I used to think there was no worse feeling in the world than being embarrassed. But as I stood there in Callie’s doorway, I realized I was wrong, because actually the worst feeling in the world was watching someone else be embarrassed.
Callie wiped at her red-rimmed eyes, and I stepped quickly aside as she started to shoulder past me and into the room, except then she stopped right between me and Phoebe and sort of looked around, like she had no idea why she was even here.
Phoebe and I waited for her to say something, and it was … awkward. So awkward. Awkward sauce on an awkward sundae, with an awkward cherry on top.
I was about to speak up, like maybe to say I was sorry for overhearing, or to ask if we should leave, or anything to get rid of the silence—but Phoebe got there first.
“Well, that sounded like it sucked!” she said.
Callie blinked a few times, really fast. “Yeah, it really did.”
“Sit down.” Phoebe gestured toward the armchair. “You look like you’re gonna pass out.”
So Callie sat, or really she kind of collapsed, just like I’d done last night. That was when I realized this was my chance to pay her back for taking care of me.
I went into the bathroom and filled a cup with water and brought it out to Callie. “Drink up. No passing out, okay?”
She gave me a feeble smile, and then did exactly what I’d said.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked, and took the empty cup back to the sink for a refill.
“No,” she replied.
“You sure?”
“No point,” she said, and drained the second cup in one gulp. “You guys heard the whole thing, right?”
“Hard not to,” said Phoebe. “These walls are seriously thin. We weren’t trying to eavesdrop. I swear.”
“ ’S fine,” Callie mumbled.
I looked at Phoebe and she shrugged and, thank goodness, maybe she didn’t know what to say any more than I did.
“Well,” I said slowly, “I can’t exactly distract you with turkey blow-drying, like you did for me, but … um … do you wanna do something else? Do you have a deck of cards or anything?”
“I have an Xbox,” offered Phoebe. “Well, it’s not mine, but I could steal it for a few hours.”
“I don’t need you to steal more stuff for me,” said Callie. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I just need to, like … sit here for a minute.”
Phoebe and I exchanged another look. “You want us to go?” Phoebe asked.
“Yeah, we can leave you alone if you want,” I added, even though I seriously didn’t want to leave, not when Soleil could be lurking just about anywhere. “There are some panels I could check out downstairs, I guess, and that fan band The Trash of the Thing is performing later tonight, or—”
“Could I come with you?” Phoebe interrupted. “I won’t if it’s a huge pain to sneak me in, but I don’t want to risk running into anyone at IPAC.”
“Wait, why?” Callie asked and, oh, right, she didn’t know all the stuff that had happened with Phoebe and her friends.
Wrinkling her nose a little, Phoebe shook her head and dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “Nothing. Stupid drama. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make this all about me.”
Callie scrubbed her hands over her blotchy face. “Actually, could you please make it about you for a while? I want to think about literally anything besides my life right now. Misery loves company, right?”
“Yeah …” said Phoebe.
“So, I’m miserable. Keep me company.” She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows and, oh good, we wouldn’t have to leave yet. I made myself comfortable on the other bed.
“Okaaaay.” Phoebe looked at me, then back at Callie. “I hooked up with this guy the other night. He’s in my ensemble.”
“Ooh,” I said. “Name?”
“Scott. Scott Lloyd.”
“Is he cute?” I asked. “Do you have a pic? Can we see?”
Phoebe took out her phone and pressed a couple buttons, then held the screen out, first to Callie, then to me. It was a Facebook profile picture of a guy wearing what looked like busted-up cereal boxes on his arms and head and striking a superhero pose and, okay, if we’re being honest here, the costume was pretty awful, but he looked like he was having fun, and that was kind of the whole point of costumes, right?
“Transformer costume,” Phoebe explained dryly, and I smiled because under the costume, he did have a nice face, like definitely nice enough that I could see why a person, not a person like me obviously, but maybe a more boy-oriented person, might have a crush on him.
“Nice,” said Callie. “Okay, so you hooked up with him, and …”
“And it was fine for like five seconds until it went nuclear,” Phoebe said flatly. “Not good nuclear. Mountain Dew coffee on the walls, a bottle’s worth of cheap cologne in my hair, triangle beater down Scott’s pants kind of nuclear. Are you laughing at me?”
“Sorry!” I said, clamping a hand over my mouth because, wow, I had absolutely no right to laugh. Phoebe’s hookup seemed like just as much of a disaster as mine had been, which was saying something, and she was all calm and cool and collected and, yeah, I definitely shouldn’t have been laughing. If anything, I should’ve been taking notes.
So I calmed myself down and tried again: “Okay, though, an actual triangle beater? And like, was it down his pants or did it, you know, get stuck up his—”
“No!” said Phoebe. “No, I don’t think that’s possible from that, er, angle. At least, I hope not.”
