Chapter 5
Five days later, when I hadn’t received a call or text from Alec, I knew what I’d told my mom was true.
I’d never see him again. Which, while disappointing, wasn’t the end of the world.
Don’t get me wrong. I would have enjoyed hanging out more with him, but it wasn’t like I had some delusional fantasy that we were soul mates and would live happily ever after.
But the issue was—because there was always some kind of issue, wasn’t there?
—that Alec Williams had taken over my life.
He was everywhere, and no matter how hard I tried, there was nothing I could do to return to my pre-Alec existence.
Since the ball, a whole slew of tabloids had printed pictures of us together, which I only knew because Asha made it her goal to track down every single one.
According to her, this was a moment I needed to remember forever, and her pile of magazines was quickly taking over my desk.
More annoying were the celebrity news sites that reported fictional stories about who I was and how we met.
Their articles always seemed to quote some mysterious “insider” who not only knew me but was willing to spill details of my life.
And each story was more ridiculous than the last. Girls from school who’d never spoken to me before were suddenly messaging me on Facebook, wanting to know all about Alec, and every time I turned on the radio, one of the Heartbreakers’ songs would come on.
It was all quite exhausting, but the worst of it was the reporters.
They came from all the big gossip blogs and entertainment magazines to ask questions about Alec, me, and Alec and me.
The first one showed up the evening after the ball.
I had no clue how she figured out my name or address, but I was quick to turn down an interview.
Talking to her would’ve felt weird. Besides, I didn’t get what all the buzz was about anyway.
It wasn’t like I was dating Alec. We’d been seen together once.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you talked to one of them?” Asha asked when I stepped back inside my bedroom. Two minutes earlier, the doorbell had rung, and I’d had to refuse yet another reporter.
“I don’t know,” I said, not looking at her.
She was probably right, but I wasn’t interested in sharing something personal with the rest of the world.
Our time at the ball was a moment that belonged to me and Alec alone.
As soon as I gave an account of what happened, it wouldn’t be just ours anymore.
Ninety-eight percent of teenage girls would know the story by the end of tomorrow.
I sat back down, returning to the project on my desk. I was in the middle of creating a pattern for what would become a beaded necklace of a bird. Most of the design was done, but I had yet to figure out the challenging part, the wings.
“I think you should do it,” Asha said, paging through the edition of Us Weekly she’d brought over to add to my collection. “Once you tell your story, they’ll go away. Right, Boomer?”
We both glanced at my other best friend, who was sprawled in my beanbag chair with his Game Boy.
It was a hand-me-down from his brother, who’d gotten it in the early 2000s.
Boomer was addicted to the damn thing. He only had one game, a Pokémon something or other, but he never went anywhere without it.
We’d met freshman year when he showed up in beginners’ metalworking and took the only available seat in the room—the empty stool next to me.
“Hey, pssst.” He had leaned over so I could hear him. Not that he’d needed to; his voice was so loud it was like he came with a built-in megaphone. “Why am I the only guy in this class? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Personally, I rather like this ratio, but it still strikes me as odd.”
I’d stared at him for a few seconds before saying, “Probably because this is a jewelry-making class.”
“Jewelry?” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “I thought metalworking meant welding. You know, where you melt shit together?”
I laughed. “We might do some soldering.”
“Does it require a blowtorch?”
“Nope. No blowtorches necessary.”
“Well, that really blows.” He’d offered me a full-faced grin. “Pun definitely intended.”
We spent the rest of the semester goofing off.
After that, we decided to take every obscure art class our school offered together, from photography—can you say snooze fest?
—to cartooning, where Boomer entertained me by drawing inappropriate cartoons of dicks.
When Asha first met him, she said he was childish, but I often wondered if her aversion stemmed from the fact that she liked him.
With curly, ash-brown hair and chocolate eyes, he had the boy-next-door look that was totally Asha’s type.
It only took a week of lunch periods for her to warm up to him.
“Right, Boomer?” she repeated, her sigh heavy with exaggeration.
“Right, what?” he asked Asha without looking up.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you agree that Felicity should do an interview?”
