The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love (24 page)

Then I press the pen down, letting the words come out as they may.

“I've been thinking about Althena's green ear,” I write. “How there are things that even a shape-shifting alien can't change about herself. There are things I can't change about myself, either. I'm always going to have fallen madly in love, for the very first time, at sixteen. And I know, even now, that will be a part of my selfness for always.”

I write out my jumble of conflicting emotions. Every feeling I can think of that has come to pass this weekend: from jealousy to determination to crushing disappointment to unexpected elation. I write about
dashed hopes and the element of surprise, how life makes you certain that you're headed down one path, only to push you through a secret door just as you think you can glimpse your oasis. How things hinge on an instantaneous decision, shifting your future like that topsy-turvy room in
Inception
.

And then, before I know it, I'm starting a character sketch. A new character for
Mage High
. A character who comes in brokenhearted, a transfer to the school who has lost his first love because of his (yet-to-be-determined) powers. He feels guilty and distraught. To the outside world, this makes him seem brooding and mysterious. Which, as any comics fan will tell you, is the perfect formula for an irresistible new superhero.

I make him an orphan because, well, I can't make him be
exactly
like me without it getting too weird. He won't have red hair, either, or be a total geek. But I also know he'll probably be a more complex character because of some of the things I've just gone through. Isn't that what writers are supposed to do? Gather life experience so that they can channel them and create great art? Isn't that what Zinc did when his writing career was going nowhere?

I'm just trying to brainstorm what my new character's fortified magical power could be when a shadow falls across the white spaces of my notebook. It's a familiar shadow. Even before I look up, I know it's Roxana. And she's alone.

“How's it going?” she asks as she looks down at me.

I glance at my notebook page. It's almost full. Then I flip back and realize I've filled over three pages with quick, excited handwriting. “Good,” I tell her. “It's kinda flowing.”

“It looks like it.”

I move to stand up and realize my legs have fallen asleep from being stretched out in front of me, inert, for I don't even know how long. When I finally get up, I stamp my feet a little to get the blood flowing.

“Graham, why did you do it?” Roxana asks me quietly.

I look down at her. “Do what?” But then suddenly I know. She wants to know why I told her what I did last night. I sigh. It's not like I haven't spent the past day asking myself the same question. This conversation was always going to happen.

But then she surprises me. “Why did you let me have the ticket to the Zinc screening?”

I'm taken aback.
This
conversation I was not expecting, because the answer seems so obvious. “It would've felt wrong to be there without you, so I'd just rather you had it,” I say. “Does that really surprise you?”

She's slow to answer. “That's the thing,” she finally says. “It doesn't surprise me at all. But I'm in the screening, watching Althena and Noth meet. And their story is beginning, just like we both know it does, and it struck me—I swear right as her spaceship struck Earth—why doesn't it surprise me? Why do I always expect you to be so kind, to put me first, to be the greatest friend? It's like I take you for granted.” She's staring straight into my eyes, like she's really searching for her answer there.

“I don't think you do,” I say truthfully. “You're a great friend too, you know. My best friend.”

But she shakes her head. “I asked myself if the roles were reversed, if I would have given up my ticket for you. And . . . I don't know. I honestly couldn't say I would.” She finally looks down at her feet. “That's so selfish,” she admits.

“Can you honestly say you wouldn't?”

She thinks about it. “I guess not,” she finally mutters.

I smile down at her. “So there you are. Maybe you're not selfish. Maybe you'd be just as magnanimous as me,” I tease, and manage to coax a small smile out of her. “For the record, I think you would have.”

Her smile gets bigger. “Maybe you think I'm a better person than I really am. But either way, what you said was exactly right. It felt so wrong to be there without you.”

“Let's make a pact.” I stick my hand out. “Next time there's a Robert Zinc screening, we both win the raffle.”

“Deal,” she says, and shakes my hand. She squeezes it when we're done, taking a moment before she lets it go, like she's privately saying good-bye to something. Probably the same thing I'm going to be struggling to let go of for the next little while.

