Page 42 of Love at Full Tilt

Starshatter Hotel, Fableland

Orlando, FL

OLIVER

We need real magic right now, Princess. Not some chemical reactions.

ELORRA

(pours a boiling substance over some loose gunpowder)

Not even magic can fix what’s already broken.

But science can transform it into something new.

—Sunspark (01:28:13)

I don’t remember shoving through Starshatter’s oscillating front doors.

I don’t remember taking the elevator to the ninth floor.

I don’t remember inserting my keycard into the door reader.

I don’t remember texting my mother for our next check-in.

I don’t remember shucking my clothes.

I don’t remember slipping on new ones.

I don’t remember tearing my notebooks in half. Once, then again, and again, and again.

I don’t remember pulling the comforter off my bed and wrapping it around my shoulders.

I don’t remember sliding open the door to the balcony.

I don’t remember lying down on the small lounger overlooking the pool.

I don’t remember my heart shattering into such small pieces that I will never be able to find them all.

I’m lying on my side, wrapped in a blanket despite the ninety-degree weather.

I stare at my phone screen, but there’s nothing on it.

Not from Mom.

Not from Mason.

Not from my friends.

Although I don’t remember it, I must have fallen asleep at some point because the sun has swung toward the west, and my phone says it’s two-thirty.

Everything seems to be behind a screen, happening in a fog.

Sitting up, I pull up the Scavenger Hunt app.

It opens to the leaderboard, showing Mason and me right under Ember and Erica, positions three and four.

It should make me feel better, to know I’m still in this, with my highest ranking ever, that my preparation and planning and knowledge haven’t gone to waste.

But all that oscillates in my center is something hot, burning.

Flicking the app closed, I press on it, staring at the delete option.

It would be so easy to do. Erase all of this.

Wipe these five days away so they’re no more real than what Mason and I had.

I throw my phone beside me, a new wave of tears pouring from my eyes.

My stomach cramps, and I slap my hand over my mouth, afraid I’m going to be sick. My last boyfriend and I broke up long enough ago that the feelings have gone fuzzy, but I remember more emptiness than pain. Like I was a house after the furniture had been removed.

But this is like the house has been razed to the ground. And I’m whatever was left inside. Crushed beyond repair.

The underside of the balcony above mine is painted black and strung with tiny lights like stars.

Because of course it is. Mason was right: there isn’t a corner of this place that’s real.

I squeeze my eyes shut. If it weren’t for Fableland and its supposed magic, I wouldn’t feel so awful right now.

For the first time since we got here, I want to go home.

And just like that, I sob louder. Because my home is not a sanctuary, it’s a prison I’m trying hard to escape. With this resort, with this contest, maybe even with Mason. And none of it has worked.

It takes me a while to cry myself out. Then I stare dumbly at the false sky above me.

My tears dry itchy on my cheeks and neck in the heat, and my eyes burn.

I should get up, but my body has that feeling like when you swim for a long time, my muscles dense as cement and out of sorts, like I’m put together wrong.

Maybe I am. Maybe after this trip I’ll never be put back right again.

A few hours ago, I would have said I liked it that way—that I didn’t want to be the old version of Lia anymore—but now I wish I’d never come here.

That I’d never tried to do something for myself.

That I’d never met Mason. It’s easier not to want things.

Your heart might not feel anything, but at least it can’t get broken. There’s nothing to break.

I hear muffled voices and then the door opening. I turn toward the cushions.

“The light’s on,” Tess says.

“Lia, are you here?” Issy calls out.

I don’t get up.

“It looks like she brought a tornado with her.”

“Tess, shut it.”

“Shit, those are her research notes. Lia, did you not get the clues in time?”

The glass door groans on its track. “There you are.” Issy’s soft voice. I don’t look at her. “Why didn’t you— Hey, are you okay?”

She kneels in front of me, her coffee-brown eyes wide. Her hand is so close, the tips of her fingers touch my arm, and from somewhere in me, a new well of tears brims my lashes. They’re hot, and as they fall, they draw raw, stinging paths down my face. I don’t wipe them away.

“Tess, get over here,” Issy says.

Tess’s platinum-blond head appears around the door. “Have you been sitting out here the whole…” She takes a good look at me, and her last words wither on her tongue.

“How was the pavilion?” I ask weakly.

Worry wrinkles Issy’s features. “Fun.”

“You should have seen all the food,” Tess adds. “And there was this chef who was drooling over Is like she was a five-star dessert.”

“You give the restaurants stars, not the meals.” Issy rolls her eyes, then focuses back on me. “Stop deflecting. Tell us what’s wrong,” she presses. “Did you lose the contest?”

I shake my head. It’s as heavy as a boulder on my neck. “Mason—” I choke. His name is like ice in my mouth. Or fire. Poison. Something that hurts.

I pull my knees as close to my chest as I can and lock my gaze on the pool below. I suddenly feel too big for this lounger, this balcony, this room. This park. This whole world.

I want to disappear.

“It’s done,” I croak.

“Oh, Lia.” Issy frowns. “What happened?”

I drop my chin to my chest. I don’t really want to say it out loud. But they’re my friends. I should talk to them. “He doesn’t want to try to be together.”

