The party could be left alone to find its own way, and Darcy still had a confession to make before Imogen met her high school friends.
“All right,” she said. “See you in a minute.”
* * *
Darcy hadn’t been up to the roof before. But on the sixth-floor landing she found a smaller, separate staircase leading up to a metal door that was wedged open with a piece of concrete.
As she stepped out, the tar roof squished a little beneath her feet, like a bouncy playground surface. It had been a hot day, and the tar was giving up its scent.
“Gen?”
“Over here.”
Imogen was sitting at the building’s edge, her legs dangling off the side. Darcy sat next to her and leaned forward to stare down at the street. A shimmer of vertigo traveled from her toes to her fingertips.
“Don’t fall,” Imogen said. “I like that dress.”
“If I decide to jump, I’ll change.” The words came out a little harshly.
“Look . . . sorry I was late.”
“Me too, Gen.” Darcy turned to her. “I spent all day shit-scared no one would come. My friends from Philly are late, and then you totally bailed!”
“It was a shitty thing to do.” Imogen swung her legs, staring out at the skyline. “But I wanted to finish your book.”
Darcy blinked. “What?”
“I’ve been putting off reading it, because I really like you. But then I realized that Oscar was here tonight and was going to ask me what I thought, and you might be standing there when I did. So I was like, f**k it, and started reading three hours ago. But yeah, my timing kind of sucked. I would have started sooner if I hadn’t been scared to.”
“Wait. Why were you scared?”
Imogen spread her hands. “Because what if it was crap? It would be really weird, me liking you this much if you were a shitty writer. I mean, would you want me to tell you if I thought it sucked? Or just politely never mention it? Because those would be your choices. I couldn’t lie about it.”
Darcy took a slow breath. The drop into space before them suddenly yawned, as if the roof were tipping, trying to spill her onto the street below.
“You didn’t think I could write?”
“I had no idea. You’re awesome, but a lot of awesome people can’t write their way out of a wet sack.”
“And . . . ?”
“And it makes things awkward! Everyone at Oscar’s parties always talks about writing, so I’m all polite and everything, but inside me there’s this tiny voice, like when you’re at a wedding and you know the whole thing is doomed, and you get paranoid that when the preacher asks if anyone knows any reason why this wedding shouldn’t happen, you’ll shout, ‘Marriage of fail!’ ”
“Let me try again,” Darcy said carefully. “You read my book, and . . . ?”
“Oh.” Imogen smiled, taking Darcy’s hand. “Well, I’m late, aren’t I?”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because I couldn’t stop. Because it was really f**king good.”
Darcy still felt dizzy. “And you wouldn’t be saying that right now if you hated it?”
“No.” Imogen’s voice was steady, undeceptive. “If it had sucked, I would have put it down and gotten here on time, and never mentioned it again.”
“And I never would have known.” A shudder went through Darcy, relief mixed with the rattle of fear, as if the shadow of some monstrous bird of prey had passed over her. “You know, Gen, you could have started with the part where you liked it.”
“Not liked. Loved.” Imogen squeezed Darcy’s hand. “I love Afterworlds.”
Darcy felt a smile prying at her annoyed expression. “Why did you have to tell me on the roof?”
“I wanted to right away.”
“Yeah, but you could have said it down there. I mean, feel free to make these thoughts public!”
“Even the part about liking you?”
Darcy blinked again, and for a second time said, “Wait. What?”
“I know this is a stupid way to tell you,” Imogen said, taking both of Darcy’s hands. “But it all got tangled up today, liking you and liking your book. So on the way over I decided to say both.”
The roof was tipping again. “You mean . . . you like like me?”
“Yeah, a lot. Of course, it’s possible you just regular like me, and if that’s the way it is I’m not going to storm off and stop being your friend. But you should know that I’m hot for you, and for your book, too.” Imogen was almost laughing, stumbling over her own words now. “I’m totally hot for Afterworlds.”
“That’s just weird.” Darcy felt a blush creeping behind her cheeks.
“No it isn’t. Your book is smart and beautiful. I want to have its sequels.”
Darcy laughed. “Really?”
“You take all the right stuff seriously. Like, Mindy’s backstory is brutally sad, and you never try to skim past it. And the way the terror of that first chapter never really fades out, Lizzie just learns to use it.”
“It’s her origin story,” Darcy said softly.
“Exactly.” Imogen took a strand of Darcy’s hair between her fingers. Their eyes stayed locked. “And it’s not just about the gnarly powers it gives her, it’s how other people see her differently. Like, when anyone thinks Lizzie’s still a kid, she’s all, ‘When’s the last time you survived machine guns, dude?’ And they have to respect her.”
Darcy didn’t answer. No one had said things like this about Afterworlds before. Those first letters of praise from Underbridge Literary and Paradox had been full of compliments, but nothing as specific as this. Being fathomed was even better than being flattered, it turned out. The words made her skin tingle and her lips burn.
“I like books where magic has a cost,” Imogen went on. “The more powerful Lizzie gets, the more she loses.” She leaned closer. “You’ve got the juice.”
“The what?” Darcy asked.
“You don’t just write well, you tell stories.” Imogen’s voice was a whisper now. “Beautiful sentences are fine, but the juice is what makes me turn pages.”
Darcy closed her eyes. Their lips met, and she breathed in the scent of the sun-heated tar beneath them and the salt of Imogen’s skin. She felt the rumble of the traffic below traveling up through the building and into her spine, her fingertips, her tongue. Her breathing slowed to match the pace of Imogen’s, steady and deep.