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  “Okay, in the Yes section: Annabelle Burns. Relatively adorable family unit with only minor, good-natured dysfunction. Perfect childhood home she is irrationally attached to.”

  I cringe. “Not for long.”

  Annabelle holds up a finger. “Major life disruption that includes possible divorce of loving parents, and the parents selling of the perfect childhood home, yet another signature Lucy Keating move. Sorry.” She pauses and gives me an apologetic look.

  Under YES I write: family, house, divorce.

  “Lack of self awareness that she is strikingly beautiful.”

  “Oh, please,” I say.

  “Exactly,” Ava says, and continues. “Utterly incredible dream boy that notices her in typical, classroom walk-in scenario.”

  “That did feel contrived,” I mutter as I scrawl dreamboy. “And don’t forget the small things. Like, I love sneaking weird snacks in the middle of the night, like the girl in Something True; I have a scar I got when I was little like the girl in Across the Sea; and I always have those nightmares about getting the wrinkles out of my bedsheets, like in The Waking Hours.”

  “Fine, but a lot of people have those things,” Ava says. “Which is kind of the point. Accessibility, like Epstein told you in class. And here’s what you don’t have. You don’t have any real hardship. Nobody is dying, for example.”

  “That’s true, thank God,” I say. “But Lucy specifically said in class that she is looking to give her characters Happy Endings right now.”

  “Right,” Ava says. “But you still don’t have a real love triangle. Because yes, Will is sent from heaven, but I don’t care what you say—Elliot is an idiot. And he is not your guy.”

  “You’re right.” I nod. And she is. Elliot is the guy who moons people through windows while they’re taking a test. He’s carved his name into every desk he sits at. Last year he took over the school loudspeaker and played the Kinks at full volume for ten solid minutes, and nobody could ever prove it was him. “Thanks for setting me straight.”

  “You know what I think?” Ava asks.

  “No, but I’m sure you are about to tell me,” I say.

  “I think this is a big deal. This thing with Will. No matter how much you have your crap together, boys are the one area where you really don’t know what you’re doing. And you hate that.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m looking for a reason for things not to work with Will?” I ask.

  Ava makes a face. “Maybe?” she asks, and when she sees the look of annoyance on my face, she rushes to finish. “But honestly, what I’m saying is I don’t blame you! This stuff with your parents is really hard. And we’re graduating soon. And, honestly, isn’t everyone kind of having an existential crisis right now? All this stuff can be scary. So my advice? Take things slow with Will. Let him prove to you how real he is.”

  I bite my lip, and lay the piece of chalk down on the countertop. “You’re a really good friend, you know that?” I tell her.

  Ava rolls her eyes. “Yes, I do.”

  It’s not the brightest idea to walk home by myself at three A.M. in our neighborhood, but I know how to do it as safely as possible, and I need a little room to breathe. I stick to the big streets, meaning I take Venice Boulevard to Abbot Kinney, which was just named The Coolest Street in America to the great displeasure of all the long-time residents. “How many juice shops does one block really need?” my dad asked out loud a few months ago, and my mom told him he was acting like an old person.

  “But isn’t old cool?” he asked then, genuinely interested. “Dad bods and normcore? Isn’t that what the kids are into?”

  “And juice, apparently,” she replied, and went back to reading her book, while my dad smiled at her.

  It was these moments, I thought, that made them so good together. Now I find it confusing and sad to think about exactly how much was going on below the surface.

  I keep making my way down The Coolest Street in America, and something odd happens. I pass TK’s, my favorite restaurant since I was a kid, an old neighborhood steak joint where I celebrate every birthday. It has big red leather booths, and giant hot fudge sundaes. Then I stop, and back up a few feet, noticing for the first time that the shop sign next to TK’s, a store I’ve never been to that specializes in European sneakers, says the same thing, but this time without the s: TK. And so does the sign after that, a floral shop, the two letters written in a loopy script.

  I start walking again, slowly. What happened to all the shop signs? I wonder if someone is shooting a movie, which is often the case—last week they turned a boutique near our house into a coffee shop so they could shoot a TV show there—but I don’t see any production trailers or lighting equipment. And more important, why does TK sound so familiar?

  I Google TK on my phone as I walk, and directly under “TK’s Steakhouse,” there is a Wikipedia entry, and when I read it, my breath catches in my throat.

  TK—A publishing term meaning To Come. Used to signify where additional material will be added at a later date.

  And now I remember where I heard TK used. In class yesterday while I was flirting with Will. Epstein said she uses it when she wants to come back and fill something in.

  I look up again, scanning the length of Abbot Kinney. TK after TK, with the exception of one place: Electric Café, where we get The Good Coffees.

  A place Lucy Keating would already have a name for, since she just wrote about it.

  Without realizing it, I break into a run. My life is filled with TKs, because my life does not belong to me.

  My life belongs to Lucy Keating.

  9

  The Egtved Girl

  I WAKE up to the sounds of low snorts coming from behind my closet door, and throw it open to reveal Napoleon, burrowing into my laundry bin.

