Geekerella (Starfield #1)(74)

He shakes his head. “You know every time you say that, it just gets worse, right?” he replies, and leaves the bathroom.

I take out my phone and read my unsent text.

I am Darien Freeman.

I think of all the things she could do with the texts we have. All the places she could sell them. All the news stories she could cover. All the secrets I’ve told her. All the half-lies. All the times I called her ah’blena.

But I am Darien Freeman. And I lied to her. Maybe I didn’t write that text, but Brian was right—I was going to have to write it one day anyway. It had to be done. For Elle’s sake and mine.

I tap my thumb against the backspace a hundred and three times, erasing every space, every letter of my unsent apology. And then, with shaking fingers, I delete her number.

In an instant, the history of Elle and me is gone.





I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD TALK ANYMORE.

There really isn’t any other way to interpret that.

I see myself into the lobby outside the Cosplay Ball, shifting on my glass slippers. It’s inside a huge hotel in the center of Atlanta. I stare up and up and up at the skyline, clutching the tickets close.

It’s funny, but now that I’ve realized Carmindor doesn’t want me, my heart isn’t rattling around in my chest. I feel weirdly calm. I guess it’s because I knew—like with James—that I’m not good enough.

Every person who walks in through the revolving doors could be Carmindor. They all look familiar yet still strange, like funhouse-mirror versions of the characters you know. A Klingon comes escorting a Vulcan, Dean Winchester with the angel Castiel, two World of Warcraft Orcs, Harry and Hermione—so many pairs of people so that when someone enters alone, I stand a little straighter, squint a little harder, wondering if maybe this one is him….

I readjust my mask. It’s Cal’s, because in all my planning and plotting and saving, I forgot about that one small detail. Or maybe, deep down, I didn’t really think I’d win.

Cal’s mask is heavier than I thought, and smooth to the touch. When she gave it to me glitter came off on my fingers. I blinked, my eyes burning.

“I…don’t know where Chloe is,” Cal told me hesitantly. “I didn’t see her after the, um, the contest.”

“You didn’t?”

She shook her head. “While you were in the bathroom she kind of came up and, um, lost her cool. A little.”

I paled. “Do you think she’s going to tell Catherine?”

Cal shook her head. “If she does, she’ll get in trouble too. So I don’t think she would, but just—Elle—watch out. Chloe doesn’t take losing lightly.”

“What could she do at a dance party?” I scoffed.

Sage shrugged. “It’ll keep you on your toes. And when you meet Darien, please don’t do anything rash.”

I gasped. “You wound me! I’d never!”

She gave me a level look.

“I’ll be nice,” I mumbled.

“Mm-hmm. We’ll pick you up at eight? It’ll be cutting it close to get you both home by midnight but…”

“Eight is great,” I assured her with a smile. I still wished they would come to the ball, but if my best friend and my apparently not-psycho stepsister want some alone time, who am I to stand in the way? “You two have fun.”

And then they had left me in the gold-plated lobby, absolutely alone. Dressed up as Black Nebula Federation Princess Amara, shedding glitter from her starched coat like stars.

After one more person, I’ll go in, I tell myself, nodding to another couple emerging through the revolving door. Or maybe one more.

But the minutes tick by, and after a while the music from the ballroom grows loud enough to echo inside the lobby, and I’m still standing here.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, I think. I can do this.

I don’t know what’ll happen once I go inside. I don’t know if the ball will live up to all the ideas in my head, to all the memories of my parents waltzing around the living room, to what Dad always wanted it to be.

But if I never go in, I’ll never find out. And I’m tired of being afraid of things I can’t control.

I turn toward the music at the end of the hallway and show my ticket to the volunteer at the gilded doors. She tears it in half and hands it back.

“So do a lot of people go stag?” I ask, trying to sound chill. My voice comes out in a squeak.

“I mean, it all depends.” She pauses. “But I don’t think you’re alone at all.”

She gives me a promise-sworn salute and the nervousness building in my chest slowly ebbs. I return the salute, curl my fingers around the doorknob, and push.

The ballroom is dark, decorated in shades of purple and blue. Pinions of light spiral around like shooting stars. And it’s full, so full of people. I stare at them in unabashed wonderment. Dad told me about this ball. How he pictured it. He used to sit on the foot of my bed and paint a picture in the air with his hands.

“It’ll be huge—grand! Dark, like space, but not dark enough that you can’t see. And everyone dressed up. Look, there’s a Spock over there! Is he dancing with Chewbacca? A Turian with a Nox! Can you believe that, Elle? The things you never thought you’d see right there. It’ll be a universe inside our universe that exists for only a few hours. Only,” he added, “until the stroke of midnight.”