I want to prove that Jessica Stone is not the aloof, cold robot everyone thinks I am. I am not a serial dater. I simply never cared. It was so easy not to care because I’m not built that way.

I’m not built to take a random person into a bedroom, I’m not wired to want those things, and so it made all those dates and chaste kisses with celebrities so easy. It never went further than that. It was never falling in love—it was never even falling into like.

It’s a part to play, and so I played it.

What I am built for is falling in love slowly, page by page, like reading a favorite book. I am built for the nearness of someone, the quirk of their lips, the sincerity of their smile, the dreams just underneath their skin. I fall in love moment by moment, collecting who they are, who they were, who they want to be, into a kaleidoscope of colors.

I have only fallen in love once, and she left a hole in my heart the size of the universe. So I know the feeling, the strange beast in my stomach that shifts and growls whenever Harper laughs, whenever she says something snarky, whenever she calls me Imogen, because in my head I hear her calling me Jess.

I know this feeling, and I try to shove it down because this is not who I am. She is falling for nobody. For a girl who will be gone in the blink of an eye.

And I guarantee she will not like Jessica Stone.

“…And I swear to you,” Harper says with a laugh, telling a story about the ExcelsiCon ball last year, “it was like the entire place just canceled her. The girl went running out of the ballroom so fast, she tripped in the lobby and fell flat on her face. It was hysterical!”

“I kind of feel sorry for her. I didn’t know Darien could be that mean.”

“She was mean, too. Right down to the bone. Sage told me the whole story. If anything, that girl deserved what she got. She’s the reason Elle Wittimer’s called Geekerella. She wanted to be a beauty vlogger or something, but she’s working at her mom’s nail salon now.”

“It’s funny how sometimes we don’t end up where we think we will,” I remark.

Harper turns her dark gaze to me. “What would you do if you could do anything? Doesn’t matter if you’re talented at it or not.”

I don’t even have to think. “An astronomer.”

“Really now.”