Which Mason, by the way, often forgets to do.
I shut my door behind me, hang up my bag, and consider my options. The sun is sinking and the rays spill across my pale carpet and blue sheets. I could lie down in that light and do nothing, except I’m kind of wired. I could start my university applications, except I’m definitely not doing that. I could work on the latest terrible draft of my terrible book….
Next thing I know, I’m sitting at the white desk beside my window, opening my laptop. My John Boyega screensaver squints purposefully at me. The book is on my desktop, currently titled Draft M VI Take 3. In this version, I reached a scene where our hero, space cowboy Abasi Lee, faces down a local dealer of VetRo (a mind-control drug that is decimating the community of his tiny desert planet) in the hopes of extracting information on a bigger fish in the supply chain. Then I got stuck because presumably they have to fight? But I’m bad at fight scenes. Also, I can’t tell if VetRo is a genius name or a really bad one (it’s short for Velvet Ro—okay, yeah, I’ve just decided it’s bad), and I think Abasi should go off-world soon or the story’s going to get boring, but how? He’s just a humble space cowboy, and his planet is so far from the Cosmotropolis Collective, how would he hitch a ride?
No, this whole thing is honestly a wash. I move it into my GRAVEYARD folder and open a shiny, clean new document. Draft M VII Take 1. Then I sit back in my chair, exhausted, and check Instagram.
No update on Celine’s story.
Yet.
CELINE
Giselle pokes her head into my bedroom. She can tell by now when I’m recording something, so she waits patiently.
Today I’m examining the possibility that plaster casts are a con by the medical community because they don’t want us to realize humans are self-healing with the right amount of willpower. Not the most interesting theory I’ve ever discussed, but I spent way too long in Accident and Emergency today and my exhaustion inspired the bland choice in topic.
“Conclusion,” I say, which is how I end all my videos. “Yes, most healthy people can heal simple breaks on their own—eventually. But if willpower had anything to do with healing, my bones would never dare fracture in the first place.” I cut the clip, flip the camera, focus on the cast on my wrist, and start filming again. “Sorry, medical truthers, you lost me this time. The cast stays for at least six weeks.” Cut, flip, film. “Stay safe, stay weird.”
I turn off the little ring light attached to my phone, set it aside, and make a few quick, one-handed edits. “Yeah?”
“Yeah?” Giselle repeats, gliding into the room (she glides everywhere, not like a debutante but like a supernatural creature) and flopping onto the bed. “Is that how you speak to the greatest sister of all time?”
“Apparently,” I say.
“Teens today. You’re a disgrace.” But there’s a dimple in her dark brown cheek that says she’s trying not to smile. Giselle is taller than me, which is fairly tall, and unlike me she’s very thin. Combined with her shaved head and the way she rubs her cheek against my soft, forest-green duvet, she looks like a hairless cat.
I know I should stop drafting hashtags and have an actual conversation with her, or at least say thank you after she ditched her shift at McDonald’s to take me to the hospital. But I am in a foul mood because my left wrist is fractured (like, it’s in a cast! For six to eight weeks! Positive thinking hasn’t helped at all!) and that is not an item on my Steps to Success board. Quite the opposite, in fact. My Steps to Success board, which is pinned up by the side of my bed, has pictures of Katharine Breakspeare, advertising CEO Karen Blackett, and management consultant Dame Vivian Hunt—three of the most influential Black businesswomen in the UK—as well as a life plan that should take me from age seventeen to twenty-one:
Maintain flawless school record.
Keep up with TikTok (unique extracurricular, will stand out on applications, also someone in admissions might be a genius who understands the joy of a good conspiracy).
Finish PERFECT Cambridge application and receive conditional offer.
ACE EXAMS AND GET THE GRADES.
Charm all Cambridge law staff members with sparkling wit and joie de vivre (also: find YouTube tutorials on sparkling wit and joie de vivre).
Secure training position with Sharma & Moncrieff.
