Chapter Five

McKenna

"What's going to happen in tomorrow's update?" Victoria asked me.

She had moved to Twin River two years ago and had always been nice to me. Her boyfriend, Todd, not so much. He was a total asshole. Had been since middle school.

Laurel Robinson burst past Victoria and nearly bumped into me. I frowned and looked at the sophomore who had already gotten way too close for comfort.

"You're in my bubble," I said.
My heart started to thump a little bit faster.
Her brows bunched together and she narrowed her hazel eyes. "Huh?"

I pointed to the floor and then drew an invisible circle around me. It was not okay for people to get too close to me. It kind of wigged me out, like they were going to touch me or try to...hug me. I shivered at the thought. It seemed too... intimate, too friendly.

Too close to home.
"Oh." She took a step back and smiled. "My bad."
"I'll give you some space," Victoria said, giving me a quick wave before disappearing down the hallway with Todd.

"McKenna! McKenna!"

I spun around, heart officially racing now. Vanessa Salah, a junior with long black hair that was so shiny it reflected the ceiling lights, was crossing the hallway and making a beeline for me.

"I can't believe you're the author of Kingdom of Swords!" She had a notebook in her hands and was flipping through the pages. "Look, I drew this for you. I thought if you liked it, you might want to share it on your page. You can tag me. I added my username right there." She pointed to the corner, where there was an @ and the username KingdomofSwordsFanatic.

"Ah, thank you." I accepted the drawing and took a couple of steps away from her. It was about ten minutes before classes began for the day, so the hallways weren't super full, but the few students loitering around eyeballed us. Laurel and Vanessa were making a scene.

Maybe this is why Jace didn't want to tell anyone?

The muscles in my neck tensed and then released. "I need to head to class. Thanks for this," I said, holding up the drawing.

"See you later," Laurel said.

Vanessa grinned and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "If you want any more drawings, just let me know.

I'm obsessed with your story."
Desperate to escape, I bolted down the hallway and didn't stop until I reached my locker. I looked over both shoulders before opening the door and throwing my bagged lunch inside.

The cafeteria didn't have anything decent today, so I had to resort to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an apple. I had a shift at The Hot Dog Shack tonight. I'd load up on food there and be sure to get something for dinner for my mom.

I gently slid the drawing Vanessa had given me between a couple of books at the base of my locker. It was a really good charcoal rendering of a woman with long black hair holding up a sword. Must be one of Jace's characters...

As I was about to close the door, someone tapped my arm.

My shoulders shot up to my ears and my entire body flinched.

"Whoa, jumpy much?" Ernie grinned as he leaned against the locker beside me.

"Thank goodness it's you, E." I let out a sigh of relief.

He pushed his glasses up and chuckled. "Who else would it be?"

I shook my head. "You have no idea."

"Well, you better hurry up and tell me. First period starts in three minutes."

"That situation that happened yesterday," I whispered. "People are freaking out. Coming up to me and everything, asking me for spoilers. I literally know like two things about his story."

Ernie arched an eyebrow. "People talking to you, huh?

However will you handle it?"
I shoved him in the shoulder. "People are getting in my bubble. You know how I don't like people in my bubble!" "You're saying the word 'bubble' a lot." Ernie laughed. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Talking to my best friend always helped me calm down when I was worked up.

"That's not it, though." I kept my voice low. "Like hundreds of people left comments on his message board last night. People were saying that they couldn't believe I was WriteEmHard. I got like a thousand new followers on Insta. I had to set it as private! Some of his fans said they wanted to fly here to meet me in person. As in, get on a freaking plane and come to Twin River to meet me. Someone even asked for a signed autograph."

"I think that's pretty cool," Ernie said. "Why don't you ride this thing for all it's worth? You'll be the most popular student at Twin River High. Who knows, you might even become prom queen."

My usually stern expression quavered. "You're ridiculous, you know that, right?"

"Okay, maybe not prom queen, but it might help you get used to being in the spotlight, theater girl." Ernie smiled and pushed his glasses up again. "That way, when we go to that workshop at the community center my mom got us tickets for, you won't be so nervous."

Hmm. He had a point. It'd been years since I was able to attend any kind of acting workshop or class. Once Mom got sick, everything related to acting came to a screeching halt. Well, everything in person, I still watched free YouTube videos on acting all the time. Memorized monologues.

Read them to my mirror late at night... I wouldn't give up my dream. I just had to put part of it on hold for a while.

"Something to think about." Ernie shrugged, then grinned at me. "I gotta head to PE. See you at lunch?"

"Sounds good." I tugged on the sleeves of my black shirt.

"See you later, WriteEmHard." Ernie winked and then headed off toward his first class.

A wave of anxiety crashed down on me.

Maybe saving Jace's ass and stepping into the spotlight is a good thing after all?

...

Fourth period French class ended with a mountain of homework and a promise of an upcoming pop quiz.

I never understood the concept of warning students of a pop quiz. Wasn't the whole idea of "pop" being unplanned? After I jotted down a quick note in my planner to study French verbs, I slipped everything into my backpack and made my way to my locker to grab my lunch.

Ernie and I always sat at the cafeteria table in the far

left corner. It was on the opposite end of the food, closest to the garbage cans, which was the "I'm not so popular" side of the room. I was fine with it because people left me alone out here on exile island.

The cluster of tables in the middle of the lunchroom were reserved for the popular kids like the jocks and cheerleaders and the student body president types who everyone liked.

Ernie and I stepped through the doorway, near our spot, but then we both stopped in our tracks. Our normally empty table was packed with students.

Ernie looked at me, then shrugged.
I wanted to bolt, but leaving Ernie to fend for himself would be cruel. "Maybe we should eat in my car or something."

