by Sarah Kuhn
“What’s up, Bebe?” Leah said, cocking an eyebrow.
“I wanted to give you something before everyone else shows up. Well, two somethings,” I said, moving behind the counter and pulling out the things I’d stored below. “This is an electric paintbrush cleaner,” I said, holding up the first thing. “I finally figured out how to adjust it just right. No more tedious manual brush-cleaning for you.” I set it on the counter and pushed it toward her. “And this . . .” As I brandished the second item, a lump formed in my throat. “I, um, think you might recognize.”
“Our favorite dragon-shifter lady book!” she exclaimed, her eyes widening as she took the rainbow-hued tome from me. “This looks like a super old copy. Maybe a first printing. Is it a collector’s item?” She turned to the inside cover. “Your name is written in here,” she said, her brows drawing together. “I don’t . . . wait.” She met my eyes, and I saw that hers were misting over. “Is this the copy your mom gave you? Oh, Bebe. I can’t take this. It’s too important.”
“You’re important,” I said fiercely. “You’re important to me. And, um. I don’t want you to forget about me while I’m gone.”
She practically leapt over the counter to pull me into a hug. “I won’t,” she whispered. “I never would.”
We hugged for a long time, neither of us willing to let go. But I finally had to let go to head to the bathroom and accomplish my freshening up mission.
I shut myself in the bathroom and combed my fingers through my hair, checking my makeup in the mirror. I heard a soft knock, and then the door opened, revealing Sam.
“Hey,” I said, going all mock indignant and echoing my words from so many weeks ago. “You can’t just barge into the bathroom like that! What if—”
“—you had been naked or something, I know,” he said, smiling at me indulgently. He shut the door behind him, crossed the room, and pulled me close. I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him. I still couldn’t get enough of him—I didn’t think I ever would. “Do you want to be naked?” he murmured against my lips. “Because I’m pretty sure we could make that happen.”
“Mmm, yes,” I said. “I do. But aren’t people starting to arrive? I don’t want to be late for my own party.”
“They’re trickling in,” he confirmed. “Lucy brought a cake.”
“Gah,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Hopefully Leah can direct Pancake over that way.”
He laughed, pulled back, and brushed my hair away from my face. “I can’t believe you’re leaving. I mean, I tell you I love you, and you immediately decide to put an entire ocean between us. How am I supposed to take that?”
His smile was smug, beaucoup fromage—but now I could see what was under it, that vulnerability, that earnestness. I felt a rush of affection so deep, it almost overwhelmed me.
“You’re coming to visit me in two weeks, drama queen,” I said. “And many times after that, I assume. We are totally going to make our worlds bigger together.”
“I can’t wait,” he said softly. He held my gaze for a long time, all the surface layers of his expression melting away. No Calendar Sam. No All Swag, All the Time Sam. No Competitive Calculus Bee Sam. Just . . . Sam. What was between us was still undeniably fun. And yes, now it had a deeper layer to it, the layer that came with love. But being with him, I realized, was something else I’d tried to dismiss as “just fun.” The reality was, something this delicious, this wonderful, wasn’t “just” anything. All of these things I’d come to treasure so much—joy, fun, love, hope—could never be “just” anything. These things were hard-fought, hard-won, and I had to choose to embrace them every day.
I kissed him again and let all of those things wash over me, reveled in how good they made me feel. Yes, maybe I didn’t feel like I’d become the exact person I was meant to be or like I was totally whole or like there wasn’t still stuff I had to figure out. But I felt like I could get there. And I could definitely have a shitload of fun while I was getting there.
“Go wait for me out there,” I finally said, pulling back from him. “I need a little moment alone.”
“All right,” he said, smiling and crossing over to the door. “But don’t take too long or I’ll have to come check on you and we’ll end up kissing again. And then you’ll definitely be late for your own party.”
“Still so cocky,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.
He just grinned and shut the door behind him.
I gave my makeup one last look in the mirror, my eyes wandering to the craft wall, to the words I’d written what seemed like eons ago.
I will be the greatest superhero of all time
I picked up a marker and crossed that out. Then I wrote an addendum.