“I hope not, too,” I said. “I’ve read a couple fanfics where stuff goes up there accidentally, and it’s never pretty. Also ones about coffee spilling—although sometimes that’s intentional, like there’s this one Avengers fic where Tony Stark’s got this coffee kink, and there’s a threesome with him and Pepper and Steve Rogers, and he pours … uh …”
Okay, yup, now they were just staring at me.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway. Sorry. Coffee. Mountain Dew. Triangle beater. Go on.”
“Uh, right,” said Phoebe. “So that happens, and I basically run away. And yesterday morning, I found out that Scott told everyone.”
“Daaaamn. That sucks,” said Callie.
“But I should have seen that coming, right?” said Phoebe. “I mean, he’s a guy. That’s what guys do. They hook up with whoever, and they brag to their friends about it. He did the same thing with a girl from another school when we were here last year.”
“Ugh, I’m sorry,” I said.
“Not your fault,” said Phoebe. “Anyway, I felt so gross about the whole thing that I went to watch the turkey extravaganza so I wouldn’t have to see anyone from my school … but I forgot about Brian’s solo. That’s my best friend, Brian. And then Christina—that’s my former best friend, she and Brian just started dating—she called me selfish for missing it, and then she said all this stuff about how I judge people and …” Phoebe took a long, deep breath. “Girls, right? Everything’s always so foxing dramatic. Get a grip.”
I looked down at the bedspread. Was I the same way? Dramatic? Was that how Soleil saw me? Was that why she’d kicked me out?
“Guys can be dramatic, too,” said Callie, glancing toward her dad’s room.
That was when someone’s phone buzzed. Phoebe dug hers out of her back pocket and took one look at it and flopped backward onto the bed with a loud groan.
“Speak of the devil,” she said.
“Christina?” I asked.
“No. Scott.”
“What’s it say? I mean, not that you have to tell us or anything, like if it’s private or whatever …”
Instead of answering out loud, Phoebe tossed her phone onto my bed. I picked it up and read Scott’s text: Hey, I’m headin down 2 starbucks. Meet me? 15 mins?
“Omigod!” I grinned at Phoebe, who rolled her eyes. “He wants to meet you downstairs? That’s good, right? That’s got to be good.”
“Ooooooooh,” said Callie, as I tossed the phone back to Phoebe.
“There’s no ‘ooh,’” Phoebe said, thumbing her screen. “He’s probably planning on … I dunno. He’ll stand me up, or he’s got a bunch of guys ready to throw Mountain Dew on me, or—”
“Or he just wants to talk to you,” I said, because I’d read those fanfics, too, where someone’s just screwed up in a humiliating-yet-fixable way, then there’s a conversation full of feelings and usually also some apologies, which eventually leads to kissing, then to meaningful kissing and then, you know, to other stuff because, hello, obviously, it’s fanfic.
I didn’t say any of that out loud this time, though, and that was probably for the best because Phoebe just said, “Yeah, right.” Then she muttered aloud as she typed: “Sorry … I … feel … like … sharks … see … you … later. There. Sent.” A few seconds later, her phone buzzed again, and Phoebe opened the text and groaned. “He really wants to talk to me, and he’ll wait just in case I change my mind. Ugh.”
“Maybe you should hear him out,” said Callie. “What if he wants to tell you he likes you?”
Phoebe raised an eyebrow. “What if he’s got a triangle beater ready to shove down my pants, just to make us even?”
“What if you stopped being paranoid?” said Callie.
“What if boys stopped completely sucking so I wouldn’t have to be paranoid?”
Oh, this wasn’t going anywhere good. Someone had to stop this from turning into another fight and, hey, guess who that someone was, just by default?
“Hey,” I said, kind of loudly, “what if I told you guys about Soleil being a horrible person?”
Phoebe’s expression changed completely. Bouncing a little on Callie’s bed, she said, “Ooh, there’s new Soleil gossip? Yes, please.”
Callie turned toward me, too. “Oh, is this about what happened last night?”
I nodded, and suddenly there were two pairs of eyes laser-focused directly on me, and my stomach twisted a little at being the center of attention, but I took a deep breath and—and, okay, I didn’t actually mean to tell them the whole story, all the way from the beginning, but I kind of had to, or else last night wouldn’t make any sense at all, and once I started talking, I realized it actually felt great to get it all out, and before I knew it, there I was, telling them absolutely everything. Meeting Soleil online for the first time, becoming her co-author instead of just her fan, thinking she was my girlfriend, planning to meet her here at WTFcon.
I told them about all the time I’d spent in our room, waiting for her to kiss me, and I told them about Callie inspiring me to take matters into my own hands, and … yeah, and then, I told them about Soleil’s reaction.
“So basically,” I said to Callie, “you were right.”
“I seriously wish I hadn’t been,” said Callie. “Ugh, I’m really sorry. She is the worst.”
Phoebe looked at me calmly and said, “Am I allowed to murder her for you?”
“Legally or morally?” I replied, which made them laugh.