"Come on, McKenna. Roll with it..." Ernie, my forever encouraging, relaxed best friend, winked at me. "We'll do this together."

"Fine." I followed him to our table. "Hey, uh, everyone," I said as Ernie and I snagged the last two seats at the table.

"Hey, McKenna," Vanessa said. "Hope you don't mind that we crashed your lunch."

"I guess not." I swallowed nervously.

The cafeteria buzzed and students swarmed around the lunch line.

"Ernie said you brought lunch today. Do you want anything from up there?" a girl with blond hair and blue eyes asked. I didn't recognize her, so why the heck was she offering to get me something?

"I'm good, but thanks."
She stuck out her hand. "I'm Charlie Boddington."
I shook it and automatically reached for the small bottle of hand sanitizer hanging on the outside pocket of my backpack.

She grinned and slapped her open palms on the table. I jumped at the sound.

"Oops. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Anyway, I just am so geeked that the author of Kingdom of Swords goes to Twin River High. You have no idea how jealous The Kingdom is of me right now!"

"The Kingdom?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know, your followers. We call ourselves The Kingdom?" Her eyebrow quirked up. "You have a Q&A party thread open quarterly and interact with us."

Ernie shot me a look and mouthed, Get it together!

"Oh, duh. Sorry...it's been a day." I let out a nervous laugh. What was I thinking? I wasn't cut out for this instant fame. I was in hell right now. Living, freaking hell. "Well, it's nice to meet some of my fans in person."

"Why'd you hide your identity for so long?" a red- headed girl from across the eight-person table asked.

I shrugged. "Um...I'm a pretty private person?"

A guy sitting next to the redhead, who had the thickest, black-rimmed glasses on, grinned and said, "Yeah, I can see that, considering we're all crashing your table right now."

I unwrapped my PB&J under the scrutiny of everyone at the table, as if it was the most fascinating thing they'd ever seen. "It's a sandwich, guys."

They all laughed. Ernie shot me a wide-eyed look and chuckled as well. I backhanded his shoulder.

"So, can you give us any spoilers for tomorrow?" Charlie asked. She leaned forward in anticipation.

I'd only read the first few lines of the story, so I had no idea what it was even about, let alone what was going to happen next.

"I can't give anything away." I bit into my sandwich, hoping that'd shut her up. I was seriously regretting my act of bravery at this very moment.

"Please," she begged.
"Well, someone important might die," I offered. Everyone at the table except Ernie gasped. He looked down at his Hawaiian shirt and shook his head.

"No, you wouldn't do that!" David, a senior who was obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, said. "Who?"

"You can't kill one of the main characters," Vanessa said. "That's like, against the law! It's not the prince, is it? I would not be able to handle it if the prince died."

Prince? I didn't say anything about a prince...

"Well," I said with a grin, "you never can get too attached to anyone."

My newfound fans freaked out. A few of them grabbed their phones and began frantically typing.

After an excruciating twenty-five minutes passed, the bell rang.

Thank goodness! I practically sprinted out of the cafeteria and headed to physics.

With a minute to spare, I checked my phone—I had over a hundred new Instagram notifications. I huffed and tapped on the screen to clear them out, but when the app opened, Jace's name jumped off the screen at me. He'd sent me a DM.

The air whooshed out of my lungs. I'd forgotten he'd followed me right before the onslaught of KOS fans started up en masse and I had to change my account to private.

JACE: What are you doing?
JACE: Trying to ruin my story?
An invisible vise tightened around my chest. ME: What are you talking about?

JACE: You told someone that you were going to kill the prince!

JACE: He's the main character.
JACE: And, I already have the book plotted out.

JACE: Spoiler Alert: He's the prince. He makes it to the end.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Beads of sweat dampened my brow. ME: I didn't tell anyone the prince dies.

ME: I just didn't disagree when one of your fans guessed he might kick the bucket.

JACE: We need to meet and talk about the story. ME: Can't.
JACE: Come on, it's important.
I gulped. We need to meet?

As in hang out?

ME: I'm too busy.
JACE: What about at seven tonight? JACE: I'll be done with football. ME: I work until nine.
JACE: Where?

My fingers hovered over the screen. I wiggled them back and forth.

Should I tell him where I work so he could get his notebook back tonight or should I make him wait until tomorrow at school?

And why the hell did the fact that he might come see me at work tonight make my insides tingle? Plus, these fluttery feelings that were flip-flopping around in my stomach— what the freaking hell was that all about?

I wasn't one of the characters in his books. I did not get fluttery feelings.

Cue the stomach flutter.

Okay. This needed to stop. So yes, I was going to meet him and give him that ridiculous notebook.

ME: The Hot Dog Shack, in the mall.
ME: But I don't have time to talk about your book. ME: My boss will freak if he catches me.
JACE: I only need two minutes.
JACE: See you tonight.

Before I could respond, the bell rang.

Shit. I slid my phone into my side pocket and tapped my iPad to the class textbook. Maybe I should come clean about this whole KOS debacle. Just tell everyone I lied. My throat constricted.

It wasn't like I'd done it on purpose.

But then it'd be obvious I was covering for Jace, so he'd be outed.

Mrs. Numan rattled on about velocity or something, but I tuned it out as I toiled through my options. I could tell Jace I was done and he'd have to figure it out himself. But that'd be mean.

Shit. I did not need this complication in my life right now.

I picked at the chipped black polish on my nails.

Mom was completely manic at the moment and I had to keep my shit together. I never knew what I'd come home to each day when she wasn't doing well.

Damn it.

I wish I'd never picked up Jace's ridiculous notebook. 

Hey, Everyone!

What did you think about this chapter? McKenna is in DEEP! What do you think she'll do next? What about Jace? 

Look for another post soon! 

Kelly Anne and Lynn xoxo