Sharma & Moncrieff is the second-best corporate law firm in the East Midlands. My dad’s is the first, but that will change when I rise as a giant in the field and Luke Skywalker his arse with the spiked heel of my Louboutin. It’s going to be epic. Boardrooms will crumble. Empires will fall! He’ll—
Oh, sorry, back to the point: clearly, a broken wrist is absolutely nowhere in my plan.
I should sue Bradley for this because he definitely did it on purpose. I mean, I know I’m a hefty babe, but he’s supposed to be some kind of super sportsman and his biceps are the size of grapefruits. He had me. He did. And then he didn’t. Plus, I landed harder than I would’ve without his oh-so-helpful momentary pawing of my T-shirt because I was too stunned by his audacity to concentrate on falling well.
In short, I would be well within my rights to demand blood. Or his firstborn. Or whatever I wanted, really, except his integrity, because he doesn’t have any.
Giselle unfolds a never-ending arm and presses her finger between my eyebrows. “Stop scowling, baby. Or the wind will change, and you’ll be stuck like that.”
“Good. It would suit my personality.”
She rolls onto her back and laughs at the ceiling. My sister is twenty-four—seven years older than me—and when I was a kid, I wanted to be her. Maybe that’s why, even now, whenever she laughs, I do too.
We’re still giggling when someone knocks on my door. I wait a second for Mum to breeze in without permission, plonk herself on the bed, and steal my phone to scroll through TikTok.
When that doesn’t happen, I frown in confusion and Giselle grins in response. “Oh yeah. Forgot to mention: Bradley’s here.”
“What?” It’s supposed to come out frosty and disgusted, but I accidentally squawk like a bird.
Giselle snickers and taps my forehead again. “Deep breaths, Cel.” Then she gets up and saunters to the door. I don’t quite believe her until it swings open and, yep, Bradley’s standing right there.
I haven’t seen him framed by my doorway in…years. He looks different but the same: taller and older, sure, but wide-eyed and nervous like he used to be. My bedroom lamp is weak and warm, so he’s mostly shadow. Shadowed expression, except for the gleam of his dark eyes; shadowed hands, clutching and releasing the strap of the satchel over his shoulder. Maybe he’s not Bradley at all. Maybe he’s something strange and familiar that crawled out of the past.
But, you know. Probably not.
We stare at each other for a second in what seems to be mutual shock, although I’m not sure what he’s shocked about since he presumably carried himself over here on his own two legs. Then Giselle flicks him on the head and says, “Brad,” as she leaves, and he jolts like a toy coming to life.
“Um.” He clears his throat. “Hi, Giselle. Bye, Giselle.” My sister’s already thundering down the stairs, probably desperate to gossip about this with Mum because they are both nosy cows.
Bradley hovers awkwardly in the doorway.
I remember, belatedly, that I am sitting in bed wearing pink pajamas with little red lobsters all over them. Dropping my phone, I pull the duvet over my legs and adjust the pillow propping up my left wrist. Bradley’s eyes follow the action, and he winces.
Winces! As if he’s got anything to wince about! Then he looks away. His gaze wanders from my dark green walls, to the collection of candles on my bedside table, to the lights set up in the corner where I film my best videos. I bristle. “What are you looking at?”
He starts. “Er…nothing. It’s. Just. Different in here.”
Well, yes. The last time he was in my bedroom, the walls were lilac, and my bed had a heart-shaped headboard. But then, the last time he was in my bedroom, I was fourteen and quite clearly an idiot.
Maybe if I’d been cooler then, instead of an unapologetic weirdo, he wouldn’t have ditched me for his glossy new friends.
Then again, I am still a weirdo (just, you know, a very gorgeous and stylish one), so the point is moot. Only boring people give a crap what everyone else thinks, and Bradley Graeme is the most boring human being on earth.
But I’m not.
“What do you want?” I demand.
“Can I come in?” he asks, the words slow and squeezed, like his throat’s a near-empty tube of toothpaste.
He wants to come in? This situation is highly suspicious. Highly suspicious. “What for?”