He frowned, his thumbs moving at rapid speed.
“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, and his shoulders slumped.
He tossed the Game Boy to the side. “Goddammit, Chansey is impossible to catch. All the gaming forums say it’s Tauros, but I caught that sucker right away.
Chansey, on the other hand, has the lowest encounter rate of the game and—”
“Hello? Trying to have a conversation here.”
“Oh.” Boomer scratched the back of his head. “Sorry, Asha, but I’m totally with Fel on this particular subject.”
He pushed himself off the beanbag and stood to his full height.
At six foot ten, Boomer was basketball star material, although he lacked the coordination required to play.
The only trait that outshone his freakishly tall stature was the volume at which he did everything—talking, eating, even walking.
He was twice as loud as a regular person.
“What? Why?”
Boomer plodded over to my bed and flopped down next to Asha, making my bedsprings squeak in protest. “Because some people value their privacy. Besides, it’s not like she has much of a story to tell. The only cool thing that happened was riding in that F12.”
I laughed. That was such a Boomer thing to say.
He had an obsession with cars. His dream was to become a mechanical engineer and work for a NASCAR team, specializing in engine development.
If he wasn’t playing his Game Boy, he was most likely talking about engines or racing, and during the course of our friendship, I’d inadvertently learned everything I knew about cars from listening to him chatter.
Which was how I’d recognized Alec’s Ferrari.
“Are you serious? This is about Felicity doing a service for every Heartbreakers fan out there,” Asha insisted.
Boomer cocked an eyebrow. “I thought it was about getting rid of the reporters.”
But Asha wasn’t listening. “She literally lived every fan’s dream, and she’s not going to share her experience with the rest of the world?”
“Are you calling me selfish?” I asked with a laugh.
“If she is,” Boomer said, snagging the package of cookies lying between them on the bed, “I’ll be quick to remind her that real selfishness is hogging all the Oreos.”
I knew Asha was only joking around, but I still felt the need to defend myself. “Even if I wanted to do an interview, I can’t. My mom has been weird about this whole thing.”
“Yeah, I suppose. What’s up with that?” Asha asked, and all I could do was shrug in response.
“Speaking of moms, I’d better go,” Boomer said, snatching the last Oreo out of the sleeve. “I promised mine I’d pick up Kevin from T-ball practice.”
“Ugh, lame,” Asha said, tossing a pillow at his face. “Fel and I were going to watch the season finale of Immortal Nights together.”
“I take it you need a ride?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She scowled and brushed cookie crumbs from her shirt. “Ever since Riya’s car died, I’ve lost all use of the van. So unfair.”
“See you guys tomorrow at Electric Waffle?” I asked as the two stood and headed toward the bedroom door.
The Electric Waffle was the diner where I waitressed.
We served breakfast only, and every table had a built-in electric griddle so customers could cook their own waffles.
While it was a cute idea, the griddles were more of a pain in the ass than anything—impossible to clean out, and people always wanted refunds when they burned their own food.
I worked so often that the diner had become our haunt.
During my shifts, Boomer and Asha would make camp in one of the back booths.
Usually they did homework or studied, but since it was summer, Boomer wasted his time playing Pokémon while Asha ran her Tumblr account.
On my breaks or when there was a lull in customers, I’d go hang out.
Boomer nodded. “Yup. What time does your shift end?”
“I’ll be done at six.”
“Make sure to call me when Immortal Nights is over,” Asha said, pointing a finger at me. “We’ll have lots to analyze.”
“Will do. Bye, guys.”
After Boomer and Asha were gone, I focused on finishing the pattern for my necklace.
I’d been making jewelry since junior high.
One of my mom’s first jobs after the divorce was as a sales clerk at a fancy boutique, and I remember being mesmerized by all the sparkly pieces on display.
There was no way Mom could afford to buy anything that expensive, so she got a beginners’ jewelry kit for me to make my own.
Starting out, all I’d been able to do was string a few beads together, but nowadays my work was good enough that people often stopped me on the street to ask where I bought my earrings or bracelet or whatever I was wearing.
I was getting into the groove of working when the doorbell rang again.