“You really think I’m in danger?”
She throws up her hands, turning on her heels to pace the other way—but then she stops and falls with a thunk onto the bed beside me. She heaves out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I should tell Mark—”
“No.”
Gail goes silent, and I study her. The way she fidgets with her hands, digging the dirt out from under her bitten fingernails. Her plaid shirt is half-untucked from the waistband of her washed-out boyfriend jeans, about as put together as she normally looks but she’s missing her earrings. Purple studs. She gets scatterbrained when she’s under pressure.
“What if this guy really wants to hurt you, Dare?” she asks softly. “You can’t be just a fan anymore.”
She’s right. I don’t know what these people are capable of. Jess’s joking about the blogger is all fun and games until one of those fans starts to use more than just words to hurt me. Who knows what the guy on the roof would do if he cornered me again. Take more than just a few bad photos?
I can’t take that risk. But I can’t avoid the con, either.
“Tell you what, Gee,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as I can. “Just double-check that I’m not doing anything one-on-one—no signings or anything. Okay?”
Gail nods. “Okay.”
“Perfect. See? Problem solved.”
Gail is silent for a moment and puts her head on my shoulder. “And if anyone does mess with you, they have to go through Lonny,” she says.
“I pity the fool,” I reply, trying to pretend like I’m not scared. She laughs and rolls her forehead against my shoulder. Just act like everything is okay. It’s my job. I should be brilliant at it.
WHEN I GET TO SAGE’S HOUSE the next night—the last night we’re working together—I kick off my shoes and dump my bag at the door, just like I would at home. Sage’s house is weird like that. It feels like home.
“I want to be back at a reasonable hour tonight,” I tell her. “I don’t want Catherine to start getting any ideas.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re paranoid. We’ll get you home at the same time we have every night.”
“But what if she begins to suspect something?”
“Then I’ll call and say that you were here, dear!” Sage’s mom emerges from the living room, all sixties goddess supreme in a tie-dye sarong and bracelets that jingle like new-age maracas. “Don’t you worry.”
I smile. “Sorry Ms., um, Wynona, but she won’t go for that. My stepmom just doesn’t…”
“Have feelings,” Sage finishes for me. “Or, like, know how to mom.”
“Oh, Elle.” Sage’s mom puts a hand to her chest. “You know you can always come here if you need some mothering. Just ask Sage. I’m a natural.” She winks.
“Moooooom,” Sage groans and grabs me by the elbow. “C’mon, Elle, let’s watch that last episode and get you fitted. We don’t exactly have time to waste.”
She’s right. The contest is tomorrow. In less than twelve hours we’ll be on a bus bound for Atlanta, costume in tow.
But I still drag my heels. It’s because we’re about to watch the episode I can’t stand. It’s because I’m about to relive my nightmare: Princess Amara falling into the Black Nebula again and again, in an endless time paradox. That’s why episode 54 doesn’t exist to me. Because it’s the sticks of bad luck. It’s the worst send-off to a character. The worst goodbye. Because Carmindor never gets to say it. And I know better than anyone how that feels.
“You know,” I say, as we descend to the basement, “I can just explain it to you. We don’t have to actually watch it.”
“No, I want to see it! I slogged through all the rest!”
“Slogged?”
“Slogged enthusiastically,” she corrects.
I hesitate. “But this one’s…”
“The last one, so yeah yeah it’s sentimental, blah blah blah.” Sage holds out my jacket and trousers. “Whatever. Come stand here. We can watch it while I make the final adjustments.”
Hesitantly, I press PLAY. The episode cues up as I wiggle into the trousers, no longer embarrassed for Sage seeing me in my three-year-old underwear with cartoon rabbits on it—we’re way past that. Pants on, I climb up onto the step stool as she hands me the jacket, and gingerly, I slip it on.
The opening credits light up the TV—for the last time, the last episode, the last new experience—but it differs from the other intros. Instead of showing random scenes, it shows the best scenes. The climactic ones. Dad said that when it first aired, he knew it would be the last episode because of the opening credits.
“It looked final,” he told me. “You could tell—it was a send-off.”
Dad’s send-off was quieter. Only a handful of people gathered around a small hole in the cemetery. Black umbrellas. Rain. Catherine sobbing into her father’s shoulder. The twins crying into each other.
I stood alone. Like an extra in one of those bad nineties punk music videos.
Sage thinks I hate Princess Amara on the principle that she’s a lying double-crosser, but I hate her because I can relate to her. I’m the one tossed into the Black Nebula. I’m the one lost, in a life, a world, a universe that is no longer mine.
The phone rings upstairs, and for a terrible moment I think it’s Catherine, having sniffed out my lies, ready to ground me for good. But then Sage’s mom calls down, “Sagey, it’s your father!”
Sage makes a face and goes to the bottom of the stairwell. “Tell him I’ll call him later!”
“He’ll be working with a client!”
“Tell him I’m busy!”
“Sagey, pleeeease!”
She rolls her eyes and glances back at me. “Sorry, it’s my dad-person. He calls, like, once every thirty years and…oh Jesus, you can’t even talk to your father anymore and here I am complaining—”
I put on a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll wait. Not like I’m going anywhere.”
“Okay. Don’t move!” She climbs the stairs two at a time, her clunky boots thundering against the wooden steps. When she’s gone, I step off the podium and pat my clothes for my phone in a back pocket.
7:38 PM
—I have this theory, ah’blen
Ah’blen—the masculine version of “my heart.” Car responds as soon as I send it, so quick it surprises me. Like he was waiting, or about to text me, or…just on his phone. Probably just on his phone.
Carmindor 7:38 PM
—Theory?
7:39 PM
—Don’t laugh. I’ve had it for a while.
—I have a theory that there’s another universe beside ours.
Carmindor 7:39 PM
—Like those fan-theories on where the Black Nebula goes?
Above me, Sage shakes the dust off the rafters as she stomps from one side of the room to the other. It must be the living room. She’s arguing with her dad, the kind of argument padded with years and years of well-worn “I love you”s squeezed between the syllables.
Her voice carries down, muffled, through the air vents as I type out a text.