Afterworlds (21 page)

“Hey,” Darcy said, the word sounding loud in her ears. The closed door muffled the party to a rumble, and suddenly she could hear her own breathing. “What’s up?”

“I missed you.”

Darcy rose to her feet, her lips buzzing again. “Me too. Is that weird?”

“The absence of old friends one can endure with aplomb,” Imogen said. “But even momentary separation after a first kiss is unbearable.”

Darcy frowned. “Is that a quote?”

“Oscar Wilde, adapted.” Imogen smiled at
Bunyip
in Darcy’s hands. “I hear that’s a good book.”

“My friends say it’s awesome.”

Imogen knelt beside the bookshelf, sliding her finger across the spines. “That’s the only book of Kiralee’s you own? She’ll
hate
that.”

“I’ve got all of them!” Darcy exclaimed. “And extra reading copies for my first editions. This is, like,
one
percent of my library. Dad was driving up some stuff, so my little sister picked these out to send along.”

Imogen turned to look up at Darcy, her eyes narrowing. “Your dad drove them up?”

“They were in my room . . . at home.” Darcy knelt beside Imogen, not quite meeting her eye. “So there was this thing I was going to tell you before the party started. But you were late. And I was going to tell you up on the roof, but then we were kissing, and I forgot to.”

Imogen barely nodded, waiting. Darcy took a steadying breath, her mind flashing through all the previous,
much
better moments she might have chosen to reveal her age. But as she’d felt more comfortable here, more real as a writer and a New Yorker, the urgency to confess had faded.

But now that they’d kissed . . .

“We went to high school together, Carla and Sagan and me.”

“You told me,” Imogen said. “But you didn’t say when.”

“No.” Darcy’s voice dropped. “We just graduated.”

“As in, a
month
ago?”

“Pretty much.”

Imogen nodded slowly. “And that explains why you’ve never . . .”

“I guess. Though many people kiss in high school, I’ve heard.” Darcy found herself talking in Sagan’s flat cadence. “I’m sorry, Gen.”

“For what?”

“For not saying that I’d just got out of high school! For failing to mention that I’m a teenager!”

Imogen inspected her own fingernails. “I guess it didn’t come up.”

“I think it did, a couple of times,” Darcy said. “You asked me what I’d majored in once, and I changed the subject.”

“Yeah, I sort of noticed. So you’re, what, eighteen?”

Darcy nodded.

“Well, that’s just fucking ridiculous.” Imogen stood up.

Darcy stayed kneeling by the bookshelf, her face burning. She couldn’t make herself look up, and so stared at the back cover of
Bunyip
. A young Kiralee Taylor gazed back at her with an expression of profound contemplation.

“I mean, seriously,” Imogen said. “You wrote a book that good at
eighteen
? That’s just . . . galling!”

“I was seventeen when I finished it,” Darcy said softly.

“Fuck! I was writing
Sparkle Pony
fan fiction when I was seventeen!” Imogen sank to her haunches again, sighing. “Actually, I still do. Just not full-time. So you’re blowing off college to write, like that’s no big deal?”

“It is for my parents,” Darcy said. “They’re shitting themselves.”

“That’s funny. My dad still thinks my English degree was a waste of money.”

“You’re mad at me, right?”

“I’m amazed by you, actually.” Imogen turned to face Darcy. “Blowing your whole advance to live here. That’s pretty crazy. And brave, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But you might want to use that bravery more.”

Darcy shook her head. “For what?”

“For
trusting me
, which means
telling me
about stuff.” Imogen reached out to cup Darcy’s chin with her fingers. Then she kissed her. It was less fierce than the first two times, softer and slower, but not in a way that left any doubt.

When their lips pulled apart, Darcy asked, “So you’re not mad?”

“I’m five years older than you. Maybe I’m a little . . . hesitant.”

“Hesitant? You just kissed me again!”

Imogen shrugged. “Yeah, I kind of suck at hesitating. But maybe we should go slow.”

“Slow is okay, I guess. But you can ask me whatever you want, right now. Any question, no matter how embarrassing. I promise to tell you the truth!”

Imogen considered this a moment. “Okay. Do you really like me, or are you just excited because you’ve never kissed anyone before?”

“I really like you!” Darcy cried. “You make my hair stand up when you talk about writing.”

Imogen raised an eyebrow.

“And also when you kiss me,” Darcy added.