“So is it time to go meet everyone? I kinda lost track,” I say as I glance at my watch. It's 4:45.

“Soon, but before we go, I want to talk about our bet.”

“What bet?”

“The copper670 bet. Not Robert Zinc. Ergo, I win.”

“Oh, right,” I say, remembering. “So killing Slammerghini is out. Damn it.”

“Looks like you'll be figuring out more creative ways for jail cells to come into play.”

“'Tis my fate.” I brace myself, suddenly suspicious. “Okay, so what is it we said you'd get? We're not killing off Spearfingers, are we?”

“I don't remember what I said then.” She's staring up into my eyes again, and something in hers looks different. She looks intense, but other than that, I can't read her expression at all. It's like there's suddenly a facet of Roxy I don't know. “But what I really want is for you to forgive me. I want to say I'm so sorry for how I acted last night. And this morning.”

I'm so taken aback again that I can't help but give a little laugh, probably out of sheer tension. “Oh, come on. That's a stupid thing to waste your bet on.” I try to say it lightly.

She shakes her head. “It's not. It's the most vital thing there is. I can't stand to have you upset with me. I can't stand that I hurt you. . . .” Her voice breaks and, speaking of things that can't be stood, I'm worried that she's going to start to cry.

“Roxy,” I begin gently. “There's nothing to forgive. I'm not upset. Well, I am, but I'm not mad at you. It's, you know . . . complicated.”

“Yes,” she says. “But I reacted badly. I was just so . . .”

“Shocked?” I help her out.

She nods. “Yes. Though maybe I shouldn't have been. But the thought
of losing our friendship is beyond terrifying. Because it's the most important thing to me. Because
you
are the most important thing.” She gently takes my hand. “I love you, you know.”

I smile weakly down at her. “I know. Just not in that way.”

She looks down at our hands and shakes her head. “I don't know. I don't know in what way I love you. It's just . . . the Graham way.” She looks back up at me. “Thirty years from now, I want you to be in my life. I don't know if Devin will be there. Or any other guy. But you . . . I can't imagine
you
not being there.”

I take a deep breath as I gaze at her, and though the breath catches in my throat, it eventually releases, and a part of me is released with it. I bring her hand to my lips, and I kiss it gently. And then I let it go.

“I will be, Roxana,” I promise. “We will be okay.” I realize it's what everyone from Felicia to Samira has told me—in one way, shape, or form—this weekend, and I also realize that it's true. Broken hearts mend—if my dad isn't living proof of that, I don't know what is. And I'm lucky, in a way, because I still get to have Roxana in my life every day and, hopefully, for a long time.

I feel there's only one thing left to say. “Writing session on Tuesday?”

Roxy nods, her eyes unmistakably filled with tears this time. “Yes. Please,” she croaks out.

“I think I may have figured out a new character,” I say as I make a show of gathering my stuff, letting Roxy wipe her eyes in some semblance of privacy.

“Really? Is that what you were doing here?” she says after a moment, gesturing to the notebook I'm putting away in my backpack.

I nod. “Still wrapping my head around some of the details. But Tuesday. We'll definitely talk.”

“Tuesday,” she repeats, with a small, relieved laugh, and she rubs at her face some more and takes a deep breath before speaking again. “And actually, there's something very important that I need to show you. I assume you haven't been on Twitter?” She takes out her phone and starts scrolling.

“Not lately,” I reply, puzzled.

“Presented without commentary,” she says as she holds her phone out to me.

It's open to a profile page: @robert_zinc. It has a little blue check mark next to it that means it's been verified. It already has 83,458 followers. And there's just one tweet there and it's from a couple of hours ago.

“I like this kid's style . . . ,” it says, followed by a retweet of a video tagged with #InigoMontoyaSmackdown.

“Oh . . . my . . . God . . . Is this . . . this can't be . . .” I cannot formulate sentences. I can just stare down at the glowing screen in my hand like I'm a time traveler who has never seen a smartphone before.

