing in front of their full-length mirror in a beautiful silk dress.

My mother’s cosplay costume.

“What do you think?” Chloe asks, smirking.

What do I think? I think my heart is breaking. I remember the way the dress looked when Mom twirled, like the galaxy was spinning, stars sparkling across the living room. Now a ghost, twirling, twirling, dancing around the living room, the heels of her starshine shoes clipping across the hardwood like a heartbeat.

Chloe waves her hand dismissively toward Cal’s feet. “I couldn’t fit into the stupid shoes—who makes glass shoes?—but Cal looks nice in them, doesn’t she?”

“Where did you…” My heart thumps in my throat, swelling, making it harder to breathe. “Where did you find this?”

“In a trunk full of a lot of trash,” Chloe replies.

Her words cut a searing pain through me, snapping me to my senses. “That’s my mom’s cosplay!” I cry. “It’s not trash!”

That must’ve been what she was looking for me to say, because her face brightens and she smiles. “So it is one of those stupid costumes from the show! I told you, Cal.”

“We just need it for a week,” Cal adds, as if that makes things better. “Then we’ll give it back.”

“But it’s not yours!” I protest.

Cal winces, but Chloe scoffs. “Like it’s yours either. I don’t see your name on it.”

“It was my mom’s!”

“Yeah, well.” Chloe shrugs. “So was the house.”

My mouth falls open as though she physically slapped me. “But…but Catherine’ll never let you go to the con.”

Chloe clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “See, we might’ve lied and said we had a tennis tournament that weekend. Cal here will enter the contest and we’ll win and record ourselves meeting Darien Freeman, which’ll skyrocket our vlog to fame. We’ll be famous. And you never know,” she adds, her grin growing, “Darien might fall in love with me.”

My hands clench into fists. “I won’t let you go. I’ll tell Catherine—”

“And we’ll tell her why you’ve been coming home so late. You’ve been smoking weed or doing whatever nasty things that girl—what’s her name?—Sage does.”

“How do you—”

“James saw you going into her house today. So, what, did you just give up on men entirely?” She smirks, knowing the words dig under my skin. They do, like briars. “Because it’s pathetic that you went with her.”

“Chloe, stop it,” Cal says, looking down at the floor.

“No,” Chloe says simply. “She threatened to snitch on us, so if she snitches—we snitch. We’re going to that contest, and we’re going to win and meet Darien, even if we have to play along with this ridiculous Star Wars thing—”

“Starfield,” Cal corrects.

“Whatever. We’ll win and meet Darien and it’ll be perfect—and I won’t let a nobody like you ruin it for us.”

Then she slams the door, trapping my mom’s dress in a room of nightmares.

“Danielle!” Catherine calls from downstairs. “Dishes!”

If I tell Catherine, then I don’t know what they’ll do to Mom’s cosplay, but if I don’t…then what? Then they win. Maybe not the competition—because cosplay is more than putting on a costume—but they’ll enter. With my mom’s cosplay.

Clenching my fists, I hurry downstairs to do the dishes and put away the food, my hands shaking. If I don’t finish fixing Dad’s costume, if I don’t prove that there’s more to cosplaying than just putting on the right clothes, then they’ll win. Maybe not the competition, but they’ll win against me. And I can’t let that happen—not with Mom’s cosplay.

Not at Dad’s convention.

Not in this universe.

“DARIEN, MARK’S ON THE LINE,” GAIL says, extending her phone to me. “He says he’s been trying to call for the last few days.”

I turn the page in Batman: Year One. “Oh, is that who’s been calling me? I thought it was a telemarketer or—”

“Darien,” she says my name flatly, with the no-bull-right-now kind of inflection.

I close my book with a sigh and take the phone. “Hi there, M—”

“Who are you dating, again?” Mark interrupts.

My mouth falls open. “Um, I…” Is this a trick question? “Jess?”

“Oh good, so you remember.”

“Of course I remem—”

“Then why is TMZ reporting that you’re cheating on her?” he asks tersely.

I shoot a look at Gail, who’s sitting on the side of my bed, nibbling on her thumbnail, knees bopping up and down from nerves. She couldn’t have told. She wouldn’t have. I pull myself up in my chair.

What is it? she mouths.

We’re in my hotel room, spacious and beautiful thing that it is. But the walls are paper thin and Jess is in the room next door. We have a shoot in an hour with a star-chase scene, and I don’t want it to be awkward.

I mouth, Mark knows about the texts.

Paling, Gail shakes her head. Wasn’t me, she says. I know it wasn’t. I have dirt on her now too, thanks Gaffer Dude. Lonny, then? No, he strikes me as a man of his word.

“There’s no one,” I say. “It’s just rumors, you know?”

“Rumors,” Mark echoes. “Then why are multiple sources saying you can’t get your nose out of your phone?”

I brace for impact, like he’s going to order Gail to take away my phone; the thought of not texting Elle leaves me with a panicky hollowness.

But then he laughs, as if trying to diffuse the situation. “You have to be careful, kiddo. You’re the face of Starfield. It’ll look bad if you’re dating your costar and getting a little something on the side. You know what you should do?” He’s going to tell me anyway, even though I don’t want to know. “You should put whoever’s on the other end of that phone on hold. Have some good times with Jess. I just talked with her manager and we’re setting up a nice date for you two, okay? Tonight after the shoot. You can do that, yeah?”

I’m quiet for a moment, looking down at my phone in my lap. Not talk to Elle? For, what, the week left until we wrap up? Until ExcelsiCon? A week doesn’t seem that long, and the moment after wrap-up Jess and I will end our “relationship” and go our separate ways but…

As if Elle knows we’re talking about her, my phone blips with a message. Her name.

8:47 AM

—Oh no, Car.

—Oh no.

—There’s a dog next door and I went out to feed him because he barks and

—Car, it’s so bad. I hate my stepmom.

—I hate her so much.

—The neighbor’s taking him to the pound.

—THE POUND.

I tap out of my call with Mark to answer her.

8:49 AM

—O, shit. I’m so sorry.

Elle 8:49 AM

—I just don’t know what to do Car

—This isn’t Frank the Tank’s fault

—She always wins. She ALWAYS does.

—I’m powerless. I’m always so powerless.

Powerless. I know a thing or two about that. I feel useless, half-thinking that I’m actually going to sit here and let Mark tell me whom I can and can’t talk to. But he’s my dad, and shouldn’t dads know best? Don’t they know best?

“Darien? Are you still there?” My phone speaker crackles with Mark’s voice. “Did I drop you? Did you hear me? Stupid phone…”

“I get it, Mark,” I reply, picking up my phone again.

“I knew you’d come around!” He cheers as though this is some breakthrough in our relationship. “Now don’t forget that date tonight. Be on your best. Shine like you always do, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I grind out, and hang up with a look at Gail. “Next time he calls, I’m busy.”

Gail frowns. “Darien, maybe he’s right. It’s just a week…” She looks down at her phone hesitantly. “I mean, just listen to him for a week—”

My phone vibrates again.

Elle 8:52 AM

—I don’t know what to do.

I glance back to Gail, who simply puts up her hands and returns to the couch to watch the morning news. “I don’t see anything.”