Ash squeezed True’s shoulder. “Relax.” He smiled softly. “Your shoulders are up by your temples.”
True shoved him lightly. “Go. Your Cassidy awaits.”
Blushing, he drifted off. True watched him for a minute, her heart squeezing with love for both him and Onny. She wanted nothing more than for her best friends—really more like thesiblings she’d never had—to find lasting, forever love tonight. Even if the possibility of that happening for her was an absolute, unforgiving zero.
Sighing, her hands wrapped protectively around her torso, True turned and surveyed the laughing, teeming, writhing crowd of people. Onny thought True’s soul mate would be here tonight. But True was pretty sure you had to have a soul to have a soul mate, and she was 99 percent sure souls were a fabrication of a prescientific, medievalist society.
But you know what wasn’t? Sugar. And also: caffeine. She made her way to the drinks table for a Dr Pepper.
True lounged on the Diamantes’ emerald-green tufted sofa in the enormous, high-ceilinged living room currently overrun by teenagers (but thankfully not a Bradley in sight) and a very few unlucky adults. Among them were her cadaverous biology teacher Mr. Brightside, who, much to almost everyone’s surprise, had captured the heart of the much happier, sunnier Mayor Grimjoy.
It made sense to True, though.There were two kinds of people in the world: The Mr. Brightsides and the Mayor Grimjoys,she thought, as she took a sip of her crisp, cold Dr Pepper. (Bless Onny and her bribing ways.)
Take Lisa O’Malley-Richardson, for instance. She was totally a Mayor Grimjoy. True studied the girl over her can of soda. Lisa was a junior, like True, and was currently bumbling around inthe adjoining dining room dressed as a fortune cookie, desperately trying to hand out fortunes she’d no doubt handwritten with alotof thought, to teenagers who couldn’t care less. Even True felt a little sad for her.
As if sensing her stare, Lisa looked over at True, her face briefly lighting with a smile. True smiled in return and then, without warning, Lisa was lurching over, a fortune held out in her hand.
“For you,” she said, once she was close enough for True to hear. She was still smiling that happy, energetic smile. “A fortune.”
“Um, thanks.” True glanced down at the strip of paper Lisa had written a message on:Believe in the magic of possibility.True’s smile grew strained. The only magical possibility she wanted to believe in was that Onny’s parents might declare the party over right now instead of at midnight so True’s chances of running into Bradley would be reduced to zero.
“Hope it helps you on your journey!” Lisa waved peppily and then stumbled off.
True crumpled up the fortune, tossed it behind the couch so Lisa wouldn’t find it later and be hurt, and continued her musings.
The Mr. Brightsides of the world—and True counted herself among them—were skeptical, not easily impressed, and not unlikely to be found digging shallow midnight graves for unknown purposes. The Mayor Grimjoys of the world, on the other hand, tended to be foolishly happy, loved to make friends with strangers, and didn’t have a concept of boundaries.
Andsometimes,defying all reason, the Mr. Brightsides and Mayor Grimjoys got together and things just… clicked.
“Hi!”
True looked up at the voice to see a suspiciously handsome guy about her age, with sandy-brown hair, smiling down at her as if she were a pygmy goat at a petting zoo. He had amber-brown eyes, almost golden in the glittering lights of the party, and he was way taller than her—probably close to six feet. He appeared to be dressed like Robin Hood or some other woodsy character, complete with a heavy-looking bow-and-arrow set he held easily in one hand.
If there was one thing history had taught True—and she was averygood student—it was that packages that gorgeous were usually filled with all the evils of the world. Kind of a Pandora’s box situation in a human-boy suit.
Perhaps misinterpreting her ominous, meant-to-be-discouraging silence as an invitation, Cute Woodsy Boy thrust one big hand at her. “Orion Parker. I go to North Pointe.” Which explained why she didn’t know him; True went to Moon Ridge High. When she didn’t take his hand, the alarmingly friendly Orion Parker flopped down on the couch beside her, so close that their thighs were almost touching. Never mind that the whole entire left side of the couch was empty. “So! Who are you?”
True continued staring straight ahead. She wasn’t going to make this mistake again. Bradley had been a lesson—a painful, heinous one—she didn’t intend to relearn.
It had been almost a year since they’d broken up. Months and months of being alone and feeling less than, and having thetorment of seeing her first and only boyfriend (ugh,ex-boyfriend) in the hallway at school holding hands with other girls. He’d moved on, like, instantly after the breakup. And just last week, he’d looked at her pityingly at lunch and said, in front of all his friends, “It’s been, what, like a year and a half?” (It had been ten months. Jerk.) “Let me know if you want me to set you up with someone else. You need to move on from me, True.”
As if she were pining away after him, sobbing hysterically into her pillow while clutching a tiny plastic model of him (True liked to 3D-print stuff). She’d frozen at lunch but had come up with a million cutting responses later, like, “I’ve moved on to finally having some peace in my life, douchebag.” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t very cutting. But still. It wassomething,and something was better than shocked silence, which was all she’d been capable of then.
Now True thought that maybe if she went really quiet and still, this Orion guy would get bored and move on. Like a predator losing interest in prey that camouflaged itself. The seconds oozed awkwardly by, and when True finally cut her eyes sideways at him, he was still looking unabashedly at her, a beautiful, bright smile on his face, as if he just knew she was about to spill all the glorious secrets of the universe onto his lap. An eternal optimist, then.
Sighing, knowing she wouldn’t get rid of him easily, True turned to him. “True Tandon. Aria, really, but no one calls me that.”
“True.” He said the word slowly, his lips drawing into a kiss-shaped pout as he finished. True blinked and looked away. Hehad nice lips. Bow-shaped. Aesthetically pleasing. But Bradley had once told her she had a “formidable” gaze and that she stared at people too intensely. True had scoffed at him, pretended like it didn’t bother her that he’d said that, but it had hurt.
The thing was, she didn’talwayswant to be formidable. Sometimes she just wanted to be adored. But the problem was, she didn’t have an “off” switch. She was always on, always observing, always sharp. And maybe that had been too much for Bradley. Maybe that was too much for any guy.
“What a fantastic name!” Orion paused. “But I actually meant who are youtonight,as in, your costume.” He gestured to her mask and then at her old-fashioned, long-sleeved dress.
“Oh.” True sat up straighter so he could see more of her costume, wondering if he’d get it. Ash and Onny thought it was very “Trueish” of her, whatever that meant. “Okay, so, I’m wearing a mask that’s kind ofscary.…”She pulled the test tube from her pocket and held it out. “… And I run a highly specialized laboratory.”
“Hmm…” Orion turned sideways to look at her fully, his thick blond eyebrows knitting together. He propped an elbow on the back of the couch as he thought. Then, his expression brightening, he exclaimed, “Wait, wait, wait… Marie Scary!”
True shrugged, secretly impressed, and slipped the potion back into her pocket. “Pretty close—Marie S-curie.”
