well, it would’ve been a miracle if any of it had been true. Elaine and Paula were fictional, obviously. Even though they felt so incredibly real.
Abby wondered, not for the first time, if the characters were entirely imaginary. Marian Love could’ve drawn inspiration from people she knew, or even from her own life. Authors did that sometimes, right? Wrote carefully disguised stories about things that had really happened? Paula and Elaine felt too solid, too three-dimensional, to have come from nowhere.
Abby had finished the last page of Women of the Twilight Realm late the night before. At first she’d sat on the bed in a daze, overwhelmed by all the hours she’d spent in Elaine and Paula’s world. Then she’d realized it was the perfect moment to start writing her own story, when her mind was still totally immersed. She’d opened a blank doc and tried to write a meet-cute for her two main characters, but none of the words she wrote sounded remotely cute compared to Marian Love’s.
So she’d searched for more information about the book instead. She’d been hoping to find a sequel, but apparently Marian Love had never written another book, even though Women of the Twilight Realm sold millions of copies. In fact, she seemed to have straight-up disappeared off the face of the earth. And just like the other pulp authors, she hadn’t been writing under her real name anyway.
Abby didn’t understand it. How could anyone write a book that had such a huge impact, then vanish without ever writing more? How could Marian Love have resisted the lure of all those fans? Abby had kept writing fanfic for years, mostly because of the comments people left begging for more chapters, but the highest number of comments she’d ever gotten on one story was a hundred or so. She couldn’t imagine having millions of people read something she’d written.
She opened her laptop again. She’d skipped her lit mag meeting—Abby was the editor, but it wasn’t as though she had to be at every single meeting or the world would end—and come straight home from school. Her plan had been to spend the whole afternoon writing, so she’d have at least some chance of meeting Ms. Sloane’s deadline, but she kept going back to Women of the Twilight Realm and rereading her favorite scenes instead.
She kept staring at the cover, too. Now that she’d finished the book, it made more sense. Paula was the one in the tie, and Elaine was the one with the fabulous boobs. Though if the sex scenes inside were accurate, Paula’s boobs were pretty fabulous, too.
Plus, it had turned out to be so much more than a romance novel. The story definitely started out with what Abby’s fandom friends would’ve called “insta-love”—Paula and Elaine had sex and declared passionate love for each other the first night they met, and moved in together a few days later—but the obstacles they were up against were a lot more intense than in the romantic comedies Abby had seen. When Elaine tried to break up with her flaky boyfriend from back home, he arranged to get Paula fired from her job and basically outed Elaine to her parents, which led directly to Elaine’s father committing suicide.
Probably. That last part was kind of unclear. It could’ve been an accident.
Strangely enough, though, the book didn’t wind up being a downer in the end. Plus, it was honestly pretty fun just to read a novel that was all about lesbians. Abby hadn’t realized how neat it would be to see characters like her front and center in a story. Sure, she spent plenty of time with queer people in real life—all her friends were somewhere on the queer spectrum, since Linh and Ben were both bi, Savannah was questioning, and Vanessa didn’t use labels for sexual orientation but definitely didn’t identify as straight—but it still sent happy shivers down Abby’s spine to see the word lesbian used nonchalantly so many times in one novel.
Most of all, though, it was the romance that had swept her away. Sure, the book had its sappy, melodramatic moments, but there was just something about the way Paula and Elaine loved each other so deeply, even though they knew the outside world would never understand. True love, the kind they had, was strong enough to withstand absolutely anything.
And the ending—wow. Even with all the terrible things that had happened to Paula and Elaine, the end of their story still managed to be a perfect fantasy. The kind Abby loved most in the world. Despite all the challenges they’d faced, despite living in a world that would never understand them, the ending made clear that it was all going to be okay, because they had each other.
Maybe that wasn’t realistic, but who cared? Abby had already had enough reality to last her a lifetime.
Footsteps rang out on the stairs, and Abby groaned silently. Every board in their house creaked in anticipation before you even touched it. It always annoyed her on shows when teenagers snuck out of their houses. If Abby had ever tried that her parents would’ve caught her before she’d even made it to the landing.
She hoped it was only Ethan. He’d go straight to his room without bothering her. But as the creaking got closer, it was clearly too heavy to be her brother.
Abby closed her eyes, bracing herself.
A knock on the door. “Abby? Can I come in?” It was Mom.
“Okay.” Abby opened her eyes and arranged her face into a carefully bored expression.
“It’s good to see you.” Mom stepped inside slowly. She didn’t hold out her arms for a hug, the way she always used to do when she got home from trips. Abby had told her parents she was too old for hugs a while ago, but it still felt kind of weird that nonhugging was their new default. “I missed you while I was away.”
Abby hated it when her parents did their fakey-fake forced-affection talk. If they genuinely missed her, they wouldn’t leave so often. “What did you guys wind up doing to Ethan? Is he grounded?”
“He had to apologize to Mr. Salem, and he lost his phone and his computer for a week.”
“What, that’s it? He basically attacked someone!”
Mom sighed. “Punishments are for adults to decide, Abby. So, how’s school?”
“Okay.” Abby struggled to think of something to say about school. Mom always tried to act as if she was interested in her life, which meant she never gave up until Abby told her at least one story about her day. “We went to Starbucks during free period and Ben got into this big involved debate with the barista about Game of Thrones. Then Vanessa told them both to quit it unless they were ready to talk about the inherent sexism in the writing, and we all started fighting about Daenerys, and Linh and I were almost late for stats.”
Mom laughed and settled down into the desk chair, opposite Abby on the bed. “How’s it going with you and Linh being friends now that you’ve been back in school for a few weeks? I know it can be difficult after a big change.”
“It’s fine.” Abby wished she hadn’t told her parents about her and Linh breaking up. She doubted they would’ve noticed if she hadn’t spelled it out for them. Back in June, when it first happened, they hadn’t seemed to realize she was crying in her room every night. Of course, the whole thing had been their fault in the first place, but they never seemed to grasp that, either.
But Abby had gone over and over it in her head, and it was the only explanation. The weirdness between her and Linh had started that day in May, when Linh and Abby had sat motionless on the stairs watching Mom and Dad’s mutual meltdown.
Right after that whole thing happened Abby had been pretty messed up, so they’d gone to Linh’s house. There was nowhere else to go. It was a long walk, all uphill, and they’d left Abby’s house so fast to get away from the parent drama that they’d wound up leaving Linh’s backpack on the floor of Abby’s room. The backpack had probably had stuff in it Linh needed for school the next day, but they didn’t talk about that. They didn’t talk about anything, in fact.
Instead, when they got inside Linh’s house and saw that it was cool and dark and empty—deserted except for the two of them, the tasteful linen furniture and the cat purring in front of the restored brick fireplace—they’d started kissing. Then they went up to Linh’s room.
If