It’s a quarter to five when I arrive at the escalators at the front of the showroom floor. I used to think that love was two people passing each other on these very escalators, heading off to different panels and different meet-and-greets, apart but together. Maybe we’d be cosplaying as Carmindor and Amara, and not Link and Zelda, and maybe we’d flash each other the Federation salute instead.

Maybe we could just smile at each other, and lock eyes, and not have to say anything at all.

Jasper slides past two cosplayers on his way up the escalators. He smiles in greeting, absolutely oblivious to the fact that he saw me just yesterday. He throws his hands into the air. “Mo! That was sick what you did on the panel! Impersonating Amara. Did she just tap you for that panel to do the stunt?”

I give him a once-over. Acid-washed jeans and his own logo on his T-shirt and messy brown hair. I can kind of see what I saw in him, but I much prefer guys in neat trousers with swept-back hair and dark eyes. “I was her for a few days,” I reply.

“Ha! That must’ve been fun,” he begins, and then his smile falters. “Wait, what?”

“‘What, you’re too good for a hug?’” I recite the same agonizing line he gave me, and it finally clicks.

His eyebrows jerk up. “You…that was you, too?”

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” I begin. “I don’t even know why I’m wasting time on you. You used me, and when you found something—or someone, I guess—better, you tossed me away like I didn’t mean anything. I waited for you for three hours at the ExcelsiCon Ball. I sat on the curb waiting—”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down.”

“No, you aren’t allowed to tell me to calm down. You’re whiny, and you’re selfish, and your videos aren’t even funny. And you know what the worst part is? I actually thought that I deserved you, but I was totally wrong. I deserve so much better than you.”

His face hardens. “Why’d I want to date some nobody like you, anyway?”

Maybe three days ago that would’ve hurt me, but now I just smile and step up into his face and say, “Because we both know that you’re the real nobody. And oh? I almost forgot. I reported you for sexual harassment, so you’ll never come to this con again.”

“Are you kidding me? How will you get me to leave?”

And then, as if materializing out of the con crowd itself, appears Darien’s ex-bodyguard Lonny and two of his security guards. Jasper sees them and hesitates.

“I suggest that you leave, Mr. Webster, and don’t come back here again.”