Page 30 of Love at Full Tilt

Starshatter Resort, Fableland

Orlando, FL

The best thing about staying at a Fableland resort? Twenty-four-hour room service. During our last stay at the Starshatter, my pregnant wife was able to have a bowl of pickles and a hot fudge sundae delivered right to our room at three in the morning.

—HotelReviews.com

My feet barely touch the floor as I float through the Starshatter Hotel.

The kiss Mason and I shared in front of the elevator still burns on my lips. And tomorrow, I will get to see him again. Kiss him again. Wander my favorite place with him again. That alone makes it impossible to convince me that Fableland isn’t built of magic.

When I reach our room, I can hear the TV murmuring through the door. Sitting on a tray beside it are two empty bowls, clearly once filled with ice cream. The round glass peephole stares at me like a winking eye as I try to muster the courage to use my keycard.

I shouldn’t be surprised they’re still up: Tess and Issy are notorious night owls.

But I was foolishly hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout from our fight until morning.

They’re going to be mad that I spent the entire day with Mason.

That I barely answered their texts. But I needed space to process.

The lock beeps as loud as a fire alarm when I use my card. The door pops open, and I stand on the threshold like a vampire waiting to be invited in.

Tess and Issy are propped up against the headboard of their shared bed, huddled under a blanket because Tess can only sleep in arctic temperatures. The TV flickers with the bright colors of Phoenix’s Landing, Fableland’s most famous animated film.

They both jump to their feet.

“Are you okay?” Issy asks.

Tess is quiet, her face drawn, but her eyes skim over me the same way my mom’s used to whenever I fell off my bike. Assessing me for damage.

“I’m sorry I’m so late.” It takes me two more breaths before I can force myself into the room. As soon as the door shuts behind me, I press my back against it.

Issy rushes forward to hug me. “You can’t tell us some creep grabbed you and then disappear. We were worried. ”

“I needed to work through some stuff.”

Tess drops back onto the bed. “We could have helped you.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “We’ve hardly seen you, Lia.”

“I—”

“And please don’t blame it on the contest. There’s no way you were looking for the third clue this whole time. You’d be out.”

My muscles stiffen, and a rush of anger blasts under my skin.

Although I want to move past this fight, I won’t do it by giving into Tess’s accusations.

Yes, I shouldn’t have stayed out so long with Mason, but it is not as if she’s been so perfect this week either.

“The contest is the whole reason we’re even able to be here, Tess.

And it’s not like you give a shit about Fableland anyway.

It seems like all you want to do is celebrate that you’re leavingsoon. ”

Tess’s eyes flash. “What does that mean?”

“All you talk about is going to Penn State and your plans with Grace and your dorm room. You don’t care about being here. You don’t care that you’re leaving me behind.”

Both of us look to Issy. Her face is pinched. “Don’t look at me. I’m tired of having to be the peacemaker. I came here to be with both of you, but no one has thought about what I want either.” There’s a sharpness to her voice.

The three of us stare at each other for a minute.

“God, we’ve all kind of sucked lately, huh?” I mumble.

That breaks the tension and we laugh.

“I’m sorry we made you feel left out, Lia,” Issy says quietly.

Tess frowns at me. “I didn’t mean those shitty things I said earlier about you hiding.

And I’m sorry for not shutting up about college.

And for not making you feel like I care about this contest. I know it’s important.

” She sighs. “I just…don’t know how to help.

I don’t remember as much about this stuff as you two do.

I thought I was helping by making sure we did everything.

” Her shoulders slump. “I want us to have the best time.”

“I’m sorry I abandoned you guys.” I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor. “I was mad and I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. You know how I get.” I glance at Issy. “Is, tomorrow we’ll film all the videos you want.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Tess declares. “And I’ll try to help with clues. Or at least not make things harder by complaining so much.”

“And I’ll make sure there’s plenty of us time.”

“And no more running off,” Issy says. “We’ve already lost two precious days of Lia.”

I cringe. “I’m sorry. I really did plan to get back by dinner, but my mom totally derailed me. She threatened to come downhere.”

My words land as heavily on my friends as they did on me when Mom spoke them. Tess’s mahogany eyes are wide. “Nooo,” she breathes.

Issy joins me on the floor. “What happened?”

I want to pull my knees to my chest, but when you’re my size, it’s not as comfortable as TV shows make it look. I settle for crisscross applesauce. “I stopped looking at my phone after everything at lunch, and when I didn’t respond she lostit.”

Issy’s brow creases, and Tess is still gaping at me.

“She’s not coming,” I clarify. “I managed to talk her down.” I lean my head against the door, exhausted all over again by thinking about that conversation.

“She wanted to stay with us. Go to the parks and everything. RIP Operation Freedom, right?” I try to laugh, but it comes out like some sort of weird choke instead.

Issy flinches at the noise. “Can you imagine? Her following us around?” I press my hand to my chest and suck in a breath.

