“Probably not,” I reply, and repeat, handing them a twenty-dollar bill out of my back pocket, “Two, please.”
They exchange a look, but then the president shrugs and accepts my cash, and hands me two golden tickets. They have roses on them. Of course they do. The theme for this year’s Homecoming is “Garden of Memories.”
Then why do I feel like I already want to forget the whole thing?
* * *
—
SO, I TAKE IT BACK—there is at least one thing more embarrassing than a ten-foot-tall poster of Garrett Taylor and realizing that you wake up to the smoldering looks of one Vance Reigns every morning combined: it’s going to a boy’s house after realizing that you might have a very small, unsubstantial, incredibly overcomable, crush on him.
The boy in question is sitting at the counter, eating an apple, when I let myself in and dump my bookbag in the corner of the kitchen. He looks up from another Starfield novel I recommended to him this past weekend, since he didn’t want to read any more in The Starless Throne without me.
“So I see you decided to read it,” I say, trying not to think about how incredibly hot he looks reading. He really should do it more often.
“Mmh, yeah, but I can’t really get into this one,” he replies, and takes another bite of apple.
“Really? Don’t like the political intrigue of the Noxian Court?” I slide up onto the stool beside him. “And the ball. I love the ball. Magic spells. Daring sword fights. A prince in disguise.”
“I definitely figured him out in chapter three,” he replies, amused, and puts a bookmark in before he closes the book. “Everything okay, Thorne?”
I sigh, sort of hating how he can see right through me. “Have you seen my phone? I thought I left it in my car, but apparently not.”
“You lost your phone?”
“Don’t act so surprised. It’s old! It’s better as a paperweight, so I just don’t really use it unless I have to.”
He cocks his head. “Huh, so that’s why you never asked for my number.”
“What?”
Instead he says, “Maybe someone at school will turn it in.”
“Maybe,” I mutter, stealing a slice of apple as I make my way to the library. He grabs the plate with apple slices and follows me. “At least it’s password protected.” That I say more to myself than to him, because I still have that video on my phone—from when I first broke into the house and found Vance. I don’t want to think about how he’ll react. I’ll find my phone. I probably just lost it at school.
There’s no need to worry.
It was probably fate telling me to not text him, anyway.
I was hoping the library would ease my mind, but I still feel anxious. My heart hammers every time I catch a glance of Vance on the other side of the room, reaching for a book or flipping through another.
It’s driving me crazy.
I shouldn’t feel this weird in a place that has become my sanctuary. Am I standing properly? Is my hair doing that weird cowlick thing? Do I have anything on my face? Why does it matter?
Because, in the golden afternoon, he looks so perfect, illuminating his hair in a halo of platinum. He walks through the folds of sunlight and comes to a stop in the shadows, his cornflower eyes brilliantly bright, almost glowing. He puts his hands into his pockets and tilts his head just enough.
Just enough for a piece of hair to come undone behind his ear.
Just enough for his perfectly symmetrical countenance to shift to something quite different, almost endearing.
Just enough for my heart to thump wildly in my chest, like a jackrabbit.
I don’t understand.
“Is that all?” he asks.
“Yes,” I lie, turning away from him to boot up the iPad. There aren’t many books left to shelve. The boxes have all but disappeared, stacked empty in corners, the library filling slowly to full, like a soul waking up from a long sleep. I try to busy myself with the next set of books, the last of the cardboard boxes. When it’s done, so will be my job.
I won’t have to come here any longer after that.
Why does it make my chest hurt?
“I mean, why would you think otherwise?” I ask, my back turned to him. “Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? We’re almost done with cataloging and all of these books have taken forever to file, you know? But I loved seeing all of the original covers for the Starfield collection and—” I turn around and find him right there, so close I have to stop myself from running into him.
He gently presses the spine of the book he’s reading against my lips. “You’re babbling, Thorne.”
We’re so close I can feel the heat from his skin, and smell the soap from his hair, and laundry detergent—the latter of which I’m extremely happy about. At least he isn’t wearing the same clothes for a week straight anymore.
And I can’t remember when he stopped. Or when he began washing his hair again. Or when he started coming in to keep me company while I worked. Was it just in the last week? Or longer?
It seemed so natural at the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it.
But now, with him so close, reminding me that I babble when I’m nervous, I start to wonder—at what point did he realize I babble when I’m nervous? When did I tell him? Did I ever? Sometime in the last few weeks, he started paying attention.
I’ve already read about romance. About what it feels like to fall in love. I had always thought I would linger on his eyelashes or his soft cornflower eyes or his smooth pale skin, his halo of golden hair, but—
All of the books are wrong.
It misses the space between. The strange, thick air that fills with electricity as Vance leans closer. My skin tingles as he swipes a piece of hair behind my ear, his fingertips brushing against my cheek, and my breath catches in my throat. In all the books I’ve read, the author always described the physicality—the heat of their skin and the freckle on the left side of their lip and the way their eyebrows bunch together as they lean in, slowly, questioningly—but never the soft feeling of…just being.
Where I feel safe.
Where I don’t have to be anyone amazing, where I don’t have to fit into some stupid mold, where I’m not the girl with the dead mom, or the girl with the hot dad, or the girl who was asked to Homecoming by the most popular boy in school.
It’s just a space, small and warm, that fits for Rosie Thorne.
This is unimaginable.
My heart jumps like the Prospero into hyperspace because I want to—because I need to—