  “Out!” I cry. Napoleon wiggles out butt first, looks at me indignantly, and maintains complete eye contact for the duration of his exit from the room.

  My mother pokes her head in. “Everything okay in here?” she asks.

  Well, let’s see, I want to tell her. My life is probably being written by a commercial romance author, making me question literally everything I do and say, not to mention my fundamental existence.

  I barely slept last night, not that there were a lot of hours left to sleep, and instead just lay in my bed staring at the ceiling going over every part of my life for which I had assumed I was responsible. Every part I thought belonged to me. Now I feel like I would need to run for thirty miles just to wind myself down. My world is off-kilter, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  “I feel sick,” I say instead, giving as honest an answer as possible.

  My mom lays a cool hand against my forehead. “You don’t feel warm,” she says. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Is this about me and Dad?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “Because we haven’t really gotten to talk about it more …” she starts to say. “You were out so late last night… .”

  “It’s not about … that.” I can’t even say the word divorce, so I begin making my bed. My mom joins me, pulling the sheet straight on the other side, not saying anything. Knowing I’ll begin when I’m ready.

  “I just feel like life suddenly got so out of control,” I say honestly. “I keep thinking about why things happen, and what the meaning of it all is. Does any of it even matter?” I don’t tell her about Lucy Keating. I’m pretty sure it is bizarrely, insanely real, but I can’t even imagine saying it out loud to her yet.

  “Honey, everyone feels that way at some point at your age. Probably many times, even during a lifetime. It’s called growing.”

  She goes to grab a pillow that’s fallen on the floor. “Your father and I never wanted to do the helicopter-parent thing. If we made all your decisions for you, you’d never know what you really wanted. You would never have wanted anything for yourself. And look at you!” She holds a hand out. “You got some of our best qualities, and plenty of great qualiti
es we never came close to having. You’ve always known what you want, and you’ve always gone for it without even hesitating.”

  “But what if I don’t know what I want anymore?” I ask.

  “Then that’s okay, of course,” she says, looking at me as she sets the pillow on the bed. “You’re seventeen, honey. You have your whole life to figure it out. What’s the rush?”

  I fold a throw blanket at the edge of my bed, and take a step back, deep in thought. I just can’t seem to get it straight in my head. If everything I thought I wanted was an idea or decision designed by Lucy Keating, then what would I want if Lucy Keating wasn’t deciding it for me?

  “Does this have anything to do with Elliot?” my mom asks out of nowhere, and I jerk to attention. My mother knows everything. She knows when I’m upset before I even say so. She knows what outfit will look best on me when we go shopping, even if I originally snub my nose at it. But for once, she’s wrong.

  “There’s nothing going on with Elliot,” I blurt out, then realize that’s not really what she asked, and my cheeks flush.

  “You know he’s always had a thing for you,” she says.

  “Mom!” I say. “This is zero of your business. Besides, Elliot and I can’t stand each other.”

  My mother just smiles, walking out of the room. “If that’s what you think, you have a lot to learn about men.” She pauses in the doorway. “We don’t have to talk about it now. Any of it,” she says. “But whatever it is, I’m here if you need me. In the meantime, go to school. You know I’d let you stay if you wanted to, but we both know you’ll be mad at yourself later if you don’t go.”

  I sigh, knowing she’s right. Again.

  A couple of hours later, I’m speeding along the path at school, my destination in sight. There is only one truly gross, completely run-down building on the entirety of my high school campus, and oddly enough, it also happens to be my favorite place on Earth.

  Cedar Spring was built on the bones of an old convent, which I originally thought would mean sparse décor and minimal light and lots of tiny, windowless rooms. Isn’t that what nuns do all day? Pray in tiny rooms? But instead the school is comprised almost entirely of white clay structures topped with classic red tile roofing. And since a lot of celebrity kids go here, anything that wasn’t already beautiful was made to be so.

  Except the office of the Cedar Spring Gazette, which resides in a small, now-defunct utility building, all metal and exposed piping and Sheetrock. But it is also filled with light. Windows span from floor to ceiling, and there’s even a giant skylight where the roof should be. I’m not sure why a skylight was ever necessary in the original design, but regardless I am grateful for it.

  The desks in the office are a million years old, and the place hasn’t been cleaned out since the club was founded. Chewing gum lines the bottom of every table, layers and layers of tape stick to the walls, not to mention there are so many pushpin holes you’d think the whole structure was about to cave in. The administration has offered to move us a bunch of times, but there is a certain pride in the place. It’s where we suffer, where we toil late into the night, all for the greater good of our small, six-hundred-student population.

  The Gazette is my place. It’s where I can go to be alone between classes. And it’s where I really shine. I put on some giant headphones and work off an old Apple computer in the corner and nobody bugs me until the afternoon, when the club meets to assign stories.

  The thing is, I like to check things off. I like to put a bunch of stories on the board and then draw a nice pretty line through them once they’re done. I like to fill in the slate every week. It’s why I applied to Columbia, where I plan to major in journalism and intern at all the best news stations in New York. I know I’m not even a legal adult yet; I know my mom said there’s a lot to figure out. But one thing I know about my future: Lucy Keating or no Lucy Keating, there will be words involved.