Then I told them about accidentally snooping on Soleil’s phone and finding out that she’d created her own online archnemesis. Then I told them about the fight. In detail.
“And you know the rest,” I said, nodding at Callie. “I showed up here, and you put me to work on your turkeys, and then I ditched WTFcon today so I could write instead, but … okay, here’s the thing. I’m not sure I did the right thing—”
“What are you talking about?” said Phoebe, cutting me off. “You definitely did. You’re pretty much my hero for telling that stupid Barbie doll what’s what.”
My cheeks went hot, and I fought off a grin at the compliment. “No, I … see, that Creativity Corner thing? The fanworks competition? I think I should have changed the registration to Soleil’s name.”
“Are you kidding me?” said Callie. “Why would you do that?”
“Because she was right. She had all these ideas about what to do for the contest, and I don’t, and if I’m gonna keep her from entering when I’m not gonna use the registration myself … that’s just mean.”
“Serves her right,” said Phoebe.
“It really does,” said Callie. “Plus, you could still enter on your own, right? Or do something with your other friend, the one with the vulture hat. Merry, right? They seemed cool.”
I smiled. Doing a project with Merry sounded like a great idea, except I didn’t have their phone number or their room number or anything and, besides, even if they did feel like entering the Creativity Corner with me—and, come on, why would they?—odds were they’d already entered on their own.
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t have any good ideas. I only entered in the first place because Soleil wanted to.”
“Just read one of your stories,” said Callie. “What about the thing you’ve been working on today?”
I shook my head. “That’s something original, and you’re only allowed to enter fanfic. And even then, only if it’s under five minutes long when you read it out loud, and only if it hasn’t been published online before the convention. All my stuff’s online already, so it wouldn’t count.”
Callie shrugged. “So write something new.”
“In the next day?” I said. “No way. I don’t even have any ideas! And my co-author’s the worst person in the world—”
“In the galaxy,” muttered Phoebe.
“—plus I’d have to get someone to read it on stage because there’s no way I’m getting up there by myself, plus I’d need a beta-reader …”
“Wait,” said Callie. “Wait wait wait.”
“You know, someone who edits your stuff before you post it—”
“No, I know what a beta-reader is.” She was leaning forward in her chair now, elbows on knees, and I could practically see her coming back to life. “But what you said about editing, and using someone else’s voice … What if you did something like A Thousand Words?”
“The podcast?” said Phoebe, and Callie nodded.
“I don’t follow,” I said. “Write fanfic of the show?”
“No,” said Callie. “Make an episode of the show. Like a spec script. You could just walk around and ask a bunch of people the same question, and then edit the clips into a story. That would count, right? Because it’s inspired by something else?”
It actually sounded like an amazing idea, only it would be such a lot of work, especially when the contest was just a little over twenty-four hours away and I hadn’t even started yet and, gah, did I even know how to do something like that by myself?
“I do like how they make stories out of all those different clips,” I said carefully. “But I don’t know how to actually edit audio stuff or, you know, any of the rest of it, either.”
“I do,” said Callie. “I could help you. It’s not like I have anywhere else to be until Monday.”
“And I don’t have any recording equipment,” I added.
“Sure you do,” said Phoebe. “It’s called your phone. You do have a smartphone, right?” I nodded. “It’s probably got a recorder app already. I’ll show you how to use it. And I …” She hesitated for a few seconds. “That concert my teacher made me go to last night? He brought me up to the sound booth, and I hung out with the sound engineer for hours. It was pretty badass. I’d love to do some audio for this, if that’s okay with you guys. Like a soundtrack or sound effects …” Her eyes lit up. “Actually, I’ve been getting some really amazing sound clips from all the cons already! I bet we could use a lot of them.”
I looked back and forth between my two brand-new friends, and they were so eager to help me out even though they barely knew me, and I was not going to cry, I was not, I was not.
“What if,” I began slowly. “What if we all entered together? It could be our project as a trio instead of mine alone.”
“Really?” said Callie. “You’d be okay with that?”
“For sure,” said Phoebe. “Can we make it story about how guys are demons but Soleil is actually Satan?”
“We can’t plan it in advance,” said Callie. “When I went to the workshop with the Thousand Words people, they said that was their number one rule. They figure out what the story is after they do their interviews. If they do it the other way around, it makes everything seem scripted and trite.”
“Mixing,” Phoebe said with a little smile. “Figuring out the meaning and drawing it out.”
Callie nodded. “Exactly. So the first thing we have to do is figure out what question we’re gonna ask everyone.”
The room fell silent. Phoebe flopped back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling as she thought, and Callie made soft little hmm noises, and I thought about … well, okay, mainly I was thinking about the improbability of ending up here in this room, with these two girls. They hadn’t been internet friends first. They were both nerdy in their own ways, but neither of them was a fandom person, and yet, somehow, here I was, opening up to them in ways I’d never opened up to real-life people before.
“Hey, guys?” I said. “I think I have the perfect question.”