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When she got home she relayed to her agent what had happened.

She didn’t know what she wanted him to do about it.

Maybe nothing. Maybe she just needed someone other than those two jerks to know what really happened.

Her agent said he could speak to Beau’s agent if Persephone wanted him to, and suddenly Persephone felt like that kid in class, the tattletale, but she said OK and, expecting nothing, didn’t ask him about it again.

But a week and a half later, her agent emailed to tell her that Beau’s agent—one of the more high-powered agents at ICM, who

apparently had a no-tolerance policy for this kind of thing—had not only dropped Beau as a client (discreetly), but convinced

one of her closest producer friends to drop his passion project, a film that was predicted to be his biggest film to date—as

well as Lee Kingston’s breakout starring role.

The hammer had come down harder than Persephone had anticipated and would’ve intended, for everyone, and it seemed it was

still slamming down.

29

“Hey, what’re you doing out here?” Ruben plopped down onto the curb beside Persephone.

She’d come out to grab some fresh morning air, to escape the grip of Febreze-laden upholstery as well as her own thoughts,

but of course she could never outrun those. She would ensure her trip to Corpus Christi was simple by avoiding just about

everyone. She’d remain in the car, low in her seat behind her rainbow-mirrored sunglasses and beneath her oversized hoodie.

“I know you aren’t doing them anymore,” said Ruben, “but I gotta say, it was impressive, you coming up with POS before I did.”

“POS?”

“Persistent Overlay Series. The whole repeated Overlay thing.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“These things need names. It’s how it works.”

“In your Spider-Man graphic novel or manga or whatever?”

“That’d be a comic. You guys—graphic novels, comics, manga. Let’s try to respect the forms? Anyway, I’m excited to see your

ol’ stomping grounds.”

“It’s going to be a quick trip.” Persephone bit her lip and resisted the temptation to throw her phone against the oil-stained asphalt.

“Bad news?” said Ruben.

A name. A different direction. Lee fucking Kingston. She sucked her teeth and gave Ruben a shrug.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get the part,” he said. “You know, you’re doing all these photo shoots and interviews, and landing a

part in something, well, it’s just a matter of time, right? I know right now, it’s not the way you wanted to go back to your

hometown, but...”

Had she been lying to herself all these five years? Or maybe she’d been lying to herself about something that stretched further

back. “Once,” she said after several moments, “someone told me I was tough. I was stupid enough to believe him.”

“You are tough.”

“Not in the ways that count.”

They were quiet again. And then Ruben reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a square of sketch

paper that was folded in neat creases, lines that contrasted with the multitude of crinkles across its entire surface. With

practiced precision his long, thin fingers unfolded the page. She hadn’t noticed before how strong yet delicate they were,

his fingers. An artist’s hands.

He handed her the page. It was a rough pencil and ink sketch of a superhero, good but certainly not his level of skill.

“U-Man,” he said. “Like, hu man but also you , man.”

“I’m not familiar.”

“My alter ego. I made him up when I was a kid.”

“Cool mask. Or is it a full-coverage face shield? Shiny.”

“Mirrored mask. Whenever anyone looked at me—my alter ego—really they were looking at themselves.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s a mirror. The way it works is if they look long enough, they start losing track of themselves, so that they think me and them are the same person.

Kind of like how babies think they are the same person as their mom?

Like, they don’t really see the separation?

” He shrugged. “My aunt told me something like that. She’s a doula and care-gives for new mothers.

Anyway, one part of the mask is that it creates confusion, so when the bad guys try to attack, they see themselves instead. Weaponizing a mirror.”

“Weird weapon.”

“It’s the ultimate weapon. Like I said, it was confusing, for one. So it threw them off. And then it forced them to see themselves,

like, really clearly. And that meant they treated whoever was wearing the mask like a human being and not scum.”

“Treated you.”

“Huh?”

“You said whoever was wearing the mask, but you were the only one with it. Your alter ego. It was your mask, right? So they

treated you like a human being. Not like scum.”

Ruben’s face reddened and he gave a sheepish shrug.

“Clever mask,” she said, and not because she regretted embarrassing him, which she did. She was genuinely impressed. “Did

it always work?”

“On even the worst villains.”

“Huh.”

“Even the baddies want to be good. Most people are good, deep inside.”

“You might’ve been the most optimistic superhero kid in the superhero pantheon.”

“I know it sounds corny, but when you get down to it, we’re all the same. We’re just people. And, I mean, really I was trying

to figure out a way to have a superhero alter ego who didn’t have to, like, shoot anybody or punch them out. My mom was big

on not letting me play with pretend guns or swords.”

“Yeah, no, I get it. How old were you when you created this guy?”

“Eleven when I drew him, but I created him when I was nine.”

“And what are these bracelets for?”

