“Oh my God, we’re actually going up,” Harper says.
“I’m being totes serious right now.”
“Then you need to work on your fresh-from-Azkaban cosplay.”
“Or my drought-bringing-dog-star cosplay,” I reply.
“Ugh, nerrrdddd,” she drawls.
But it’s playful.
“I gladly take that compliment.”
“Neeeeerrrdddddddd!” she cries, her voice echoing down the stairwell as we climb to the top.
Most rooftops I’ve visited haven’t had alarmed doors, so I’m counting on this one being accessible when I shoulder it open and wedge a cement block so it doesn’t lock us out. The almost-midnight Atlanta skyline sparkles brightly around us, the city lights reflected off glass buildings that twist up like titans frozen in a dance of steel.
It’s so much quieter up here. I let go of Harper’s wrist and breathe in the humid air. Because of the light pollution, you can’t see as many stars as you can on my grandfather’s patch of land in Tennessee, where the sky is so wide you can almost fall into it, but this is a good enough view, for good enough people, on a good enough night. There are no trolls yelling in my mentions about how I’m not enough, no people dissecting how I play a character, or the way I say a word, or why I will never—no matter what I do—be good enough.
I think that’s why I dislike Elle just a little bit. She was one of those people. She tore into Dare without even knowing him, knowing how big a fan he is, or how passionate he will always be about Starfield. The internet makes it easy for us to forget that there are people on the other side of those characters, and whether you like us or not, we’re people too. So your hot take shouldn’t dehumanize me, or tell me that I’m wrong, or that I’m worthless, or a slut who slept on some casting couch for the role.
Because I’m none of those things. And it’s so, so hard to remember that when the internet just keeps echoing it back to you.
But up here there are no echoes and no trolls, and I am just a girl wearing her heart on her sleeve, staring at the sky, asking the universe—just for a moment—to be enough.
I orient myself and point to one of the brighter stars. “See, there he is. The Dog Star. And there’s Mars over there. And over here…” I spin around, not really noticing where I’m going—
—and collide with Harper.
She’s smiling, and looking up at the sky, too. “You know, most normal people don’t go looking up at the sky.”
“I never claimed to be normal,” I reply.
In the nighttime air, with buildings towering around us, thirty stories up and far above car horns and gossip and chatter, I look down—just briefly—to her, and she’s looking at me. In the darkness, her eyes look like pools of ink I could dip a pen into and write a ballad about the way she’s looking at me. My heart trembles as she takes my hand and laces her brown fingers through my pale ones.
“I think I finally see you, Imogen Lovelace,” she says.
It’s important to see that people like us exist. Her voice echoes in my head, along with Imogen’s.
But Princess Amara is dead, and she isn’t coming back.
Not even if I want her to.
And I don’t.
Do I?
I don’t have to wear that galaxy-glitter dress that pinches me under the arms. I don’t have to run in heels or dye my hair that god-awful red. Or actively ignore most social media because of the trolls. I don’t have to eat an inedible catered salad. I don’t have to listen to Dare complain about his uniform not being the right shade of blue. Or watch Amon act out a fight scene and stub his toe on a prop.
And I probably won’t meet Harper at another con. As Imogen, or as myself.
It was an accident that I met her here.
Almost impossible—
Impossible.
Things that would never happen in real life. A fangirl with wicked stepsisters and the actor she despises falling in love. A fashion designer and Geekerella’s stepsister finding each other. Colliding with your look-alike in a con bathroom at the edge of the world and falling for her internet friend.
Impossible.
I’m not Imogen Lovelace, I want to tell her, and now is the perfect time, when the stars are bright and the sky is wide, but the words catch on my tongue as I remember all those Instagram comments. The Twitter notifications.
What if she’s one of them?
Or what if she gets mad that I’ve lied to her this whole time and never wants to talk to me again? Is this how Dare felt when he had to confess to Elle? How did he get up the courage? I don’t know much about Harper, but I want to, and I’m afraid of all the things I’ll never get to know if I tell her who I am.
So like the scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding when the ship goes under the bridge—the moment passes and there’s no going back.
In reply, because I don’t know how to reply, because replying will break her heart, I squeeze her hand tightly and point up to a star and tell her its story because I can’t tell her mine.
Just a little while longer, I pray to the impossibilities. Let me be Imogen for a little while longer.
FOOD HELPS MY MOOD, AS DOES watching my brother inhale an All-Star Breakfast in five minutes flat. I swear to God he’s a black hole. Even Bran is slightly disgusted at the sight. There is nothing quite like it. Milo doesn’t ask why I was wet, or why I smell like a pool, or what happened to make me cry. He knows I’ll tell him, or I won’t. But then he says:
“So, Jessica Stone, eh?”
I look up from my coffee and involuntarily shiver. We’re sitting in a Waffle House, and my hash browns are cold because I only picked at them, and the coffee is warming my hands. “Um…what…about her?”
Bran, sitting beside me, picks up the wig on the seat between us. It looks more like a dead rodent right now, rather than Jess’s long and lustrous locks. He arches an eyebrow. “We know.”
“You…know what?” I try to play dumb, pretending that there’s a coffee ground floating in my cup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She was at the Stellar Party,” Milo says, finishing off his fried egg in a single swallow. “So we know about it. Well, kinda. She was with Harper.”
I wince. “Has Harper found out?”
“No.” Bran shakes his head. “She thinks she’s you, and I think there’s something going on between them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I think J—” But he’s cut off when Milo kicks him under the table. They give each other a meaningful look, as if I didn’t just witness that. Bran clears his throat and says, “I think Jess is having a great time. Being you, I mean. And she isn’t half bad.”
That’s a relief, anyway. “I’m glad.”
“And you being Jess…she’s not worried you’re going to,” Milo makes a motion with his fork toward me, “you know, the Save Amara stuff?”
Of course he’d ask. He’s like the sixth member of the Scooby gang, looking for clues to the murder of my life. I breathe in through my nose and then smile because I’ve found that I lie easier when I’m smiling. “Nah.”