The grin on Roxana's face could not get any bigger. “Oh, yes. That is really Robert Zinc. Tweeting. And his first missive to the masses is
about you
.”

I look up at her. “A hoax?” I croak out.

She shakes her head triumphantly. “Nope, I don't think so.” She watches me silently freak out for another second before she says, “You do realize what this means, right? That in some small way . . .
Robert Zinc knows who you are
.”

Dear Internet. I love you. Hard.

It's the only thought I can formulate.

Roxana gives me another couple of minutes alone with the screen before she touches my hand with a laugh. “All right, Internet sensation Graham Posner. Shall we go find the others?”

I look up at her and slowly nod, finally handing her phone back, my hands still a little shaky.

“Anything in particular you want to check out now?” she asks. “I think there are some post-NYCC events happening in the neighborhood.”

I shake my head, dazed and also realizing that I still honestly don't have much of an idea of today's schedule. I clear my throat and test out regular speech again. “Let's meet up with the group,” I manage to say. “And then we'll take a consensus.”

“So . . . whatever Casey has in his spreadsheet?” Roxy teases.

“Pretty much. Speaking of which,” I say as I shoulder my backpack, realizing I have something to tell her, too. “What would you think if I put the names Casey Zucker and Felicia Obayashi in a sentence together?”

“Um . . . smartest kids in our class?” Roxana responds with a perplexed shrug.

“Mmm-hmm,” I say, and then I waggle my eyebrows.

“Wait. What? No,” Roxana sputters, and then she clearly starts racking her brain. “Oh my gosh. Really?”

I put my hands up. “I have no confirmation of anything. Just my own astute observations over the past couple of days.”

“Oh my God. Do you really think . . . holy crap. It kinda makes sense. In an insane way.”

“Yeah, in an insane their-kids-would-dominate-the-universe way. Talk about supergenes . . .”

“They would be mutants. Actual, honest-to-goodness mutants.”

As we start to leave the room, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I take it out to see a text from Amelia.
Have you seen Twitter?!

I grin at it before typing out a quick response and catching up with Roxana in the hallway, where we join a throng of superheroes and villains. But for once, I see all those characters and I don't really envy them their fantasy worlds. I'm okay with my reality, as messy and imperfect as it may be. I don't really know what comes next, but honestly, isn't that the best part of writing a story anyway?

Maybe it's the best part of real life, too.

I'm so grateful to my spectacular editor, Zareen Jaffery, who championed this book, Graham, and me from the very beginning. My fandom for you knows no bounds. I think I need to start an entire forum dedicated to the enormous talents of Lucy Ruth Cummins, Dolly Faibyshev, and Tim Sundholm, for this astonishingly perfect cover that brings Graham to glorious life. All the heart emojis go to the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster that I am so lucky to work with: Ksenia Winnicki, Mekisha Telfer, Justin Chanda, Anne Zafian, Jenica Nasworthy, Katy Hershberger, Chrissy Noh, and KeriLee Horan. And, of course, the gushiest of valentines to my agent, Victoria Marini.

More than anything I've written before, this book was shaped and guided by some of the world's best beta readers. First and foremost, I must thank Billy Henehan for sharing his extensive Comic Con knowledge and stories with me (and for inspiring me to start attending the convention in the first place). And Sarah Skilton, who helped me find the story's true ending when I couldn't see it for myself. I don't think this book would really exist without the two of you. Thank you so much also to Julie Henehan, Katie Blackburn, and Jenny Goldberg, for helping me through my narrative dilemma with their invaluable and astute feedback.

As any nerd worth their salt knows, geek minutiae is
very
serious stuff, and I would like to thank some experts who helped me with some of those very important details: Andrew Lobel, Gina Rosati, and Jerry Rosati. Thank you to Nicholas Doyle for writing a real-life (and spectacular) version of “Something on the Quiet.” And so much amused gratitude to Dave Henehan for cosplaying as Graham at NYCC last year.