I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be. But I do know this.
I choose joy.
I choose love.
I choose hope.
And I can be anything I want.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Big, sparkly, glitter-drenched thank yous to all the readers who have embraced the Heroine Complex series so enthusiastically—I love your cosplays, I love your fan art, I love your collage aesthetic inspiration pin boards, I love you. And it’s because of you that this series is continuing past the first trilogy, with more adventures for Evie, Annie, and Bea (and all their friends!) on the horizon. I hope you’re as excited as I am to follow my girls on their next epic quest.
Thanks, as always, to all my badass superhero teams: the Girl Gang, the Shamers, the Ripped Bodice writing crew, NOFXGVN, Heroine Club, the Cluster, and the incredible Asian American arts community of LA. I am honored to be in your company.
Thank you to my agent, Diana Fox, and my editors, Betsy Wollheim and Katie Hoffman, for always working tirelessly to help me make these books the best they can be. (Special thanks to Katie for knowing the power of a well-timed sign bunny.) Thank you to Alexis Nixon for all your publicity magic and SDCC superheroing, to Josh Starr for keeping everything on track and answering my weird questions with “NOT a weird question,” and to everyone at DAW, Fox Literary, and Penguin Random House for all the care you put into getting these books out to the world.
Thank you to Rebekah Weatherspoon for being the best deadline buddy ever—we got our airplane pants, we got our Sprite, let’s go. And for the record, I made it through because of that Tina Knowles quote.
Thank you to the proprietors of The Ripped Bodice, Bea and Leah Koch: your store, your pink couch, and you have all been there for me in more ways than I can count. It’s Lit is not exactly your store, but its positive attributes (i.e. the parts that aren’t infested with demonic porcelain unicorns) certainly took root there. And thanks to Fitzwilliam Waffles for allowing me to be so inspired by both your appearance and your demeanor—you are a natural star.
Thank you to Jenn Fujikawa and Tom Wong for always understanding me the very most—you are my favorite twins and I love you. Thank you to Jenny Yang for talking all-caps FEELINGS with me, to Andrea Letamendi for insightful Red Robin lunches that always make me cry (in a good way!), and to Christine Dinh and Mel Caylo for all those weekends of shoe shopping and brunch.
Thank you to Jason Chan for taking care of my girls again and making them look exactly as they should on the cover.
Thank you to Keiko Agena, Julia Cho, and Will Choi for being awesome friends and for your brilliant dramatic readings of these characters—that’s how I hear them now in my head. Thank you to Amber Benson and Seanan McGuire, the most magical of magical girls. Thank you to Cindy Pon for being there for several crucial moments and for always being a rock star.
And thank you to everyone who fed this book in so many ways: Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Amy Ratcliffe, Christy Black, Sarah Watson, Liza Palmer, Erik Patterson, Phil Yu, Naomi Ko, Naomi Hirahara, Diya Mishra, Michi Trota, Alisha Rai, Sonjia Hyon, Jenelle Riley, Nick Brandt, Janet Eckford, and the Ok
amoto family (and the NERD HERD). Thank you to all the bookstores and booksellers who hosted me last year, especially Maryelizabeth Yturralde at Mysterious Galaxy and Jude Feldman at Borderlands—you are both so wonderful.
Thank you to my family for being my family: Dad, Steve, Marjorie, Alice, Philip, and all the other Kuhns, Yoneyamas, Chens, and Coffeys.
Thank you to Jeff Chen for everything—I will always share my okonomiyaki with you.
This book was, for many reasons, tough to write. Like Bea, I ultimately found hope in watching the people I love push past seemingly insurmountable odds to do the right thing. Thank you, everyone, for that.
About the Author
Sarah Kuhn is the author of the Heroine books--starring Asian American superheroines--for DAW Books. She also wrote the romantic comedy novella One Con Glory, which is in development as a feature film. Her articles and essays on such topics as geek girl culture, comic book continuity, and Sailor Moon cosplay have appeared in multiple publications. In 2011, she was selected as a finalist for the CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) New Writers Award.
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