I felt a small chill ripple across my back. “But?”

“But he couldn’t.”

I knew the answer but I asked anyway. “Why?”

“It’s permanent,” Ema said. “Agent said he doesn’t know how that happened. But the butterfly is there. For good.”

I said nothing.

“What’s going on, Mickey?”

“I don’t know.”

We sat there in silence. I finally broke it. “Tell me about your missing boyfriend.”

For a second or two, she didn’t move. She swallowed, blinked a few times, and then stared at the floor. “Boyfriend may be putting it a little too strongly.”

I waited.

“Mickey?”

“What?”

Ema started twisting the skull ring on her right hand. “You have to promise me something.”

Her body language was all wrong. Ema was about confidence. She was big and confident and didn’t care who noticed. She was comfortable in her own skin. Now, all of a sudden, that confidence was gone.

“Okay,” I said.

“You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

“Are you serious?”

She just looked at me.

“Okay, okay, I promise. It’s odd, that’s all.”

“What’s odd?” she asked.

“This promise. I thought you didn’t care what people think of you.”

“I don’t,” Ema said. “I care what you think of me.”

A second passed. Then another. Then I said, “Oh,” because I’m really, really good with words. It was, of course, a dumb comment on my part—the stuff about her not caring. Everyone cares what people think. Some just hide it better.

“So tell me,” I said.

“I met a guy in a chat room,” Ema said.

I blinked once. Then I said, “You hang out in chat rooms?”

“You promised.”

“I’m not making fun.”

“You’re judging,” she said. “That’s just as bad.”

“I’m not. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“It’s not like you think,” Ema said. “See, I’ve been helping my mom with her social networking. She’s clueless. So is her manager and her agent and her personal assistant—whatever. So I set some promotional stuff up for her—Twitter, Facebook, you know the deal. And now I watch it for her.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Anyway, in this chat room, I met this guy.”

I just looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“You’re judging again.”

“I’m just sitting here,” I said, spreading my hands. “If you see something more on my face, that’s more about you than me.”

“Right, sure.”

“I’m just surprised, okay? What kind of chat room was this anyway?”

“It’s for Angelica Wyatt fans.”

I tried sooo hard to keep my face expressionless.

“There you go again!” she shouted.

“Stop looking at my face and tell me what happened. You’re in an Angelica Wyatt chat room. You start talking to a guy. Am I right so far?”

Ema looked sheepish. “Yeah.”

“Are you using an alias?”

“No.”

“Why not?”