“Okay, good answer. Is there anything you need to ask me back? Just so we’re all clear.”

Darcy shook her head, but then found a question on the tip of her tongue, even if it wasn’t exactly relevant to the conversation. “Do you know if Kiralee’s read it?”

Imogen looked at the book in Darcy’s hand. “Probably, seeing as how she wrote it.”

Darcy shoved
Bunyip
back into its spot on the shelf. “I meant
my
book. As you know.”

“Oh, that.” Imogen was smirking now. “Not yet. Kiralee wanted me to read it first. You know, in case it sucked.”

“Seriously? You were
checking me out
for her?”

“Sure. Don’t you ever do that for your friends?”

Darcy frowned. Among the Reading Zealots, Darcy had been a relentless first adopter of books and movies and manga series. She was on the ARC list at her library, was immune to online spoilers, and had even sat through the notoriously crappy first season of
Danger Blonde
so she could explain the story to Carla, who was skipping straight to season two.

But this was different somehow. “You guys suck.”

Imogen laughed. “Do we suck a little less if I just told Kiralee that you have the juice, and she should read your novel?”

“Pretty much.” As she stood, Darcy felt dizzy with relief. Hiding her age had been stupid, but she’d been forgiven. No more pointless mistakes like that, she decided. “I promise to trust you, Gen, with everything.”

“Good.” Imogen opened the door. “Then I guess you should introduce me to your friends.”

*  *  *

Sagan and Carla were rooted to the same spot, Sagan eating his way through the guacamole while Carla took surreptitious photos of the party with her phone.

“Your stuff ’s in the guest bedroom,” Darcy said. “And I brought you a nonthreatening author to meet.”

“As in, not famous.” Imogen offered a hand.

As they introduced themselves, Darcy couldn’t help but notice how young Carla and Sagan seemed beside Imogen—they were all fumbles and tics where she was graceful and assured. And Darcy knew that she shared her friends’ foibles. How had she tricked everyone in New York into thinking she was an adult?

Right. By publishing a novel. Which meant her adulthood would vanish if she never managed that trick again.

“I’m surprised we haven’t read your stuff, Imogen,” Carla was saying. “Even if you’re not famous, we read
everybody
.”

“My first novel’s not out till September.”

“We get ARCs,” Sagan said. “Our librarian is, like, connected.”

“I see.” Imogen was smiling. “It’s called
Pyromancer.
Imogen Gray’s my pen name.”

“Isn’t that your
real
name?” Darcy asked, but Imogen didn’t answer.

“I don’t think we got that one,” Carla said. “So a pyromancer must be like a firestarter, right?”

“Pretty much,” Imogen said. “My protag likes to play with matches. Then she finds out she doesn’t need matches.”

“I would totally TBR that,” Sagan said.

“Darcy’s got the file.” Imogen rested a hand on Darcy’s shoulder,
sending the tiniest shiver through her. “She can send it to you guys if you want.”

“That would be awesome,” Carla said. “We promise not to forward it to all our friends.”

Imogen shrugged. “I’ll take piracy over obscurity.”

Sagan turned to Darcy. “So you must get to read everything way early, now that you’re a big-time author.”

“Some stuff,” Darcy said, though it occurred to her at this exact moment that she had not, in fact, read
Pyromancer
yet. Not because she was worried it would suck, but because her life in the last two weeks had been a whirl of packing and unpacking and improvised furniture and begging her parents to FedEx her bedsheets.

Darcy blushed a little. But she had to be brave, to trust the people she’d just kissed. “Actually, I haven’t started it yet. I’m sure it’s awesome, though.”

But as she said the words, a fresh trickle of anxiety went through Darcy. What if passionate, brilliant Imogen, the first person who’d ever made her heart beat faster,
didn’t have the fucking juice?

“I mean, Kiralee blurbed it!” she added.

As the others wowed over this fact, Imogen squeezed Darcy’s shoulder and leaned in closer. “Hope you like it,” she whispered. “Might be tricky if you didn’t.”

At this moment Darcy decided that she was reading
Pyromancer
first thing tomorrow morning, regardless of the thousand other things on her to-do list. Brave or not, she needed to know.

“So I just realized,” Sagan said. “Your book is all about fire, Imogen, and Darcy’s is all about a cold place inside. Funny, huh?”

Imogen and Darcy stared at each other for a moment, unsure what to say.

