The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love (19 page)

When we scan our badges and get inside, Devin is waiting for us by the door. It's funny because, after everything that's happened, I almost forgot about him. He calls out to Roxana, gets introduced to Samira, and says hello to everyone else.

“You doing all right?” he asks with a smile when he gets to me.

I'm suddenly furious. Whoa. Did Roxana actually tell this guy about my humiliation last night? “What the hell do you mean?” I spit out.

Devin looks bewildered. “Just whether you're hungov—”

“He's fine.” Roxana cuts him off sharply and then turns around and glares at me. As if I was the one about to use the word
hungover
in front of her little sister.

“Yup. Completely fine,” I respond, my voice as bitter as arsenic. “Thanks for clearing up my feelings for me, Roxana. You are terrifically talented at that.”

Her mouth drops open a little, but her eyes turn into slits. I can perfectly read the question that's written in her angry stare:
Are we really going to do this here and now?

No, we're not, I decide. “Excuse me, but I have a panel to get to,” I say forcefully, and march past the group into the bowels of the convention center. I hear the squeak of sneakers start after me.

“Wait,” Casey says when he catches up. “What panel?” He's gotten his spreadsheet schedule out and is frantically looking at it.

I sigh, irritated. “I don't know. There is no panel. Don't worry about it.” I keep walking.

“What?” Casey asks, looking thoroughly confused but still following me anyway.

I grimace but keep up my pace, aimlessly wandering onto the show floor. Then I finally break my silence. “I accidentally told Roxy everything last night. It didn't . . . go well.”

“Oh,” Casey says, and it takes him a long time to think to say, “I'm sorry.”

I wave his pity away, looking at the dozens of colorful booths surrounding us but not really seeing any of them. “Forget it. Look,
is
there some panel we can go to right now? Or something? Anything?”

Casey consults his spreadsheet again and says there's a Female Superheroes panel that he wants to check out in ten minutes because one of his favorite artists is on it. Also, female superheroes.

“Great,” I say, and tell him to lead the way. We manage to get seats near the front. I play a game on my phone to pass the time while we wait, but even when the panel starts, I find it difficult to pay attention. I'm ferociously trying not to replay any part of last night, and then any part of the weekend, and then, inevitably, most parts of the last eight years of my life. And that's hard, especially when I can't even seem to focus on the unrelated discussion happening in front of me.

Then I realize that the best thing I can do to distract myself
is
to really listen to the panelists and get each of their respective opinions on female superheroes. I do want to hear about Wonder Woman and Storm and Captain Marvel. I want to hear
all
about them. . . .

But then we reach the end of the panel and Lacey Grotowski—who is a panelist—inevitably gets asked about being one of the few women in her field, and with a pang, Roxana's voice is in my ear. Just this summer, in fact, when we were eating dried sour cherries in her backyard and taking a break from a brainstorming session, we were discussing when we thought we'd achieve one of our biggest goals: the first time we'd be asked to be on a Comic Con panel.

“I'm going to be optimistic and say first year out of college,” I said.

She looked at me. “Okay, let's put it out into the universe, then.” She turned her face up into the cloudless sky. “Universe. Graham Posner and Roxana Afsari will get their first invitation to speak at a Comic Con before they're twenty-three.” And I swear a bird chirped in response.

“Nice going, Snow White.” I smiled at her.

“Oh, but there's one thing more, Universe,” she continued, staring up. “No matter what else happens, I ask of you to ban one question forevermore from the Q&A section . . .”

Then she kept me waiting, and I knew she wanted me to try and guess. “ ‘Where do you get your ideas?' ”

“Nope.” She shook her head.

“Calling you out on a nitpicky detail?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, I give up.”

She smiled and turned her head to the sky once more. “Please don't let
anyone ask me what it's like to be one of the only women in my field.”

“Is that because you're hoping by then you won't be one of the only women in your field?”

