Page 65 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

COURTNEY

Desperately, I look around, searching for a rope or anything I can use to try to capture the beast. Of course, there’s nothing… aside from a new portal, which is still glowing in the yard.

Suddenly, I feel as though I’ve caught a glimpse of a new future where things could be different, the same way I did at Thanksgiving.

But this time, there’s an actual portal, lighting up a path I hadn’t seen before, unexpected but full of things I long ago dismissed as impossible.

Unicorns and trolls. Unconditional friendship.

True love. The simpler way of life I’ve been craving.

My Happily Ever After won’t be perfect like I used to imagine, but I’ve grown fond of imperfect things.

I turn to Bryce. “I always wanted to be a hero so I could get my Happily Ever After. We’re not heroes, but maybe we could have a Mediocre Ever After.

We won’t have a castle, but we could have a very quiet, safe hut.

We wouldn’t have to stock shelves or crunch numbers.

We could have real friends.” Like the village girls.

“Sure, there won’t be running water, but there also won’t be Corporate America or motor vehicle accidents. ”

“Are you… are you actually suggesting we go back to the world we spent the whole time trying to leave?” Bryce asks.

I shrug. “Why not? We can always come back, right? Every time we need to stock up on Germ-X or tampons, we’ll just do a few good deeds and open the portal again.”

But he’s already kissing me. Kissing me like he’s never kissed me before. Bold. Daring. Brave. Irresistible. He breaks away. “Yes. No more being a slug. I want to be a person, to live .”

I glance at the portal, which is beginning to fade. “We need to catch the dragon’s attention so it will chase us when we go through.”

Panicked that we’re going to run out of time, I start jumping up and down, waving my arms and yelling, but the beast spares me no mind. It begins to rise higher in the sky, gaze searching for a new target.

“I’ve got this,” Bryce says, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a small pebble.

“You went back for it?” I breathed.

“Of course.”

The portal darkens further. I don’t feel any more power inside me, so creating another portal will be impossible, since there’s no magic on Earth to replenish our supply. If we don’t act quickly, our opportunity will be gone forever.

Bryce draws back his arm, hesitates only a second, then whips his arm forward, the rock slingshotting high into the sky.

It bounces right off the dragon’s snout. With a smoky snort, the beast whirls on us, eyes narrowing. Fire blooms in its nostrils.

“Run,” Bryce says, grasping my hand. He’s told me to run a lot in the past few days, but this time his voice is not full of fear, but full of life, of hope, of love.

With the monster breathing down our necks, we plunge through the portal.

And when I blink, I find that all my dreams have come true.