“They’re cuffs, actually. My alter ego was very merciful. The cuffs can turn the mirror effect off, so that the other person doesn’t have to see themselves for too long. If things get way heavy. ’Cause, well, we’re just people, right? Facing yourself is hard.”

“That’s clever, too,” she said quietly. “And yes, merciful.”

Ruben refolded the old drawing and slipped it back into his wallet.

She exhaled raggedly and blurted, “I wasn’t ever going back. Never.”

There. She’d said it. The thing she’d known to be true from almost the beginning: she had never intended to set another foot

in Corpus Christi for as long as she lived.

“I thought you were waiting,” said Ruben, “until you were famous or whatever.”

“There’s... there’s something that happened with my brother.”

“It’s why we’re going. He’s in trouble, right?” Ruben still managed to make it sound as if they were journeying characters

in some damned comic.

“No. Yes, but there’s something else... that happened a long time ago. It was my fault and I just...” Persephone kept

staring at the asphalt at her feet. “I think I always knew I was never going back. As much as I tried to tell myself it was

because I was waiting to make my big entrance, deep down, I knew.”

“You’ll make it without him.”

Persephone looked at him sharply.

“It’s not all going to go away if John does. I’m sure you can hold your own acting-wise.” Ruben held up a finger. “And he’s

not going away. No, seriously, he isn’t. Let’s just say I’ve got my theories.”

“Look, I care about John. And...”

She met Ruben’s gaze. He was young and goofy and sweet and very understanding, but could she tell him the thing she didn’t

even like to tell herself? She thought—hoped—that maybe he was the kind of person who might see your ugly side and like you

anyway. Or maybe even like you better for it. He was, after all, the kind of guy who would think to create an alter ego like

U-Man.

“The other day,” she said, “I was trying to give myself an honest answer to a question, and it was hard because at first I kept thinking stuff that only sounded right but wasn’t true, you know what I mean?

Like, I kept telling myself what I should think instead of just thinking what I was actually thinking.

I kept lying to myself even when I was trying my hardest not

to. And what I was asking myself was this: Would I give it all up, everything good that’s happened to me so far—the status,

the photo shoots, the interviews, the casting meetings—if it meant John not disappearing?” She took a breath. “I asked myself

if I really want him to find his house.”

“And?”

“And I had to really think about it. For too long. I hate that it wasn’t automatic, but... Anyway, in the end, I would

give up all that stuff. Not happily. I have to stress that. But I would, if it meant he was happy back in his house, or not

disappeared into the aether.”

Ruben nodded again, and Persephone wasn’t sure what to make of it, this nodding. I’m listening? I think it’s screwed up but I’m politely listening?

“Fucked up, I know.” She studied the oil stain near her feet. “That I was even thinking about myself when John’s going through

this.”

“My mom is doing so much to help my grandma, but she’s in a lot of pain. So much pain that my mom told me that even though

part of her is going to be devastated when Abuelita passes, another part is going to be relieved, too, because it’s been so

hard on everyone. Abuelita, all her kids, me—you think I like living without my mom? She’s been the only one there for me.

What I’m saying is, being able to see how you’re affected by somebody else’s problems, to feel for somebody but at the same

time think about yourself—it isn’t fucked up. It’s human. It’s life.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“You know...” He paused. “Until you guys, I never had anyone outside my fam.”

“Why is that?” Persephone asked.

He shrugged and got that look little kids get when you ask them something they don’t want to answer.

And she realized it then: Ruben, a boy with no friends, had grown up not only reading stories, but living in them, so much so that these stories—undoubtedly hopeful and probably the exact opposite of the nihilistic stuff she’d consumed as a teen—contained nearly all his reference points for life, for people, for friendship.

It was as beautiful a notion as it was sad.

“We’re real friends,” Ruben said. “The three of us. Even if John doesn’t realize it yet. But you don’t have to give up your

health to prove your friendship. And Hollywood Actress? John’s Girlfriend? There’s a lot more to you than that. Even if you

think people aren’t going to think so, you’re pretty cool even without those titles. So that front you think you’ve gotta

put up for people back home, for the world? Not necessary.”

“Um. Thanks. OK.”

He stood. “I’m jumping in the shower. I smell like motel. Is it me or do they just pour the entire bottle of Febreze on the

sofa and crunchy covers?”

“Ruben, you know the Overlays are killing you, right? Slowly.” Though she better understood why Ruben, a guy who’d only experienced

friendship through stories, would be so desperate to keep a real-life friend around, she handed him his own words: “No one

should have to give up their health—”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to help.”

After he left, Persephone stared out at the parking lot.

You have to let it go. The guilt. It was why she’d come, wasn’t it? Sure, she was worried about Parker, but beneath it all lay the guilt. She would

ask Parker to forgive her and hopefully he would, but even if he didn’t she’d know she tried and she would find a way to make

that good enough.

They were less than six hours from Corpus Christi. She wouldn’t turn back now.