“Definitely,” Roxana said. “Also, it's a stupid question. It's like me asking you: Graham, what's it like to be one of the few redheaded writers?”

And I saw her point.

As I see and hear Lacey calmly and gracefully answer the question now, I realize that it's something she must get all the time. And something none of the male artists sitting up there with her probably ever get.

Five minutes later, the panel is over, and of course, trying to focus on anything other than my worries hasn't worked at all. I'm truly at a loss as to how I can extricate my life and memories from Roxana.

As we get up to leave, my phone buzzes. It's a text from Felicia asking where I am. I ignore it.

“Where are you off to next?” I ask Casey, who, after consulting his spreadsheet, says there's a raffle for exclusive NYCC Christmas ornaments at the Hallmark booth. “Great,” I respond, thinking maybe I can at least get my dad's birthday present early this year.

But then my phone buzzes again.
Samira's asking for you. She said she thought you also wanted to get a photo with Aaron Dunning?
Felicia writes.

I sigh. She's right; I promised I'd go with her to meet him.

I only take another moment before I text Felicia back.
Meet you near the autograph line.

Because I know that no matter what's happened, I can't let Samira down. She's practically my little sister too.

There's another buzz, and I expect it to just be a confirmation text from Felicia, but it's something else entirely.

How's it going today, Inigo?

Amelia.

Despite everything, I manage a little smile. It feels like the first time I've been compelled to smile since last night.

Same ol' same ol'
, I respond.
Looking for Miracle Max. Seeking revenge.
An image of Devin's perfect face flashes through my mind at that last statement.

I'll keep an eye out for the man with 6 fingers,
she writes back.

Please do.

CASEY WALKS WITH ME TO
the autograph and photo op section and helps me find Aaron Dunning's name—and subsequently Samira, Felicia, Roxana, and Devin. Roxana and Devin are deep in conversation about something, but Felicia waits with Samira until they see me approach. Sam gives me a wide grin and waves a piece of paper she's holding in her hand.

“Excited?” I ask her as I eye the paper and see it's a receipt for the photo op.

She nods, her eyes wide and bright.

“I'm going to go check out the ornaments, and then I have another panel to get to,” Casey says.

“What is it?” Felicia asks.

“Oh. It's, um, Dothraki 101.” Casey blinks a few times.

“Dothraki,” Felicia starts. “That sounds kinda familiar.”

“It's a language from
Game of Thrones
,” I helpfully provide. “I think the guy who helped create it for the show is here. Right, Casey?”

Casey nods.

“Oh, cool. Mind if I come?” Felicia asks.

Casey blinks several more times and then nods again. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's blushing.

“Where and when should we meet you guys?” Felicia turns to me.

“Um . . . how about in an hour? At the DC Comics display in the middle of the show floor?” There are a lot of movie props there, and I've been meaning to take a look. Specifically at some of the Tim Burton
Batman
stuff. Amelia's little argument from yesterday has stuck with me.

“You know where that is, right, Casey?” Felicia asks him.

Casey nods again and manages to mutter a “yeah” this time too.

“Great! See you guys then! Lead the way,” Felicia says to Casey, and I see my mute and blinking best friend walk in a daze as the one and only Felicia Obayashi follows him. I give a small chuckle in spite of everything. Because I have no idea what's going on there, but it's kinda delightfully bizarre.

“We have that art panel, too, Roxana. Right?” I hear Devin's voice.

“Yeah . . .” Roxana hesitates. I casually glance over to see her looking at Samira.

“You guys can go,” I say in their general direction, not really looking at them. “I'll hang with Sam. We can all meet at the DC display in an hour.” But when I get only silence, I have to break my rule and glance at Roxana's face.

She's looking between me and Samira, like she's worried, and I feel a pang. What? Like I suddenly can't be trusted with her little sister anymore? Seriously?

I stare at her then, defiantly, until she looks away with the decency to at least appear a little embarrassed.

