Page 37 of The Fangirl Project
Me
Me too x
Why has he canceled? Is this because of Max not being able to make it—does he not want to spend time with me, like he doesn’t want to with the gang from school? Is it a total coincidence? Why did he ignore that part of my message?
I take a breath to calm my racing thoughts. Knowing Jake, it’s because he responded faster than he thought and just didn’t even notice that he hadn’t answered my question. And he seemsgenuinelyexcited about me joining them for Comic Con; I believe that.
My stomach sinks as I stare at our text conversation, my message left on read even though I don’t really know what he would’ve replied anyway.
And then a notification slides down the top of my screen, a Discord message from Jake—a link to Instagram posts of Lady diSilver cosplays—and I open it with a little more enthusiasm than I’d shown Max in the car.
If wearing some elf ears is the way to Jake’s heart…Well, if I’ve learned one thing from all those rom-coms, it’s that a little dent in my pride and dignity is a small price to pay for true love.
15
For the next two weeks,Jake goes quiet. Over text, he tells me that he’s too busy with school stuff; on Discord, I learn that he canceled our Wednesday watch party because his dad wanted to take him out for dinner and talk about universities. It sends me into a spiral of my own, and in a panic I order about twenty prospectuses despite having no idea what I’m evenlookingfor in a uni, if I want to go, or what I’d study.
There’s a little flutter in my chest that screamsART!!!,that dreams of being able to work on sets and designs like the ones onOWAR,but I shove that ridiculous notion away as soon as it rises to the surface.
Dad sits with me after my shift on Saturday, helping me look through all the brochures. Then Mom takes me for coffee and cake on Sunday morning before I go to work and we make a spreadsheet of different unis and their courses and their merits. I don’t know if they’re trying to one-up each other, if they’re genuinely working intandem, or if they simply never communicated to each other how they’re both trying to help, but I don’t worry about it too much. Itdoeshelp put me at ease about university, and it’s nice to spend some time with them both.
I get invited to Daphne’s house to hang out with some of the girls after school one day, and I feel firmly, solidly One Of The Group. Now that I don’t feel I have to work so hard to keep up or make sure they reallydolike me, I enjoy their company even more. I don’t even mind mentioning Jake more openly around Evie, who promises not to tell anybody from our old school but tells me, “I always thought you two had kind of a thing going on. I’msohere for it, you’d be such an adorable couple.”
They’re fun and cool and so easy to be around, and I’m so busy basking in it that the cinema trip with the group from my old school comes and goes without me even noticing. It does make me realize maybe I don’treallymiss them very much, though; and that, in comparison to the girls at school, my old school friendships were very surface-level, especially because they were mostly facilitated by Jake. I was never as excited to see them as I am Daphne and the girls, have never connected with them in the same way. My feelings have a lot more to do with losing Jake than it doesthem,and I’m surprised by the sense of absolute relief in accepting that we’ve grown apart…and that’s okay.
It’s okay because, like Mom said, sometimes it happens. It’s okay because I still have Jake. But mostly, it’s okay because I have the girls.
And it feelsniceto have proper friends of my own.
Still, I don’t mention Comic Con and the couple’s costume to Daphne or Nikita or anybody, not sure how to bring it up and aware how pathetic it sounds. Finding a costume isn’t half as difficult as I thought it might be—this time of year there are plenty of cheap black cloaks and sword belts and wigs available online, and when Mom or Dad asks about the parcels I’ve been ordering, I can pass them off as a Halloween costume without too much further inquiry.
Plus, thanks to some assistance from @runicrascal, a little further research of my own, and a few pointers from fellow Discord fangirl @silversmithhh, I learn that one of Lady diSilver’s more notable outfits in the show is a green embroidered dress that she apparently wears to a ball. There’s some truly gorgeous fanart, and incredible videos from women who have re-created the look for themselves on a sewing machine, which I can’t help but be impressed by. The style is very medieval, but I think a plain green dress would do the job just as well, and that won’t feel as weird to wear out in public as afullcostume.
Plus, it’s a lot cheaper to find a dupe online than something more show-accurate, and I’m not made of money. Theliteralprice of doing this in the name of romance would be steep otherwise.
—
The Friday night before ComicCon, I lay my outfit on my bed. A brown wig styled into a braided updo that I spent hours wrestling into place with hairpins trying to make perfect, the green dress (which really looks like more of a tiered midi than somethingmedieval but is at least the right shade of emerald), along with the sword belt (with a cardboard hilt I crafted and covered in bronze and silver paint) and my Amazon-purchased cloak.
It’s a solid costume.Cosplay.Especially for a first attempt, done on a budget and on a time crunch. It’ll look brilliant next to Jake’s costume, I’m sure of it, and the green dress won’t even be too weird to wear on the train into town.
But when Saturday morning arrives, I stand shaking in my room with the cloak bunched in my hands, not sure why I feel so sick with nerves. I imagine walking into a hall full of peoplenotin costume; this isn’t anOWAR-specific event like the last one, after all, so what if I look completely out of place and nobody recognizes who I’m supposed to be? Or theOWARfans (cough,Max,cough) ridicule me for grossly misunderstanding, for being such a fake fan?
And what if Jake doesn’t even go through withhiscosplay? If it’s just me and Max, two weirdos together, everybody pointing and laughing and whispering behind their hands? What if I see someone I know? Anissa might be there and tell someone at school about it, or maybe a photo of me dressed up could end up online…
I can’t do it. I can get into this convoluted show with its tangled plotline, I can read the fanfiction for the romantic storyline, I can even put up with a third wheel every time I hang out with Jake, but Ican’t do this.
I shove the cloak, sword belt, dress, and wig into the bottom of my wardrobe next to a half-done watercolor painting of Lady diSilver’s tower and a shoebox of painting supplies, and throw on a pair of jeans instead. I leave theBe Ye a Rascal, Roach?T-shirt Jake got me in the drawer, ignoring it in favor of a woolly sweater.It’s too cold for a T-shirt anyway. He’ll understand. I’ll just say that the dress didn’t fit, or the cloak didn’t arrive in time, or something.
He’ll understand.
I just can’t do it. I can’t be that person.
Look at Anissa. Look at Max—I don’t know if he even has friends outside of Jake andmaybethe soccer guys. Look atJake,withdrawing from all his old friends from school, and even fromme.
—
When I get to theconcert hall in the middle of town, I’m relieved to see that most people walking in are dressed more casually—jeans and hoodies, similar to my own outfit. At least I won’t be as out of place as I was the last time.
