Page 13 of The Last Love Story

Did she read the kissing scene with Saffron and Orion on the bridge of theCelestial Breaker?

Or theotherscene I wrote in the kitchen? The one where they’re making pancakes?

I swallow hard, blinking rapidly as I take a step back.

“Um. This is, um...”

My thoughts spin and tumble, searching for purchase and finding none.

This is my coping mechanism, a fantasy I’ve written about a boy I used to love but can never have. I also wrote it before I kissed anyone, so it’s pure speculation, and pleaseignore the scene with the syrup because if you bring it up I will die on the spot and you’ll have to drag my body back to the surface—

“Ripley,” Ms. Astor says sharply, in that proctor voice, and I look up at her. She must see the horror on my face, because she holds her hands out as if to placate me. “Ripley,” she says again, “I don’t care about what’s in this story.”

Pancake make-out session, I think. It’s all I think. On a loop.Pancake. Make-out. Session.

I hold the papers to my chest like I can make them reabsorb into my body. Perhaps I will collapse in on myself, too, and we’ll just be a dark shame hole on the ground of this secret library.Here lies Ripley, a sad, lonely girl who was so hungry when she wrote about the love of her life she covered him in syrup.

Not the love of my life, I correct. Not anymore. Not now—not After.

“Do you know how many people have read this story?”Ms. Astor asks.

“I just wanted to send it to my friend,” I whisper as I close my eyes, but Ms. Astor puts her hands on my shoulders, bringing me back to the moment.

“This story means something to people. We didn’t print it out. Someone else did. It was in a shipment of books that arrived from Wisconsin.”

The words don’t compute. I look up at Ms. Astor, daringto meet her gaze for the first time since she handed me the book.Mybook.

Someone across the country was reading my book for fun. Someone printed my words to keep them safe.

“I didn’t think you’d have to be blackmailed to help us make pamphlets,” Ms. Astor says. “Ididthink you’d need the threat of being sent to the front of an actual war to stop you from sprinting out of here when I showed you the book.”

I take a deep breath and nod. “Umm. Fair, actually.” I swallow hard. A moment of fear hits me like lightning. “How did you know it was me? Does anyone else?”

I changed some details, but still. They could figure out who Orion was. I’m pretty sure Nef has.

She shakes her head, and a strand of dark hair falls from her bun into her face. She brushes it aside. “No. No. But you’re lucky. We have a tech team that was scrubbing some of the local IP addresses, looking for possible recruits, and we found that your IP address accessed Spindle years ago. From there, they found your username.”

I open my mouth to ask the next question, but she’s already guessed it.

“We cleared it. No one else knows.”

My shoulders relax. I look down at the pages in my hand. “It was just a story about a lonely girl with a crush.”

“That’s not what I saw,” Ms. Astor says evenly. “I saw your heart, Ripley. We need heart. We needyou: someonewho believes in stories, in hope. Someone who believes this isn’t the end of the world. Someone who can help us write a new beginning.”

I brush the pad of my thumb over the paper, loving the feel of it. “I’ll do it. But I want to do more. I want to make pamphlets. I want to distribute them. I want to be part of this.”

Ms. Astor smiles. She nods. “Let’s get started, then,” she says.

“Can I keep this?” I blurt, liftingFahrenheit 451.

She walks backward, a smirk slipping up her face.

“This is a library, Ms. Hart. You canborrowit.”

I can’t wait to read the book, holding my tablet’s flashlight up to read the pages. As I near my front door, I almost miss the shadow rushing behind me.

Heavy footsteps crash through the brush behind the fence. I duck, falling into a crouch and hugging the book to my chest: someone is there, and they’re climbing the tree behind me.