Page 100 of The Fangirl Project
“Classic miscommunication trope,” Heather trills. “I love it.”
“Yeah, I’d love it a lot more if I hadn’t made such an idiot of myself. You don’t see them confessing all to the wrong man in the movies, do you? Meg Ryan never had to go through this.”
From the next table over, Sam tells me, “Meg Ryan picked the guy who put her mom’s bookstore out of business, kid, let’s not pretend she made only good decisions in that movie.”
Heather and I burst out laughing, while Jake asks Anissa whatwe’re talking about and who Meg Ryan is; she shrugs, none the wiser.
For the next hour, I manage to if notforgetabout Max, at least not let him occupy my every thought. I throw myself into the meetup, getting to know my Discord friends better, and even when I give up on Catan and swap to an even more complicated game about bird-watching, I’m having a great time.
Heartfelt confessions and world-changing realizations aside, itisa perfect day. It’s low stakes, no pressure, just as much in person as it always has been online, and it’s a refreshing change to not feel like I have to do or say the right thing, wear the right outfit, or play a part. I’ve been doing that less at school around the girls, but with them it’s more like unlearning a habit, disentangling myself from it; here, it’s something I relax into right from the start. I don’t worry about who they expect me to be, who I’m supposed to be.
I’m just…myself.
Wholly, unashamedly.
I play a blue counter, and pick up a new card, punching the air with a whoop. I slap it down on the board. “Yes! Take that, Theresa, look who’s in the lead now!”
“You can’t play that!”
“She can,” Fiona says, picking up the rule book. “Look, ifyou…”
She trails off though, and while Theresa starts badgering her for an answer, Fiona nudges me, and I realize half the room has gone quiet—that someone’s just come in.
I stand, disrupting the game board. “Max.”
“What’s she waiting for?”Heather hisses from across the room, a little too loudly.
Fiona scoots her chair out of my way as I scramble from my seat in the corner, and there arewaytoo many eyes on us. Max looks at the others, then at me, and says, “Shall we…?” while jerking his head over his shoulder. I nod, and follow him outside.
I’m not running away this time, though.
The drizzle has finally let up. The pavement shines with puddles and the sky is a dreary, grubby shade of gray. It’s hardly the picture-perfect scene, but I think I’m starting to finally accept that real life doesn’t always work out that way.
For a moment, we face each other in silence, and it’s as tense and difficult as ever to find something, anything, to talk about.
But I have so much to say now, I’m not floundering around for something to break the silence; it’s onlyhowto say it, what to say first, and I take a breath—
Max beats me to it.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I never meant to lie to you, Cerys. I wasn’t trying to…I thought you knew it was me. I’d said at the Worlds Beyond con about adding you to the Discord. If I’d realized, I would’ve—”
“No, it’s not…It was my fault, I just…saw what I wanted to see. I didn’t think.”
“And I get it,” he says, his voice solid and firm, his eyes fixed on mine. “It makes sense now why you were so upset about Jake at the party, and why you just wanted us to be friends and forget—forget about…what happened. I know you guys are close, so I don’t want to—”
“Max,” I interrupt, before he can say the same thing as Jake and I did earlier about not “getting in the way.” I really can seewhy he and Jake became such fast friends; theyarevery similar in a lot of ways. “Max, I said I wanted to forget about the kiss and go back to being friends when I thought I was talking toJake.I—if I’d known…”
If I’d known, I honestly don’t know what I would’ve said.
If Max had messaged me away from the Discord and I’d known it was him, I would’ve handled it differently. I think I would’ve wanted the chance to get to know him better, maybe without a bathroom door in the way.
“I thought you didn’t like me,” I tell him. “You’d barely look at me, like it wassucha hardship to talk to me any time we were in a position to have a real-life conversation—”
Max gives a wry chuckle and drags a hand back through his hair, shaking his head before looking at me again. “Yeah, because Ilikedyou, Cerys. And I’m…I’m not like you. I’m not cool and—and put-together. I’m the weird cosplay guy who’s too into this stupid fantasy series. I don’tdothis. I’m the guy whose name people don’t know, remember? I know that I’m…well, I’m not…Jake.Of course you’d pick him. And I don’t exactly have a lot of experience when it comes to…flirting with a girl I like.”
He’s so rattled, the usual aloof expression long gone, it reminds me of after Brayden Brown left the group at Comic Con—the realization that Max plays it cool a lot of the time. Like maybe it’s something he’s taught himself to do, some…defense mechanism. He drags his hand through his hair again, and I reach up to catch it, pulling it back to his side, my fingers slotting through his.
“Look, Max,forgetabout Jake. After the party, I was focused on fixing things with Jake because I missed my friend—notbecause he broke my heart. I kept waiting, thinkingyou’dreach out, though—I wanted you to. I just didn’t realize youhad.And I thought that what we’d built in the Discord wasn’t worth losing for a kiss, not realizing that…”
