Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,15

on a lock of her hair, stroking it while tipping her chin down and looking at us through the tops of her eyes. Her eyebrows waggle.

“Forget I asked,” Imani says. Her tone more resigned than annoyed.

She has more patience than me when it comes to Mark and Siggy.

“Seriously?” My voice is harsh, because now I’m a bit mad.

Annoying Mark Annoying Carson.

“Yeah, but when you fall in love, you’ll understand,” Siggy says, immediately defensive.

Imani puts a hand on my shoulder as she feels me bunching up.

“It’s okay,” Imani says. “She didn’t mean it that way.”

Siggy immediately turns doll-wide eyes at me. “Did that sound bad? I didn’t mean it like that!”

I know she didn’t, but it’s hard not to feel self-conscious about being the only one in our group who hasn’t had an actual, committed-and-into-me boyfriend. Someone exclusive.

Especially because I would really, really, really love to be in love. To be in a relationship like that.

And because of what just happened with Scott. And Blair.

Siggy didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. And I shouldn’t have sounded so mad about Mark. She already knows I don’t like him that much.

That’s not entirely my fault because I didn’t realize that they were going to get back together the first time they broke up. Or the second time. Also, you know, the third time.

I’m a slow learner, okay? I think I’ve put that on the record already.

Now when they break up, I just listen to her cry about him and don’t tell her what I actually think. Because they’ll just be getting back together in a few hours or the next day.

“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”

“Thanks, June,” Siggy says.

“All together or none at all,” I mutter.

“Don’t start that again!” Imani says.

We start laughing as Siggy asks, “Don’t start what?”

5

The music playing from the massive speakers onstage changes. I glance up but the stage is still empty.

The ballroom is a huge multipurpose room that can be easily reconfigured for different uses. There’s even a semicircular balcony above the entryway, accessed from the third floor. For the con, on the main floor of the ballroom there’s a massive, tall stage that’s been erected in the rear center of the room, opposite the main doors.

Next to me Siggy is trying to scoot her chair to the left a bit. She grunts with the effort.

“Help me, June,” she says, tugging on her seat and lunging at the same time.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“We’re sardines. I’m just trying to get a teeny bit more room.”

I try to scooch my chair in the opposite direction.

“It won’t work.” Imani points at the row of chairs in front of us. All the seats are those fancy, cushioned metal kind that stack.

I still don’t see why they won’t move.

“What?” I ask Imani.

“See the clips?”

Then I do see them, on the back legs of the chairs in front of us: locking clips that allow convention center workers to place the chairs in rows that make it impossible to spread out and ruin the carefully laid-out aisles.

“Sorry, Siggy, looks like we’re trapped,” I say.

Siggy huffs in frustration but soon gets over it as the music gets louder. We crane our necks trying to see if anyone is getting ready to walk out.

Onstage there’s a sofa and two easy chairs, talk show style. Behind them the stage is decorated with rubble, and even a rusted-out car chassis.

Zombie apocalypse set dressing.

At the side edges of the stage, long black curtains hang behind freestanding chain-link barriers. The chain link isn’t anchored to the floor, and it doesn’t run all the way from the stage edge to the wall, but the fencing gets the point across: behind the curtains is off-limits.

Behind the car chassis and rubble is another huge black curtain pulled closed along the back of