Geekerella (Starfield #1)(32)

The girls begin screaming my name, but it’s not my name that I’m thinking about anymore.





REBELGUNNER’S AT FORTY-THREE THOUSAND FOLLOWERS and counting.

I’m working on a post instead of working on my cosplay because no matter how many YouTube tutorials I watch, I’m still terrified of slicing through Dad’s costume. But I have nineteen days. In the meantime, there’s Starfield news—movie news—and all forty-three thousand of my followers are waiting for me to pass judgment.

I add a link to a video of the now notorious leaked kissing scene from the reboot next to what I think is its TV show parallel. Episode 33, “A Nox to Remember.” It looked like the ballroom scene. The one before Princess Amara’s coronation, when the Nox attacked. But I can’t be sure.

I rewind the video and replay it. Darien Freeman holding Jessica Stone’s face, his mouth moving in words I can’t make out and then drawing, slowly, into a kiss—before the camera shakes and cuts away.

Yeah, definitely episode 33. You can tell by the balustrades in the background. The ash on the ballroom floor.

“One thing’s for sure,” I write in closing, “Darien Freeman’s Carmindor uniform is the wrong color blue.”

Then I hit POST. 11:34 p.m.

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!”