Page 152 of What I Like About You

Lana crosses her arms. “Sure.”

If he just did this—Nash could literally beright here.

I need these girls to talk.

“Wait.” Lana’s eyes narrow.

She nudges the blonde girl and they start whispering to each other. Blonde girl pulls out her phone and opens Twitter. She shows the screen to Lana and their eyes widen.

“Kels?”

I smile.Yes. “Hi.”

“OTP totally got me through seventh grade,” Lana says and I die because—well, thatmatters. Lana points in the general direction Nash went after they’d met. I thank her profusely, for reading, for helping, for all the things. She asks for a selfie and if I can sign one of her bookmarks.

I am somehow a star. It’s so weird. But amazing.

Lana sends me to the back end of the Empire booth, where I see staffers lining people up for the next signing. The queue is long, wrapping around the corner and winding back toward the autographing area where Michael Yoon is. The graphic novelist that Nash came here to see.

Oh my God, Nash is totally in this line. My palms turn slick and all the papers fall out of my hands. Cursing under my breath, I bend over and collect my stuff, shoving all loose papers into one of one my five tote bags.

No, I do notneedfive tote bags—that’s not the point.

I stand straight and wipe away the sweat that has accumulated on the back of my neck. Re-tuck my on-brand cupcake-patterned T-shirt into my high-waisted jeans. Smooth the bumps out of my ponytail. Check my lipstick.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I search the sprawling line, but it isn’t simply one line. There are lines everywhere. It’s kind of a mess and if he’s here—I can’t even begin to track him down. Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise. There are too many people, too much noise. I had no clue there’d beso much. Or that the Javits would be a giant maze filled with passive-aggressive—and straight-up aggressive—YA fandom. As I’m getting pushed out of the way by a ten-year-old, or being chastised for the cutting I didn’t do by a mother, I thinkCan’t we all just get along? Isn’t our mutual love of all bookish things civilizing?

I check my phone and it’s almost time for me to meet upwith my fellow Bloggers IRL panel members. I don’t have the brainpower—ortime—to keep looking for Nash.

Maybe I should just text him. Kels would.

Hey, Nash. I’m here.

Hey, Nash. Are you in the Michael Yoon line?

Hey, Nash. Meet me at x location at y time. Please.

I type and retype every variation ofI’m herebefore settling on:

well. we’re both at BookCon. it’s pretty much nothing like how I’d imagined it. but my panel is in E110 at 2. is it stupid to hope you’ll show up? probably, but I’ll save you a cupcake anyway.

I really hope you will.

1:23pm

I press send before I can change my mind, and retreat downstairs to the designated panel meeting point—relishing these final moments where I am just an invisible teen who loves YA, just me.

I am so not qualified to be on this panel—what were the BookCon godsthinking?

I’m seated between Celeste Pham and Lilah Clark and I have forgotten how to speak. I mean, my logic brain has known since BookCon announced panelists that they’d be here. But somehow the fact that I would be here, with them,sitting next to them, did not compute.

Celeste hosts Books on Tape—the number one bookishpodcast on the internet. Lilah is a booktuber with over a quarter of a million subscribers. The other four panelists are equally daunting—Annaliese is fifteen, agented, and a total star on Book Twitter. Pete advocates for diversity in middle grade. Sarah runs the best monthly #bookstagram challenges. And Tara rose to Book Twitter fame with poetry—every book review she writes is in iambic pentameter.

Each panelist that I am sitting alongside makes One True Pastry look meager. I am totally starstruck.

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