He smiled again. “Yeah. So, did you come out to escape the socializing, too?”

“I know I’m going to sound boring, but I’m not really big on parties,” I said.

“That does sound boring.”

“Hey!”

“I was agreeing with you!” He laughed. “I’ve never known anything else. Parties, socializing, loud music, and lots of people. It’s a place I can get lost in.”

“Yeah, I hate that feeling.”

“I love it,” he replied, closing his eyes. “It’s like being invisible.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder. We barely knew each other, but it felt like he had just admitted something to me that he’d never told anyone else before. Maybe he realized that, too, because his shoulders went rigid. I stilled my hand to keep it by my side.

“What’s home for you?” he asked.

I gave a one-shouldered shrug. Home, to me? If I was going to scare him away, I might as well start with the most boring part of me. “A small town and a quiet library, where sunlight slants through the window just right, making everything golden and soft and…” I trailed off, because I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Not since the funeral. “My mom used to call them golden afternoons.”

“That sounds magical.”

“It is. You should visit. Maybe I can tempt you to the dark side with hot chocolate and a good book.”

He smiled, and there was a delicious dare tucked into the edges. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Oh no,” I replied, returning that devil-may-care smile, imagining what he would look like in a certain slant of golden light, curled into a wingback chair with my favorite book. “It’s a promise.”

“I can’t wait, then,” he said earnestly. Then something caught his eyes behind me, and I began to look over my shoulder when he said, “This might sound a little forward, but would you want to go for a walk? With me?” He outstretched his hand.

I thought about Quinn and Annie dancing the night away, and about the book waiting for me back in my hotel room, and how improbable this was, and for the first time in my life—

I pushed those thoughts aside.

I took his hand, because this moment felt like a dandelion fluff on the wind—there one moment, walking the streets of Atlanta and eating Waffle House, and talking on the rooftop of one of the hotels until the sun rose and all of the cosplayers down below were stumbling their way home, the memory so visceral I can still smell the strange scent of his cologne, lavender mixed with oak, and then, well—

Gone.

* * *

—

  BUT EVEN THOUGH HE’S GONE, I can’t get him out of my head a month later when I should totally be over it by now, as I scan my math teacher’s box of jumbo condoms at the Food Lion where I work. I try not to make eye contact as I read off the total and he pays, also avoiding eye contact. He leaves the grocery store as quick as the clip of his shined loafers will let him.

I massage the bridge of my nose. Minimum wage will never pay for the years of therapy I’ll need after this.

Maybe I can put some of this—any of this—into the college essay I’ve been failing to write for the last week, but what college admissions officer would want to read about some lovesick fool ringing up condoms for her calculus teacher? Right, like that’ll win over admissions.

Suddenly, from the other side of the cashier kiosks, Annie cries, “It’s here! It’s here!” as she vaults over her checkout counter and comes sliding toward mine.

Already?

Every rumor on every message board said that it would drop at six—I check the time on my cashier screen. Oh, it is six. I quickly key out of my register so the manager won’t yell at me for goofing off on the job—technically I’m on break!—and turn off my cashier light even though there are two people in line.

“Hey!” one of the customers shouts.

“Three minutes!” I reply.

“This is life-changing!” Annie adds, holding up her phone screen for us. The glare of the halogens above us catches on the edges of the screen protector as she sticks one earbud into her ear and hands me the other.

The trailer begins to play.

Darkness. Then, a sound—the beat of something striking the ground. Sharp, high-pitched, steady.

Coming this December…

It’s only September, and December feels like a lifetime away. We’ve been waiting a year and a half for the sequel—a year! And! A half!—and my twisting stomach can barely stand it.

There is a soft, steady beat that echoes over the sweet, low horn of the Starfield theme.

The text fades and there is Carmindor kneeling in front of the Noxian Court. His lip is bloodied, and there is a gash across his eyebrow. He looks to have been tortured, his arms bound tightly behind his back. His eyes are shadowed by his disheveled hair.

“Prince Carmindor, we find you guilty,” says a soft, deep voice.

The other members of the court, of the different regions in the Empire, some emissaries from far-reaching colonies, representatives from the Federation, all dressed in their pale official colors. Their faces are grim. At the head of the court is a throne, where the ruler of the Nox Empire should sit, but it is empty.

“Guilty of conspiring against the Empire,” the same voice says. “Of treason.”

There are flashes of the first movie—Carmindor at the helm of the Prospero, the defiant faces of Euci and Zorine beside him, the fight between the Nox King and Carmindor on Ziondur, the moment Amara says goodbye to Carmindor and locks him on the bridge—

“But most of all,” the voice purrs, and the blurry image of a man in gold and white, hair long and flowing, looking like a deity of the sun, slowly comes into focus. Bright blue eyes, white-blond hair, a sharp face and a pointed nose, the hem of his uniform glowing like burning embers. A chill curls down my spine. “We find you guilty of the murder of our princess, our light—our Amara.”

Amara’s ship swirls into the Black Nebula, her smile, her lips saying words without any sound that mysteriously look like “ah’blen”—

A hand grabs Carmindor’s hair and forces his head back. Lips press against his ear, and the prophetic voice of General Sond whispers, “No one is coming for you, princeling.”

Annie gasps, pressing her hand to her mouth. Because Carmindor’s eyes—his eyes are the pale, pale white of the conscripted. The beat—the clipping sound—gets louder. It sounds like the drum of a funeral march, like the coming of a predator, like a countdown to the end of the world.

The screen fades to black again, and then on the next beat—two pristine black boots, heels striking against the ground. The flutter of a long uniform jacket the perfect shade of blue. The errant flash of bright red hair—as red as a supernova. The glimmer of a golden tiara.

Annie grabs my wrist tightly, and squeezes. I know—I know.

It’s her.

The camera pans with her as she makes her way toward the throne, from her fluttering Federation coat to the golden stars on her shoulders, to her face. You can tell she’s different. That she isn’t the same princess who sacrificed herself to the Black Nebula. She’s new, and unpredictable, and impossible.

My heart kicks in my chest, seeing her again, returned from some improbable universe, and my eyes well with tears.

Because for once death isn’t final.

For once, for once, love is enough.

And the left side of Amara’s mouth twitches up.

The screen snaps to black—and then the triumphant orchestra of the Starfield theme swells into our ears, and the title appears:

STARFIELD: RESONANCE

And then it ends.

We stare at the blank screen for a moment longer. My heart hammers in my chest. It’s real. It’s happening. And Amara is back—our Amara.

Finally, Annie whispers. “I…I think I just popped a lady-boner—”

“A-hem.”

Annie and I whirl around toward the sound of our manager, Mr. Jason. He’s red-faced and standing with his arms crossed over his chest in the middle of our respective cash registers. She quickly yanks the earbud out of my ear, rolls up the wires, and shoves the cell phone into her apron.

“If I see you two with cell phones out one more time tonight…” he warns, wagging his finger at us, “then I’ll—I’ll…”

Uh-oh, he’s so flustered he doesn’t have words.

“We won’t, sorry, sir,” Annie says, and Mr. Jason nods, not quite believing her, and turns on his heel back to his office.

I let out a sigh of relief.

Annie mouths, Yikes.

I agree. He’s really not in the best mood tonight. We shouldn’t push our luck. Mr. Jason is known to have two modes: absent and dickweed. At the moment, he’s in full dickweed mode.

After I ring up the waiting customers, I straighten my aisle and leave to wrangle the shopping carts from the parking lot. There’s a toy dispenser outside that is calling my name, and I’ve got just the quarter that feels lucky enough for me to test it.

“Going to go try it again?” Annie calls to me as I wander toward the automatic doors.