7:40 PM
—Yeah, where everything we thought was impossible happens and then there’s a world where everything impossible doesn’t.
Carmindor 7:40 PM
—So which universe are we in?
7:40 PM
—The first.
Maybe in that other universe, I’m having those same arguments with Dad. Maybe we’re arguing about where I’ll go to college or what to eat for dinner or why Darien Freeman is the worst Carmindor known to humankind. But we’ll never have those arguments.
We’ll never argue again.
Carmindor 7:41 PM
—Oh good, I was scared for a minute there, ah’blena.
—I’m glad we’re in the impossible world.
7:42 PM
—Why?
Carmindor 7:42 PM
—Because otherwise I never would’ve found you.
I hold the phone close to my chest, closing my eyes.
Oh but isn’t that the problem? Which would I choose, if I had to choose between my father and Car? Which universe could I be happy in?
The opening credits fade into the first scene. I know it too well. Amara and Carmindor stand across from each other on the bridge. His face is the picture of heartbreak as he stares at the phaser in his lover’s hand.
“You were warned about me, ah’blen,” Princess Amara will reply to his shocked face, but just as her mouth opens, Sage returns from her phone conversation, grabs the remote, and turns off the TV.
I blink, suddenly thrown out of the moment. “What was that for?”
“Lift your arms,” she says, so I do. She pinches and tugs at the fabric, seemingly satisfied. “Good, good. I think we’re good.”
“Good?” I ask, dumbfounded. I begin to turn toward the mirror. “Why’d you pause it? Are we done?”
“No no! Not yet! No looking!” She darts off to her workbench, which is covered with a white sheet. When she flips it, a gasp escapes my throat.
The crown. She found a crown for me.
Gingerly, like it’s made of real gold, she picks it up and brings it over.
“I couldn’t help myself,” she says. “It’s my flaw. I’m a completionist. The outfit wouldn’t have looked right without it.” When I don’t move, her smile begins to falter. “What, did I do something wrong? Is it the wrong crown?”
“No,” I whisper, taking the crown. “It’s perfect.”
She laughs awkwardly. “Seriously, no need to get all mushy. It was nothing.”
To her it might be nothing, but to me it means the world—the universe. I want to say that, I want to thank her over and over, but my mouth isn’t working the way it’s supposed to because I’m trying not to cry. And I’m trying not to laugh. And I’m trying to find the right words to describe the light slowly filling me up.
I can never repay her. Never in a hundred thousand light-years.
She squirms. “Okay, okay, now quit hanging on me and put it on! I didn’t slave over it just to have you look dopey-eyed at it!”
I pull away, laughing and crying and rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand as she places the crown on my head.
A perfect fit.
She grabs my hand and gently turns me to the mirror. “Your royal Federation Prince Carmindor, esteemed captain of the good ship Prospero. It is an honor!”
Then she flourishes a Federation bow, promise-sworn salute and all. Her smile is brighter than any star in the sky. She looks proud, and when I finally shift my gaze to me, someone else stares back. A girl with dyed-red hair, dark roots showing, and thick black glasses, the highest graduate at Starfield, the heir to the throne of stars, the general’s daughter. Carmindor. I am Carmindor, a crown of stars over my brow.
But something still feels off.
Sage puts her hands on her hips, appraising me in the mirror. “Damn, I’m good.”
“Damn,” I echo. What’s wrong with me? This is beautiful—this is exactly what I wanted. I am Carmindor.
But how come I don’t feel like I am? I brush the feeling away. It’s just shock, that’s all. The shock of seeing myself so different.
Sage walks around me, nodding. “Not bad for a wannabe fashion designer.”
“You are a fashion designer.”
We grin at each other, wide and unabashed, and for a moment I think she’s about to say something, but then she averts her gaze. “We even got done early. I think we can get you home by nine?”
My heart sinks. “Oh. Yeah.”
“What’s wrong? You just went from exuberant to depressed in the time it takes for Boromir to die in the first movie.”
“Spoiler!”
“Oh you’ve seen it. Aren’t you excited?”
“I am. It’s not that.” I take off the crown. So much detail went into it. All of the small ridges, the handmade stars.
“Well? I’m not a mind-reader,” Sage adds impatiently.
“It’s just…” I can’t meet her gaze. “I’ve never really had a friend before. I mean, I have. Online. But not in person. Not in a long time, at least. So…we’ll be friends after this, right? After the con?”
She puts her hands on her hips and tilts her head. “Now what kind of question is that? Of course we will.”
I finally look at her and drink up the only friend I’ve ever really had. Her chlorine-green hair, her piercings, the way she stands, shoulders back, feet apart, how she can walk into every room and instantly be the coolest person in it. “Thank you.”
“The costume was nothing. It was pretty easy, really—”
I stretch out my arms and wrap them around her because she’s just too badass to start a hug first. But she returns it. She returns it like the rib-crushing fiend she is.
—
EVEN THOUGH THE COSTUME’S DONE, WE decide to finish Starfield. I think that maybe it won’t be that bad watching it with someone else. Spoiler: it totally still is. Sage dabs at her eyes as the final credits roll and passes the tissue box to me. I tell her my theory, that the Black Nebula doesn’t kill Princess Amara, but sends her away. Like the Time Dragon does to Elphaba in Wicked.
“That’s a shitty consolation prize,” Sage moans.
My cell phone buzzes. I dig it out of my pocket and swipe my thumb over the lock screen instinctively; I was wondering when he’d text me tonight.
“The boy again?” she asks, dabbing at her mascara.
“Yeah, the boy.”
She sniffs and shakes off her tears, then turns to me with an eager look. “So what’s the deal with him? How did you meet? You just tricked me to the worst snot-fest in the history of me. I demand this as repayment.”
She has a point. I fiddle with my phone. “It started out as a wrong number, actually. Like you know those Buzzfeed articles where people text the wrong number while going into labor and then these randos show up with diapers and baby formula and they become besties?”
“No, but I’ll take your word that it happened.”
“Yeah, so, it’s kind of like that. He just texted the wrong number—I think he was looking for my dad because I inherited his phone. But then we just…I don’t know, we just kept talking and—”
“So you legit don’t know him,” she interrupts.
“I do know him.”