Then Carla spoke up. “Did you ever get that letter from your editor? The one that tells you what you have to change?”

Darcy shook her head. “Nan keeps promising, but it never comes. You think I should ask her about it, Gen?”

“At your own party? That’s kind of tacky. But I bet Moxie would do it.”

“Right,” said Darcy. The great thing about agents was, they did 100 percent of the unwriterly parts of the job for 15 percent of the money. “But she had to leave early.”

“Leave? She’s right over there, talking to . . .” Imogen blinked. “Is that . . ?”

“It is,” Sagan said. “Your party just got way more illustrious, Darcy.”

“
Squee
,” Carla added in a tiny voice.

Darcy turned, wondering if Coleman Gayle had finally arrived. But it wasn’t Coleman headed straight toward her across the room. It was no less than the Sultan of Social Media, Stanley David Anderson.

“Hello,” he said, extending a hand. “I understand you’re the hostess of this affair.”

“Yes,” was the best Darcy could do. She took his hand and shook it, and then remembered to say, “Darcy Patel.”

“Stanley Anderson.”

“I know,” Darcy said. “I mean, um, this is Imogen and Carla and Sagan.”

“Carla and Sagan?” Standerson nodded. “That’s quite funny, though you might be too young to know why.”

“The odds against it are astronomical,” Sagan said.

“Billions and billions to one.” When Standerson giggled, his expression barely changed. “I hope you don’t mind me crashing your party, Darcy.”

“Of course not. But weren’t you having dinner with Moxie?”

“I was. But I’ve had one of my frequent bouts of dyspepsia.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “That sucks.”

“The ‘Frequent Bouts of Dyspepsia’ episode was my favorite,” Sagan said. “From season one, anyway.”

“Mine too,” Standerson said. “I wish I’d had a better camera back then. Is that guacamole?”

“Yes,” Sagan said. “I find its consistency soothing.”

“I concur.” Standerson took a corn chip from the bowl and loaded it up. He turned to Imogen. “I think we’re touring together this fall.”

Darcy turned. “You
are
?”

“Paradox wants us to.” Imogen looked a little stunned. “But it’s not a done deal, so I didn’t think . . .”

“Could be fun.” Standerson nodded. “I’ll talk to Nan.”

“That would be amazing,” Imogen said softly, but Standerson was helping himself to more guacamole.

It was strange to see Imogen struck silent, but not as strange as seeing Sagan making instant friends with Standerson. The two were in their own little world now, discussing the guacamole-carrying capacity of various shapes of corn chips.

“This alarms me,” Carla said quietly as they watched. “And yet it also makes sense.”

“I know, right?” Darcy said.

“I liked how you were in no way smooth with Standerson,” Carla said. “That was reassuring, city girl.”

“Thanks.” Darcy turned to Imogen. “Since when are you touring with him?”

“Last time I heard, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. But I guess now that he’s met me, the idea’s more real, you know?”

Carla laughed. “Stuff always happens at Darcy’s parties, ever since fifth grade. Breakups, hookups, big fights, all the craziest stuff. But the weird part is, it never happens to
her
.”

Imogen and Darcy glanced at each other, and Darcy felt a little smile flash across her face. Her lips felt hot and dry.

“Well . . . so much for
that
theory,” Carla said, and began to giggle to herself. She slipped an arm around Darcy, squeezing her old friend hard, and suddenly she was laughing aloud, and people were looking at them from across the room.

“Um, Carla?” Darcy asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great. But this party is giving me
all the feelings
.”

 CHAPTER 18 

IT FELT JUST LIKE A
river, strong and swift and brutish. carrying us with the simple mindless power of fast-moving water.

It had been roaring past me since the moment I’d sunk beneath my bedroom floor. That constant wind really was a current, and once I let myself go it took me, suddenly and completely, as if someone had given me a giant kite to hold. Only Yamaraj’s hands gripping mine made me feel as though we would ever stop moving again.

The river was full of cold, wet things like the one that had brushed against me. They always came from behind, soft and whispering, never quite forming words against my ear or the back of my neck. Yamaraj said they were harmless, unless you turned to look at them. So I learned to shudder and ignore. The trip felt endless, dizzying and wild, and it was all I could do to keep the image of my mother’s old house in mind. But once we eddied to a halt, it seemed as if hardly any time at all had passed.