“What?” Tess rears back in surprise. “That makes no sense. That boy is so into you.”

Issy squeezes my arm. “Maybe you misunderstood him?”

I yank my arm away. “It’s pretty hard to misunderstand ‘I don’t see any way this can work.

’ We’re over. We’re nothing.” Each word causes a bit more of that anger I’m forever forcing down to flare in my chest. But for once I’m not mad at the situation, at the things I can’t control.

I’m mad at my friends. “I can’t believe you two weren’t here.

I had to deal with this all alone. Again.

” My gaze flits between Tess and Issy. “Just like with everything else lately.” If they were as invested in this trip as me, if they’d actually tried to help with the contest, if they’d wanted to spend time with me for real, I wouldn’t have been so distracted by Mason.

I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to hold myself together.

We’d be at one of the parks celebrating that I was one of the top ten contestants with one day left.

“It’s like neither of you gives a crap about me anymore.

” It’s almost a relief to have somewhere to put these emotions before they tear through me.

Tess stares at me, dumbfounded, her mouth actually hanging open.

“What are you talking about?” Once she regains her composure, she points her phone screen at me.

It’s our group chat. The last message was from this morning at breakfast when Issy was complaining about the poor caramelization on the French toast. “I don’t see any messages here from you telling us you need us.

” Her hand drops to her side. “We would have come. You know that. But you don’t ever ask for help.

You just…run away and get mad. You don’t deal with things. ”

My ears are ringing, and anger surges like lighting in my veins. All these things she’s saying, they aren’t what I need to hear right now. I say as much out loud as I snatch my phone from the chair and storm inside.

Issy and Tess follow. “What do you need to hear then?” Tessasks.

I whirl on her. “You’re sitting here telling me that I should lean on you, talk to you, when in two months, neither of you will be here anymore. What’s the point of that? I might as well get used to being on my own.”

“Is that what this is about?” Tess drops onto the bed. “Us going to college?”

I growl and start pacing in a circle. It’s like I’m speaking a different language. My hands fist so hard that I can feel the sting of my nails as I tighten my fingers.

“No. It’s about the way you diminish everything that matters to me.

‘Fableland’s childish, you’re never going to win this contest, you’re the only one who thinks you’re fat, you should appreciate the job you parents are giving you.

’ Nothing I’m feeling seems to be a big deal to you.

You brush it all away. Like you get to control what hurts me, what I think. ”

“What—”

I cut her off before she can tell me I’m wrong. “I have the right to feel abandoned. The whole time we’ve been here, you both keep leaving me when we’re supposed to be making memories, the three of us. It feels like you’re already gone.” And now Mason is too.

Tess is as pale as her hair. Her phone has tumbled from her fingers. Issy’s crying. “We knew you liked Mason. We wanted you to get some time with him. We thought it would make you happy,” Tess whispers.

That’s the second time I’ve heard that today. And the second time it’s been a wrecking ball through my middle.

“Do I look happy?”

Issy sniffles.

“Maybe you should have asked me what I wanted, before deciding that for yourself.”

I walk out the door, slamming it behind me. I don’t know how I’m crying again, but new tears leak down my face as I stalk toward the elevator.

Stopping in front of the up and down buttons, I pause, unsure what to do.

My first instinct is to text Mason, and that makes my stomach heave.

He should never be my first call. We’re nothing to each other.

Just a blip, a pencil scratch across a long piece of paper, a summer drizzle.

Nothing substantial. Nothing that would ever last.

I text my mom, and when she doesn’t immediately answer, I cry harder. I’ve never felt so alone.

With shaking hands, I do the only thing I can think of: I dial my home number. As I listen to the phone ring, I make the decision. I’m going to ask my parents how to change a flight. I’m coming home.

I won’t win the contest. I don’t feel ready to talk to them about my future. But I can’t be here anymore. It’s not helping. It doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like a mirror, reflecting everything I want that I can’t have.

No one picks up. I try three more times with the same result.

Everything about this trip was a bad idea.

Thinking I could win a contest against so many other people, believing a week with my friends would somehow make up for them leaving me behind for college, letting myself give in to feelings for a guy I just met, hoping some amusement park would be enough to change the last eighteen years of my life.

Maybe the things I want are childish. Maybe I am.

Frustrated, I jam my finger into the down button. My hand is wet from my tears and my fingertip slips against the smooth metal. Sobbing has given me the hiccups. I don’t know where I’m going until the elevator opens in the lobby.

I see the oscillating glass doors. Outside. Fresh air. More distance.

It takes all my willpower not to run. I don’t even do my plus-size geometry before slipping between the rotating panes.

Away. Out. It’s all I can think.

The muggy Florida afternoon drapes over my skin like a damp towel as the door opens onto the sidewalk. I don’t care. I suck in wet breaths like they’re refreshing. Like I’ve never tasted such fantastic air before.

As I push out onto the pavement, I stumble into someone tall and solid.

I mumble, “I’m sorry,” and try to angle out of their way, but a hand gently grasps my arm. As I glance up, angry words are already rushing to my lips. But then the whole world starts to spin, and I think I might faint.

Because there’s my father, holding my wrist.