Page 2 of Headstrong Like Us

I almost smile and groan, but my stomach overturns. “Maybe I should just stay here with you. We haven’t seen each other in a while.” We FaceTime and text a ton, but I’ve missed Janie while she’s been in Princeton. Homesickness has infected her too.

We’ve also been blanket-hopping most of the night. Spending time with our younger siblings and cousins who group off in different familial cliques.

She sips a fountain soda. “I’ll always be here. It’s not as though you’ll be gone forever.” She glances at her pastel blue wristwatch. “By my predictions, you should only take thirty minutes, tops.”

I scrunch my face. “If I spendthirty minuteswith Farrow, I’m going to die of Chronic Agitation.”

She grins. “Twenty minutes, then.”

I shake my head and slip my backpack strap over a shoulder. “Cela va durer une solide minute.”This is lasting one solid minute.“Any longer and I’ll need a stretcher and CPR.”

I try not to remember that Farrow graduated from Yale medical school.

He’s a doctor.

He can perform CPR on me. Mouth-to-mouth—stop thinking.

She taps my arm. “You should go now.” Jane is looking to our left. At my mom, whose gangly frame is hidden in an oversized black cable-knit sweater. She’s heading to the pop-up concession tents.

And her bodyguard is leading the way.

Approaching Farrow will be easier if he’s separated from the security team. Quickly (but not too quickly) I stand up, adjusting the other backpack strap on my muscular shoulder.

Janie raises her drink to me in cheers and encouragement. “On se voit dans une solide minute.”See you in a solid minute.

I wave goodbye, and I weave through sprawled bodies on picnic blankets, the click-click of flash bulbs barely registering. I’m too used to the sound of cameras. Declan, my bodyguard, materializes out of thin air, already on his feet and in front of me.

“Moffy!” Tom catches my ankle before I pass, Luna and Eliot slouched beside him. “Can you get me peanut butter cups?”

“And more popcorn,” Luna adds, one eye still shut.

“Yeah.” I glance to the tents, where my mom waits in line at the cotton candy stand. Farrow is speaking to fans before they reach her. I focus back on my sister and cousins. “Anything else?”

They all want root beer floats.

Nothing too complicated, so I take mental notes.

As I walk past the blanket with the four youngest girls (Audrey, Kinney, Winona, and Vada), I place a loving hand on each of their heads.

“Stay here,” they all plead and talk to me at once.

“I’ll be right back.” But I linger a second longer. Crouching down next to Kinney. “Hey, birthday girl.”

“Hey.” She wears a blasé, unconcerned expression while watchingHocus Pocus. Pictures of her goth outfit—laced sleeves, black hat, combat boots, and choker necklace—are already all over the internet.

“You want anything to eat?”

“The souls of my enemies,” she deadpans.

I smile. “I’ll work on that.”I miss being home.

She shrugs, turning more towards me. “Then a candy apple. No nuts.”

“Got it.” I take more orders, the list piling.

Ben and Xander seem satisfied over on their blanket. They share a tub of kettle corn, and my younger brother might as well have dressed up as a mummy. To hide from paparazzi andyou. Because right now he’s shrouded behind dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, and hoodie.

At least he came out to celebrate Kinney’s birthday. Our sister already warned him that if he didn’t show, she’d etch “turd hole” on his tombstone.