Everyone is gone to bed by now, so I quietly slide out of my chair and pad down the stairs.
The house is so dark I can barely see, but I know it blindfolded, having snuck around in the dark for years. In the kitchen, I open one of the cabinets, reaching in the back for the new jar of peanut butter, and then grab a spoon from the clean dishwasher. I’ll have to put away the dishes in the morning, and Catherine will probably scold me for letting them sit all night, but I’m too tired and hungry to care.
As I scrape another spoonful from the bottom of the jar, I hear something shift at the table.
“I wondered where you stashed that,” says the cool, soft voice of my stepmother.
I freeze, the spoon stuck in my mouth. I turn slowly toward the darkened figure.
“Turn the light on, sweetie. We aren’t Neanderthals.”
I reach over to the switch and begrudgingly flip it on. I already know the scene I’ll find on that table. The brightness of the light makes my eyes water. Catherine is still in her “work” clothes—a five-hundred-dollar wrap dress she can’t afford, with hair curled up on top of her head. She looks tired.
“Sorry, I…,” I say, trying to come up with an excuse to explain why I’ve been caught red-handed with super-creamy Peter Pan peanut butter, but my mind fails me.
“We all have our guilty pleasures,” she says, tapping manicured nails on the rim of her empty wineglass. Her cheeks are warmed and her eyeliner faded, flakes of mascara scattered around her eyes. The last time I saw her look this, well, human was the day Dad died.
I pull the spoon out of my mouth and quickly screw the top onto the jar, “Yeah, sorry, I just—”
“Don’t apologize. I have Rocky Road hidden in the back of the freezer,” she replies.
I blink at her. The stepmonster eats Rocky Road? I make a mental note to check the freezer when she’s not around.
She tilts her head as if she didn’t just admit to having ice cream— which I’m pretty sure is not Paleo—in the freezer.
“No matter what I do, I can’t get rid of him, you know,” she says in a voice so soft I almost don’t hear. “First you—but oh, I knew you’d be just like him—and now the twins.”
“The twins?”
She waves a hand. “They’re obsessed with that thing—Star Trek?”
“Starfield.”
“The show Robin liked.” Her eyelids flutter shut. “He’s everywhere.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “The twins only like it because of Darien Freeman—”
“What’s so special about it?” Catherine snaps, her eyes wide open. “Every time I see the logo for that stupid show, I think of Robin. There’s no point to it. It’s for children.”
“Why does it have to be stupid or childish?” I ask, my voice trembling a little. “It taught me a lot of things. Like about friendship and loyalty, and how to think critically and look for all sides of a narrative. It helped me—”
“Helped you? Taught you?” Catherine shakes her head. “How can a show teach you anything? How can you learn about the world if you’re buried in a fantasy?”
“How can you think something’s stupid if Dad liked it so much?” I say. “He loved that show.”
“Well he should’ve loved other things more!”
The room is deadly silent. Catherine clears her throat, as if she remembers that it’s not ladylike to yell and is afraid the neighbors might hear.
“If he cared half as much about his family, we might not be in this mess,” she says in her usual sticky-sweet tone. “Scraping by. Cutting coupons. Alone.”
“Is that why you’re selling the house?” I ask. “Because my dad had the audacity to die in a car accident without buying enough life insurance to pay for all your stuff?”
Catherine’s eyes turn hard and sharp. “You know nothing about the world.”
“I know that you don’t have to sell the house!” I say. “I know that you could get a real job!”
“My job is real, Danielle.”
I ball up my hands. It might not be my decision, but it isn’t her house, either.
“You talk a lot about how stupid it is to like a TV show, but you’re the one living in a fantasy world,” I say. “You’re the one being childish.”
With a crack, Catherine’s manicured hand strikes the side of my face.
“Go to bed, Danielle,” she says ever so softly. “You have work in the morning.”
I don’t have to be told twice. I throw the spoon on the table, run for my room, and dive into bed. Holding a hand to my stinging cheek, I pull the covers over my head and untuck my phone from my pocket.
11:52 PM
—Car?
Carmindor 11:52 PM
—What are you still doing up?
11:52 PM
—I can’t sleep.
—Why are YOU still up?
Carmindor 11:53 PM
—Same.
I press my phone against my mouth, still angry with Catherine. Angry that she thinks she has to do things alone.
She’s not alone. She has the twins and their real dad—wherever he is—and she has Franco’s terrible owner Giorgio. She has the country club and her friends at the salon and her clients and her parents (although they live in Savannah and apparently it’s such a chore to drive to see us). She doesn’t understand what being truly alone means.
Her life is crowded compared to mine. And I’m angry that I thought, even for a second, that she had room for me.
Carmindor 11:54 PM
—Do you want to talk about it?
—Not wanting to brag, but I’m the MASTER at listening.
11:55 PM
—Got an award in kindergarten for it, did you.
Carmindor 11:55 PM
—My crowning achievement.
—And I don’t tell secrets, either.
—I’m a steel trap.
I lay the phone on my chest. For some reason, all I can think about is that leaked video being replayed again and again. To the people who haven’t watched the show, they don’t know what he says. His mouth is too blurry to read.
But I know that scene. I know those words by heart.
“You are not alone, ah’blena.”
And then she kisses him.
In the right universe, the possible one, I don’t want to win a contest to see the premiere, to watch that famous scene on the big screen. I wouldn’t have to. In a perfect world I’d be buying two tickets to the midnight release at the local theater. I’d wait for Dad to get off work and we’d go together. And maybe at that midnight release I’d see a guy across the theater dressed in a Federation uniform and we’d lock eyes and know that this was the good universe. Maybe a guy with dark hair and chocolate eyes and—
For a moment, Darien Freeman flashes across my mind. Startled, I quickly shake away the image. No. Abort.
Not Darien Freeman. Not that it matters. I pick up my phone and answer Carmindor.
11:57 PM
—Thanks, but I’m good.
—Goodnight, Car
His reply lights up my phone almost instantly.
Carmindor 11:57 PM
—Goodnight, Your Supreme Intergalactic Highness.
I hide the phone under my pillow. Because I’m not a princess. And this is the impossible universe, where nothing good ever happens.