None of the air catches in my lungs. I can’t breathe again.

“What if she actually does it? Comes down here?”

“But she’s not.” Issy’s voice is firm. “That’s what matters.” She breathes with me, in and out, in and out. I wonder if she’s counting in her head like I do with Mom.

“I don’t think I could take it. Everything’s…

” I let my voice fade. I don’t know how to tell them I can feel time ticking away like slash marks on my bones.

Not only the days left with Mason but my time with my friends, this small snatch of distance I’ve gained from my parents. It’s all going to end in three days.

The only way to stop it is to win the contest.

Tess stomps over and drops beside me against the door, jamming her shoulder into mine. Like she wants to remind me how solid she is.

“I really didn’t mean to leave you hanging. You know I wouldn’t do that. I…I don’t know…I panicked after I talked to her.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes. Finally, I ask what I’ve been so afraid to since I walked in the door. “Do you both hate me?”

Tess smacks my arm. “Good lord. Don’t be such a drama queen. It was one day.”

“But didn’t I break a friend commandment or something by hanging out with Mason all day?”

She frowns. “I think there are worse ones to break than hanging out with a guy.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t murder your friends?” Issy offers. “Don’t get them sent to jail?”

Tess holds up a finger. “Unless you’re going, too.”

“Great, so I broke the third-most-important friend commandment.”

“No way. Stealing would come first. And probably lying,too.”

Issy nods. “Or going to a new restaurant without your BFFs.”

“That’s your commandment,” I point out.

She laughs. “ Still. It counts.”

“And don’t kill puppies or get a puppy and not let other people come snuggle it,” Tess says.

“That seems more like a life commandment.”

“Yeah, but I’d be more pissed if it was a friend—”

Issy holds up her hands in surrender. “Basically, what we’re saying is that we don’t hate you.”

I bump Tess’s shoulder and smile at Issy. “Thanks.”

Tess bumps me back harder. “Did you have a good time with Mason, at least?”

I immediately burst into tears, a geyser of uncertainty and confusion. I don’t even know why I’m crying, because we had a great day. But maybe that’s the problem. Today was too good. He’s too good. I want to keep whatever this is between us and I don’t know how.

“Oh my God.” Tess grabs my arm. “Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him. I don’t care how tall he is.”

Issy scoots closer, so there’s no more than an inch between our knees. Her lavender-and-honey perfume fills my nostrils. “Lia?” Her voice is as soft as the scent.

I’m sobbing so hard I can’t answer them.

It’s like I’ve been feeling too many things over the past few days and now they’re all trying to escape out of me at once.

My body shakes, and I’m gasping like I still can’t breathe.

When I do force some words out, my voice cracks.

“It’s the opposite. He’s so…kind and thoughtful and easy to talk to and he makes me laugh, and I know it’s so dumb, it’s been like five minutes since we’ve met, but I think I might…

maybe…have real feelings for him. Like not just a crush. ”

“Oh my God,” Issy coos, bracing her hands on her topknot.

“No. Not ‘oh my God.’?” I shake my head so hard it makes me dizzy. “I can’t fall for him.”

“Why not?” Tess asks.

“He lives here. I don’t. The only way to change that is for me to win this contest. But if I win, Mason doesn’t. And he needs the money as much as I do.”

“So make the most of the time you have,” Tess says.

“What do you mean?”

“I love you, but sometimes you get so tangled up in your own head that it freezes you.”

I jam my arms over my chest. What Tess just said, it makes me sound so much like my mother that it ices my veins. I don’t want to let my worries eat me up. I don’t want to forget how to act, how to do something. That’s the whole point of this contest—to go after something that could change my life.

“He and I want to get the clues even faster tomorrow. If we can make the top ten, we can get extra hints for the last days. Is it okay if I meet up with him in the morning? We’ll come find you two as soon as we’re done. Or just me, if you want.”

Tess nudges me. “Duh. That’s the most efficient way to do it. Clues come first.”

“Then Issy’s videos.”

“And Mason is welcome to hang out with us,” Issy says. “Carter’s already told Tess he plans to harass her at lunch.”

There are so many things that still need to be said: about the past few months, about how they dismiss my weight, about how much I feel the distance forcing its way between us.

But today has already stretched on for eighty years, and they both look so serious, and I let them down, too.

So even though it aches to swallow everything for the sake of someone else—the way I have to do with Mom every day —I smile.

“Things are just changing so fast. It feels like we’re spinning in different directions.

I don’t want us to spin away from each other. ”

Tess drags me into her compact version of a bear hug. “As if I would let you get away.”

I laugh into the split neck of her old Waterville High Track T-shirt. “It is pretty impossible to shake you.”

She squawks and shoves me hard enough that I fall over.

The air in the room is lighter as we settle in to finish Phoenix’s Landing, as if our talk cleared away some of the cobwebs clogging the space between us. Like old times, we all cram together in one bed and spread a carpet of junk food in front of us.