I doubt they expected that twist.
“I can’t stay here forever,” I reply, and flash him a grin. “Besides, when my stepfather steps down, who’ll be there to inherit Kolossal Pictures? Sansa?”
At the mention of her name, my dog perks up on the floor and sticks out her tongue. She wags her tail gently, and it thumps on the rug.
Elias sighs and scrubs her behind the head. “Right. Okay. Just so you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
I have to be.
When he leaves, I sit down in one of the wingback chairs and take out my phone. My mother dominates the missed calls—almost all of them—so it isn’t very hard to find her phone number.
With a deep breath, I call her.
The phone rings once—twice—before she answers, honey and light and sweet. “Darling!”
I don’t realize how good it is to hear her voice until I do, and my throat tightens.
“Hi, Mum,” I reply softly.
“Oh, darling, I’m so glad you gave me a ring,” she says. “You know, after I saw what the gossip was about, I was going to ring you again but I figured—well, I’m glad you called. Are you okay? Is Elias feeding you well? How was your birthday yesterday?—”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, my voice breaking.
“Oh, darling, you’ve nothing to apologize for,” she replies, and her voice is understanding and soft, and that’s it. Those are the words I didn’t know I needed to hear, but when I finally do my eyes sting, and I press the palm of my hand into my eye. My breath hitches, and I can’t remember the last time I cried, but it feels like a string inside me has finally come undone, the tension gone. “I love you, darling, and I can’t wait to see you home,” she adds, and I can imagine her sitting at the dining room table at home, twirling a lock of her graying blond hair, a thousand-piece puzzle stretched out in front of her. “Gregory stepped out for a moment, but he would love to talk to you, too—I can ask him to give you a ring after Shabbos?”
I hesitate, tightening my grip on my phone. “I would like that.”
“And about this gossip that’s been going around—”
Before I can gently guide her away from the topic, a familiar voice calls my name—“Vance!”
At first, I think it’s my imagination, but then when the voice calls—again—
“Vance!”
I push myself to my feet. The voice is coming from outside, when normally it’s screaming at me through the headset, telling me to revive her.
This is new.
“Can I ring you back?” I asked my mother.
“Oh, of course! Kisses!”
“Kisses,” I repeat, and put my phone into my back pocket. Then I go to the window, still hesitant that there might be paparazzi around. At first, I don’t see her—but then I’m not sure how I could miss her. She stands in the middle of the driveway, her hands planted on her hips, pink hair almost neon in the sunlight. She sees me peeking out the window and smiles at me with this sort of eat-shit smile that really itches under my skin, and waves one finger at a time. She’s wearing a purple LOOK TO THE STARS sweatshirt and holey black jeans, and she’s gotten a few new additions in her ears, earrings all sparkling different colors.
I am baffled at her being here.
“I-Imogen…?” I ask as I push the window open, thinking this must be some mistake.
“Vance!” she calls, throwing up her arms. “Get your sorry ass out here right now!”
I stare at her. “How in bloody hell did you even get here? And why?”
“Long story involving a football game where the mascot turned out to be running for Homecoming Overlord? Anyway—that’s beside the point. The point is, I’m here to punch some sense into you!”
“…What?”
She pushes up her sweatshirt’s sleeve to show her bicep and flexes. “You heard me! Get out here right now! You know she didn’t leak that video and you just—just blame her anyway!” she rages, her voice grating into a higher octave. I’d only heard that tone once before when an enemy teammate in a battle royale match had been cheating with a two-second glitch. It’s not the kind of voice you want to hear out of her.
My confusion becomes a pinpoint of fear. “She…didn’t do it?”
“No, you big dumb nerf herder, she didn’t,” Imogen replies. “Elle called me and said that one of her contacts at TMZ told her the video came from some guy.”
Some…guy? Not Rosie? My chest begins to constrict. Because I realize what I’ve done, how massive a mistake I made. And it feels like an anvil pressing against my chest. I can barely breathe. “Oh, shite.”
“Yeah, so, what are you gonna do about it?”
What am I going to do about it? What am I going to do—? Anything—everything—to get her back. Because I messed this up. I backslid and I thought the worst of her when I should have known better. When I did know better. And because I miss her. I miss the way she brightens a room like sunshine. I miss how she smiles at every book she touches, like they’re close friends, and I miss the papery smell of her hands, like warm wood and old stories, and—
Oh.
This feels like one of those dating sims that I play often, where the game prompts you to make a decision you can’t come back from.
What will you do?
I…
The words slip out of my mouth. “I’m going to go find her, and I’m going to grovel an apology.”
“Wow, I didn’t expect you to admit that—”
“Thank God!” Another—male—voice says from the side of the house before the owner of said voice crawls his way out of the bushes with a suit in a black bag. Ethan. Imogen’s boyfriend. He picks the twigs out of his hair and shakes them off the bag.
I stare at him, not quite believing my eyes. “You too?”
“Listen, we’re going to make sure you’re doing this the right way,” he replies, and holds up the suit bag. “We didn’t get a hotel for the night just to watch you go up in smoke.”
IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED that if you are the daughter of a librarian who was also the president of your kindergarten’s PTA, your father will volunteer to be a chaperone to the Homecoming Dance just to destroy any prospects you might have for a good time.
“Get! Pumped! Get! Pumped!” Dad cheers as he sashays out of his room in a silver sequined jacket that catches the living room lights and throws stars against the walls. “Are you ready to—Rosebud, why aren’t you dressed?”