Page 12 of The Fangirl Project
My phone finally pings a little while later—a text from Jake.
Jake
Agh I’m over with the grandparents on Sunday! Nan’s doing a roast, and it’s Gin’s last weekend home before she’s back to uni. Maybe in the week, after school? I’ll get some snacks! x
The kiss makes my heart flutter more than any single letter in a text message has any right to. I try telling myself that sometimes Jake sends a kiss when he’s being extra-nice, or even an “xo” if he’s being snarky and goofing around to make me laugh, but it doesn’t dampen that giddy feeling, or the way my brain immediately starts planning an outfit for our not-quite-date after school to watchOWAR. Maybe I should watch the episodes in advance, so I can think of smart things to ask him and he can show off his knowledge of the show?
Mom and I watch another film—Four Weddings and a Funeral,as Mom decides she’s on a Hugh Grant kick tonight—and by then it’s late enough that she sends me off to bed.
“Your dad’s coming over for dinner tomorrow, by the way,” she says when I’m almost out of the room—launching the grenadeshe’s apparently had her thumb on for the past few hours. I grit my teeth, wondering if that’s what this whole “film and takeout” night was about.
Not about just spending time together, after all.
“Oh. Right. So, um…” Is this her way of telling me to make myself scarce? I don’t know how to ask that. “Do you have more stuff to go over together, for the lawyers?”
Mom gives me such a look of exaggerated shock, then laughs. “No, you silly thing, he’s just coming over for dinner! Wearestill a family. We thought it would be nice.”
NICE?I want to scream. Nice? Dinner? Withboth of them? I can’t remember the last time that wasnice.Tense, maybe, and full of long stretches of silence broken only by one of them asking me to “pass the salt.”
“We discussed it in couples’ counseling this week,” Mom adds, which is the grenade exploding. My stomach drops away.
“I thought you stopped going to those sessions?” I manage, my voice sounding at least halfway normal.
“No! No, we started them back up a little while ago. They’re helping lots!”
Are they? Shit. I don’t want them to get help, I want them toget the divorce they’ve been on the verge of for years!I can’t cope with walking on eggshells around them both for another two years until I can leave for uni. They’ve tried this before—all the back and forth of “learning to communicate” and “doing the work,” and it never actually helps.
It’s not that I don’t want to see my dad more—I miss him a lot since he moved out, even if he’s still been around plenty. I just hopeto God this isn’t some latest attempt at any kind of real reconciliation.
I’m almost about to make up some excuse to get out of it, but I’ve already admitted to having no plans this weekend, so I’m stuck saying, “Great, that’ll…be nice, yeah,” before making a hasty escape up to bed, already emotionally drained at the mere thought of tomorrow’s so-called family dinner.
As I tuck myself into bed and check my phone, there’s a Discord notification, and my mood instantly lifts.
@runicrascal
Just wait for episode 4. It’s a DOOZY.
Assuming your Friday night plans were more exciting than watching your new favorite obsession, Of Wrath and Rune. Hope you had a good one
@mythicwitch
V exciting, thank you. The kind of plans involving Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and a bookshop.
…wait, what happens in episode 4? DOES he die?
I’m unduly attached to this stag-skull character. I can’t tell if that’s just because he’s a perfect subject for my art coursework, or ifit’s the banter with @runicrascal spurring me on. It’s kind of fun, if only for the excuse to chat with Jake.
@runicrascal
Notting Hill? A classic choice.
@mythicwitch
You know it!
@runicrascal
And about ep4…that would be telling. I thought we said no spoilers?
