I didn’t even know if there was a word in the English language capable of digging me out of the stupid, self-pitying hole I had dug myself into. So I continued not to speak. So far, it was my best tactic.

“Can I just… get to know you?” she said. “The real you? Not the fake Cesario you?”

Those words—“the real you”—caused something to click into place. They made me realize I was ready for something. Something that I had not been ready for in the entire history of my existence.

I glanced down at myself—my lack of pockets and, particularly, my lack of a phone. I glanced at Imogen.

She had a small white purse lying at her side.

“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked.

“Uh. Yeah?”

“Can I see it?”

Perplexed, Imogen unzipped her purse. Reached inside, pulled out her phone, handed it to me.

I connected to her data and typed “Ezward Slevinhands” into the search engine. Then handed the phone back to her. Imogen accepted it awkwardly and squinted at the screen.

“Ezward… Slevinhands?” said Imogen, confused.

“It’s my YouTube channel,” I said. “I do Johnny Depp impersonations.”

She leaned forward, trying to piece together what exactly she was looking at. Then her eyes bugged out of her face.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, alarmed. “This says you have eleven thousand subscribers.”

I nodded.

Imogen glanced from me, to the screen, and back to me. “Ezra, you’re, like, a YouTube celebrity.”

“‘Celebrity’ is a stretch,” I said. “I make enough money to buy more costumes and makeup, and that’s about it.”

“You get paid… to make videos… on YouTube.”

“It’s seriously not a lot. At my peak, it was, like, less than a part-time summer job making minimum wage in Georgia.”

Imogen’s eyes were saturated with amazement. “Can I watch one?”

“No.”

“Oh…” Her entire countenance drooped.

“Of course you can watch one! Seriously?”

“Oh!” She lit up again, instantly. “Which one should I watch?”

“Whichever one you want. Except Tonto. Please don’t watch Tonto. I feel a lot of moral regret about that one. I don’t know why I haven’t taken it down already.”

Imogen scrolled briefly, then her finger hovered—excited and a little bit terrified—over Sweeney Todd. She pressed play, and my heart did a little cardiovascular fist-pump because I knew we were starting with our best foot forward.

Sweeney Todd breathed with malice: “I had him…”

He screamed: “I had him!”

He sang: “His throat was bare beneath my hand. No! I had him! His throat was there, and he’ll never come again!”

Imogen turned and stared at me with her mouth all the way open. Her eyes were radiating gleeful mania.

And then she whipped her head back because things were just getting good.