Airhead

But I couldn’t just make one up either, because it would be too easy for him to check.

‘Oh,’ I said breezily ‘I haven’t been online in ages. And I doubt you’d ever have seen me, I keep really weird hours. Besides, I don’t remember it.’ I tapped my head. ‘You know. The amnesia thing.’

He gave me a sceptical look and turned back to my computer screen. ‘Um, yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure.’

Then suddenly he turned and threw me a look that was like someone accidentally pouring a glass of cold water in my face.

‘But you remembered you played,’ he said.

I could have kicked myself.

‘Y-yeah, amnesia is weird that w-way’ I stammered. ‘Like, I remember some things. But not others. Like… ’

And then, just like that, I said it. I don’t know why. It was risky. It was probably foolish.

It was exactly the sort of thing, I realized, that Stark Enterprises had been using tracking software to find. This was why it had been installed on Nikki and Lulu’s computers in the first place. This was why Stark Enterprises had been so generous with my family with the free cellphones. To make sure we weren’t gabbing to the wrong people about my secret surgery.

But I wasn’t typing what I was about to say, or saying it into a Starkbrand cellphone.

‘… I remember you,’ I told him.

Suddenly my heart began to hammer. Yet I couldn’t seem to shut myself up. It was like my mouth was just ru

But Lulu had said to make a co

‘From that day at the Stark Megastore grand opening,’ I went on.

Nothing happened. I waited. But no men in black suits burst the door down. No one with guns came busting through the ceiling panels.

We were safe.

Christopher just stared at me, his blue eyes — so different from Gabriel’s, more green around the edges, and rimmed with light brown lashes instead of dark — wide and incredulous.

I didn’t blame him. I didn’t know where I was going with this either.

Shut up, Em, my brain directed my mouth. Or Nikki’s mouth. Or whatever your name is now. Just shut up. Two million dollars. Two million dollars.

But it was no good. The damage was done.

‘You remember what happened that day?’ Christopher asked finally.

I looked down at my hands. My fingernails — which were fake, and still painted black — were perfect. Just like the rest of me. On the outside.

Too bad no one could see that on the inside, I was a big old mess.

‘I remember you,’ I said. ‘I remember how you came with your friend. The one who… died.’

When I said the word died, Christopher looked quickly away from me. His fingers were frozen on the keyboard of my laptop.

But it was too late to turn back. I could only move forward.

‘That must have been so awful,’ I said, my heart twisting for him. ‘I mean… not like you probably want to remember it or anything. I’m sorry to have brought it up. I just… I wanted to say something to you about it when no one else was around. You know, to tell you how badly I felt about it.’

I had no idea if Frida was right about what was troubling Christopher. About him having been in love with me, I mean. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just still recovering from having seen a girl die right in front of him. Anybody would have been messed up from that.

Maybe Frida was completely wrong about Christopher having had any special feelings beyond friendship for me. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell by looking at his face, because he was keeping it turned away from me, just staring at my computer screen.

‘I’m just so, so sorry that that happened,’ I went on. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. What happened was terrible. You must… you must miss her a lot.’

I waited, thinking he wasn’t going to reply at all, he didn’t say anything for so long.

But then he did. He said, ‘Yeah.’

And then his fingers started moving over the keyboard again.

A minute after that, he said, ‘Well, here you go. You’re all set.’

And he closed my laptop, and handed it back to me.

Just like that.

I felt my eyes fill with tears. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t believe Lulu was wrong. It wasn’t that I’d believed her stupid theory, exactly. I mean, how dumb would you have to be to believe that all the boys in the world are a little bit in love with you? Sure, maybe it’s true for Lulu. But why would Christopher ever have been in love with me?

God, I couldn’t believe how asinine I’d been.

I turned around and stuffed the laptop back into my tote, wiping the tears away with my sleeve so he couldn’t see that I was crying.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Well. See you in Public Speaking.’

I was halfway out the door when Christopher’s quiet voice stopped me in my tracks.

‘Nikki,’ he said.

I froze. I couldn’t turn around, because then he’d have seen the tears that had escaped from beneath my eyelids, and were trickling down my cheeks.

‘Uh-huh?’ I said, to the wall.

His voice was still quiet.

‘She was my best friend,’ he said.

The tears came gushing down my face, which I still kept hidden from him. Suddenly I wanted to tell him the truth so, so badly. I wanted to run over to him, throw down my bag and fling my arms around him and say, ‘Christopher, it’s me! Em! I’m not dead! I’m in here! I know it’s crazy, but it’s true!’

But I knew I couldn’t. Two million dollars.

Instead I turned around, not caring any more if he saw I was crying, and did the one thing I knew I shouldn’t — but that I also knew I had to — do. The thing I told myself I was crazy to do. The thing I’d tried to talk myself out of doing all morning, since I’d thought of it, and that I would have left without doing, if he hadn’t just said those five little words.

I reached into my tote, pulled something out of it, turned around, walked back over to him and slapped it down in front of him.

Then I turned and ran before he could ask me why I’d just dropped a sheet of glow-in-the-dark dinosaur stickers on his desk.

Twenty-five

‘Wait… ’ Lulu leaned down to undo Cosabella’s leash, which had twisted around her legs. ‘Why are we bringing pizza to these people?’

‘Because.’ I kept my gaze on the numbers above our heads as the elevator rose higher and higher. ‘I want you to meet them.’

‘Are they poor or something?’

‘No,’ I said with a laugh. The elevator stopped and the door opened. ‘I thought it would be nice to bring them di

‘Oh.’ Lulu followed me down the long hallway as I balanced the pizza box in one hand and tried to control Cosabella with the other. ‘I thought it was, like, a charity thing.’

‘No,’ I said. I didn’t want to mention the truth — that I felt bad for Lulu, because she didn’t have any parents around… or no one who cared about her anyway. Except for Katerina. But Katerina was an employee.

I felt equally badly for my parents, who I’d been sort of ignoring. Maybe pizza and a visit wouldn’t make up for three days of neglect. But it was a start. That, and the new non-Stark-brand cellphones I’d brought along for each of my parents, as well as Frida.

Besides, I thought Mom should hear some of Lulu’s theories. From a women’s studies point of view, I thought she’d find them interesting. Or at least worth further investigation.

‘I just thought eating in would be nicer than going out for a change,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ Lulu said. She rooted around in her purse, found her compact, then checked her reflection. ‘I get it. So, how’d it go with the high-school boy?’

I smiled, remembering how Christopher had yet to say a word to me about the stickers.

But he’d been looking. Oh, how he’d been looking.

‘I think I made a co