“Okay,” she finally says, and the two of them disappear into the crowd, while Samira and I follow the sign for Aaron Dunning and get onto the back of his photo line. I notice that the line is mostly teen and preteen girls like Sam. But whatever.

“So, what's up?” she asks.

“Not much. What's up with you?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. I mean what's up with you and my sister?”

I smile down at her. “Nothing.”

“That's bull,” she says in what I recognize as her mother's no-nonsense voice. “You know it. I know it. So will you please tell me what's going on?”

My smile is faltering, and I'm not sure exactly what to say to her. It was foolish of me to think she wouldn't catch that lie—she's smart and observant so there's no way she didn't pick up on my tiff with Roxy this morning. I think on it a moment before settling for, “I said some stuff
to her last night. And she didn't take it well. So now . . . I don't know. Things are weird.”

“You mean, like, a fight?”

“Something like that,” I agree. A fight sounds better than the truth.

Samira frowns. “Wow. I didn't know you guys had fights.”

“We don't usually. But, you know . . . things change,” I say vaguely.

She mulls this over for a second and then shrugs. “Well, it's okay. Just apologize. Or I'll talk to her and have her apologize to you. Whose fault is it, anyway?”

“Mine,” I say at once, though I also immediately realize that's not entirely accurate. It's not like I purposefully fell in love with her. It just happened.

“Then apologize,” Sam reiterates firmly. “You're sorry, aren't you?”

Am I sorry for loving Roxana? I feel like shit, and things may never be the same again. So I'm sorry for all that. But how can I be apologetic for caring about her like that? “I don't know,” I finally say. “It's a little complicated, Sam. Hey, have you given any thought to a specific pose you want to do in this photo or anything?” I point over to the photo pickup place, where some of the images from the previous days are on display. There's a small section of Aaron Dunning ones, and a few of the people are striking the same iconic pose he did on the poster for
Pterodactyl II
.

I look back at Sam, but she's not looking at the photos. Instead, she's staring at me thoughtfully. “Listen, are you guys, like, secretly in love or something?”

“Me and Aaron Dunning?” I say, even as my heart sinks.

“No! You and Roxana.”

“Um . . .” I can't think of any other response, but it seems to be all the encouragement Samira needs.

“I mean, it makes total sense.” She starts out slowly. “You see it all the time on the fan fic forums, right? Two best friends, who then secretly fall in love. And then, of course, there will be some complications, because, obviously, there has to be conflict. . . .” Despite everything, I smile at that. It's one of the first things I ever taught her about writing a story, back before she was kind of a big deal on her forums in her own right. “But eventually, it all works out and they live happily ever after. So there you are,” she says triumphantly. “We just have to get to the happily ever after part. If you're really in love, I mean. So are you?”

My eyes dart around as I try to figure out the right, least traumatic answer I can possibly give Roxana's little sister.

“Just tell me!” she demands.

“I . . . okay, yes. I love your sister.” I give in. It's too hard to come up with anything else right now, with my screwy, addled brain getting all tangled up with my screwy, addled emotions.

“You're in love with her,” Samira reiterates slowly.

“Yup,” I confess miserably.

A slow grin starts spreading across her face, and I wonder if there's a sadistic side to her that I haven't quite noticed before. “That's sooooo sweet!” she finally says, and I realize that nope, she's just an
eleven-year-old girl who reads and writes a lot of love stories.

“Well, not exactly, Sam,” I say with a lopsided grin. “Thing is, she's not in love with me.”

“She said that?” she asks incredulously.

I shrug. “Not in those exact words. But the gist of it.”

“Okay. Can you tell me what happened. Exactly?” she asks, as if I'm her patient and she wants my symptoms.

I sigh. Guess I might as well at this point. So I tell her about karaoke, though I leave out the alcohol and the fact that Roxy lied to her parents about where she was. Just that I sang a stupid song, thinking I was being all stealthy, and, clearly, I wasn't. “And then she freaked out and asked me why I'd want things to change.”