“That’s suspect.”
“You do,” he says, and gently reaches a hand out and turns her head so she must look at him. She could fight against it, but she doesn’t. His touch sets her skin on edge, and her nails dig into her palms—but she doesn’t pull away. As if she’s daring herself to know how far she can go. “I know the look of someone questing for revenge.”
“It’s not a quest,” she replies, leaning closer, testing the inches between them. She doesn’t blink as she stares into his eyes, trying to find a soul there. “It’s a promise.”
I MANAGE TO FIND A PAIR of not-so-dirty jeans on my bedroom floor and shimmy into them as Dad’s alarm screeches across the apartment for the fourteenth time.
I poke my head out of my bedroom and shout, “Dad, are you dead?”
From the other side of the apartment, I hear a zombie groan.
Good, not dead.
Since it’s a bit chilly this morning—thank God September finally got the memo—I throw on an old sweatshirt and jeans, pull my hair back, and fix myself some coffee. After a few minutes, Dad shuffles out of his room, in a crumpled button-down and orange tie. His silver hair is sticking straight up on the left side. He licks his hand and tries to flatten it down, but it doesn’t work.
He yawns as he fixes himself a cup. “So how’s Quinn and Annie’s Homecoming plan coming along?”
“I think they’re making buttons to hand out that say QUEER HERE TO ROCK and HOMECOMING IS SO GAY,” I say, pouring the rest of my coffee into the sink and grabbing my bookbag. “I can only assume I know which one you came up with.”
He snorts. “I’ll gladly take half credit for both.”
“Like a true hero,” I reply, kissing him on the cheek, and hurry out the door.
* * *
—
TUESDAY MORNINGS ARE FOR (MORE) COFFEE and pancakes, so as soon as I pick Quinn and Annie up, we head to the Starlight Diner for some breakfast. Seniors don’t have first period Tuesday and Thursday mornings—presumably so we can study for our SATs and apply to colleges—but I highly doubt any of us actually use that time as planned.
Why, when you can enjoy a stack of delicious pancakes instead?
We order our usual—three specials with an extra side of bacon—before Annie and Quinn spread out the details of their Homecoming plan across the table. They’ve already made the buttons, but now they’re both working on the posters, which are just as flashy and glittery as I suspected. Today, Quinn has on a fabulous dress—yellow with middle fingers printed all over it. They saw Natalia Ford in a similar print at ExcelsiCon last year and just had to track down the clothing company. They look up to Natalia Ford something fierce.
“She’s really everything. I can’t wait to see Starfield: Resonance. It is going to be amazing. Like, not like Last Jedi amazing, but like Star Trek: First Contact amazing,” they’re saying as they bedazzle the word VOTE onto the poster.
I’m not sure what the difference is (I was never really into Star Wars or Star Trek), but I nod anyway.
“I just hope Natalia treats Sond like The Last Jedi treated Kylo. I’m hashtag no redemption arc,” Annie adds, shaking a tube of blue glitter glue.
“But you like the Zuko redemption arc,” Quinn points out.
Annie waves her hand dismissively. “But Sond is terrible. He was in the TV show and he will be in everything we know about the movie.” Our pancakes come, and we clear a spot for them on the table. Annie steals a bite of my blueberry pancake before she continues. “I just don’t understand how so many people love Sond. How can you root for a villain?”
“Well, he’s pretty hot,” I comment, thinking about my run-in with Vance in the kitchen. For a moment when we first saw each other, he looked like he…was surprised by me. Caught off-guard in a way that caused a little crinkle between his eyebrows. A crinkle that, for an absolutely weird second, I wanted to smooth out.
“Not all that sparkles is gold,” Annie replies cryptically as she finishes dabbing the glitter glue onto the rainbow and holds it up for me to see. “What do you think? Glittery enough?”
“It’ll definitely catch people’s eye.”
“That’s what we’re hoping for.”
We inhale the rest of our breakfast, since we only have fifty minutes before our second-period class. Quinn checks their watch and slides out of the booth. “We’re gonna be late if we don’t run. You done?”
In reply, Annie shows them the poster in all of its incredible rainbow-glitter monstrosity. “Isn’t it glorious?”
“It’s a beast,” Quinn replies, and they fist-bump in affirmation.
I slide out of the booth, taking one last bacon slice as I go, and fish out ten dollars from my wallet. It’s my turn to tip, anyway. Annie and Quinn slide out after me, and we wave goodbye to Mrs. Potts at the cash register.
The older woman waves goodbye with a “Study hard!” as we leave the diner and hurry down the block to school.
* * *
—
THE BELL RINGS AS WE ARRIVE AT SCHOOL. I’m a bit late to geometry, but Mr. Rantz isn’t in yet either, so it doesn’t matter. I hurry across the room to my desk beside the poster of a kitten reaching toward a moon with the inspiring saying, Reach for the stars! I sometimes toy with the idea of scratching out REACH FOR and replacing it with LOOK TO, because honestly it would make the poster one hundred percent better.
But there’s someone in my seat when I get there.
Garrett Taylor is leaned back and sprawled out on my chair, legs up on my desk. When he sees me, he quickly rights himself and smiles around a red lollipop in his mouth. “Rosie! Good to see you this morning,” he says, and points to the cup of Starbucks at the edge of the desk. “I brought you some coffee. Two sugars and a cream, right?”
“Um—I actually take it black.”
“Like your heart, that’s so poetic.” Then he leans forward, before I can even begin to dissect his negging, and says, “I was just thinking, you know, since Homecoming is coming up in a few weeks, we have to start figuring out what we’re going to wear.”
I hesitate. Where is the teacher? Usually Mr. Rantz isn’t this late to class. And everyone else is staring at me, because of course they haven’t forgotten Garrett’s proclamation over the morning announcements last week. “I, um, don’t think—”
“I was thinking that since you love Starfield so much, we could both go in blue. I know just the perfect shade.”