  So if I can just get in there, just find someone who needs me to look at their latest piece of writing, or fix a layout issue with Hector, a budding graphic designer who I poached from the Art Club last semester, then I think I’ll start to feel a little more like myself again. The me that existed before—

  “Hey!” I hear from behind me, and cringe a little bit, before finally turning around and plastering a small smile to my face.

  But the smile becomes real when I see Will standing there, with his gray Will-like chinos and his plaid, Will-like button-down shirt; his long, fluffy Will eyelashes batting; and his cute Will mouth in a small smirk.

  I hate what I am about to do to him.

  “How’s your morning?” he asks good-naturedly. “Feeling better?”

  I don’t blame him for checking in after I completely wigged out at the ice cream shop last night. I managed to pull it together and stick out the rest of the date, but something was definitely off, and he noticed. Not to mention I practically ran out of his car before he could kiss me. Not that I didn’t want to, exactly; I just had some other things on my mind. Like whether he was real or not.

  “Feeling better,” I answer. “Thanks for asking.”

  “What about a redo?” Will gazes down at me, and once again I get lost in his eyes. “You know, one that doesn’t get interrupted by a head injury? I found this cool Vietnamese place around the corner from school. I thought we could go at lunch.” Ray Woods, our social chair, captain of our basketball team, and Nisha’s greatest obsession, walks by and they share a quick nod and a handshake. Then Will looks back at me. I choose not to comment on the fact that he has been here for merely a few days, and is already on bro terms with one of the most respected guys in our school.

  “I can’t, Will,” I say, and start walking in the direction of the Gazette again.

  “Why not?” he asks, all innocent and sweet, as he follows me down the path.

  “I have somewhere I need to be,” I say cryptically. A hole to hide in, I add to myself. Somewhere to get away from all this, and to maybe even figure out what the hell is really going on.

  “I’ll go with you,” Will suggests matter-of-factly. Over on the right the girls’ varsity tennis team is splayed out on the lawn, eyeing him like a pride of lionesses ready to pounce. He doesn’t even notice.

  “No,” I finally turn and say directly. “You cannot come.”

  Will frowns, thinking, and I feel awful. He doesn’t deserve this. But then again, he isn’t even real. Thanks to Lucy Keating, he’s like a romantic punching bag. Before he can respond, I do.

  “It’s nothing personal, Will. Really. Last night was fun. I’m just behind on a lot of stuff. I need to go handle some things. I’ll see you later. Okay?” And before he can say another word, I lose myself in the sea of people heading to first period.

  And yet, despite my best efforts, Will is everywhere I need to be today. I should be thrilled by this, the fact that I can’t escape him. That he’s in the Gazette room, being interviewed for an article about what it’s like to be “new” only months before school is over.

  That he’s giving a presentation in my physics class, which he isn’t even in, on a small solar-powered car he designed at his old school.

  That at an all-school meeting, I get stopped on the way by Dr. Piper and the only seat left is next to him.

  I should be thrilled by it all, and by how thrilled he is to see me, but I’m not. I can’t think with him around. And right now, I really need to think.

  At four P.M. I burst through the doors of the library, and find Nisha, Ava, and Lee draped over various chairs and tables, pretending to do their homework. They acknowledge me with bored nods, and I settle in peacefully, and open my computer to scan today’s New York Times for interesting articles. Something pops up that says “More Facts Discovered about Teenager from the Bronze Age.”

  My interest piqued, I click the link, and end up reading an article about the Egtved Girl, who was dug up almost one hundred years ago, and is believed to date back thousands of years before that.
Originally, scientists believed she was native to the town in Denmark where she was found, but further scientific analysis has discovered she may have traveled great distances, and seen a great deal of her region of the world.

  “Probably because nobody was writing her story without her consent,” I whisper to myself.

  Two minutes later, the door to the library swings open again, and I don’t even have to look up to know it’s Will. It would be anyway, and also all my friends just got weird and fidgety.

  “The Egtved Girl,” Will says, peering over my shoulder, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “I read about her earlier today. So cool, right? She surprised us all.”

  Despite wanting to escape him, I soften at this thoughtful comment. “That’s exactly what I was just thinking,” I say, and Will smiles, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to me.

  “Are you still busy?” he asks. I am about to tell him yes, but when I see the look of pure adoration in his eyes, what ends up coming out is “Not really.”

  “Good.” He grins. “I got you something.”

  “Why?” I groan. Why does he have to be so perfect? But he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “It’s called The Elements of Style.” Will pulls a slim book out of his backpack. “We used it at my old school. I know you said you’re having a hard time in Epstein’s class, and this is, like, the go-to, old-school manifesto on the rules of writing. It doesn’t discuss creative writing much, but I thought it might remind you why you fell in love with words in the first place. Structure, organization, simplicity.”

  I open the book and flip to a page:

  “It is an old observation,” he wrote, “that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules.”

  I look up. “Will,” I say. “This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever given me.”

  Will just shrugs. “Do you really like it?”