Page 46 of The Fangirl Project
I swap out my paintbrush for a finer one, meticulously dabbing in the tiny grayish-white seeds floating in the air, and make wishes of my own.I wish he wasn’t always lurking around spoiling things. I wish Jake would see me, reallysee. I wish he’d kissed me on Saturday, I wish this didn’t feel like the be-all and end-all, I wish he’d just message me back already…
Jake’s been annoyingly quiet all week. He’s replied to most of my texts, but none of it has been with his usual enthusiasm. It’s always curt, cursory, polite. When he didn’t reply to me asking if we’d be resuming our Wednesday watch parties, I went ahead and watched a few more episodes myself…and then a few more. Even if Jake wasn’t inviting me over, I could still prove myself to him—and if I’m being totally honest with myself, Ididget a little sucked into the show. I’m up to season three now, the action really starting to kick off, but the message I sent Jake in the Discord to chat about it, thinkingOWARwas some safe, neutral ground, got a similarly short response, so I didn’t bother after that.
Jake must have some stuff going on. Maybe with his family? Or school? Perhaps he’s just really busy, or not feeling too well, and he’ll be back to normal in a few days, and it’s nothing personal.
Or maybe I did something wrong?
There has to be areason.Jake wouldn’t just…vanish. We’ve been best friends for too long for him to ghost me like this.
I’m so lost in my painting and mulling over every minuscule interaction with Jake and trying to pick apart where I’ve messed up or haven’t noticed something going on with him, that when the bell rings to signal the end of lunch I yelp and practically topple off my stool, knocking my bag over and dropping my paintbrush.
A couple of girls in the year above, who’ve come in to do their own work, giggle at me.
Face flaming, I pull out my earphones and set them aside, along with my palette. I pick my paintbrush up and see that practicallyeverythinghas spilled out of my bag. A loose tampon, the lip gloss Daphne used on me a few weeks ago that I bought in a different color in the hopes it would suit me better, all my notebooks and some pens…
I’m shoveling it all back in, knowing I still need to tidy up and get to my next class, when someone steps over in a pair of lilac Converse and tights with a run in them, bending down to help me gather up my things.
It’s Anissa. She’s cut her hair again—shorter, matching the length of the choppy pieces that used to hang at the front of her face. It’s tousled, not quite straight and not quite wavy, but looks much better now. Her bangs are in her eyes, and her eyeliner is either smudged kohl or yesterday’s mascara. Her fingers glint with three different gemstone rings, and I notice a rope bracelet around her wrist with the evil eye stone braided into it, reminding me of all the silly “witchy” rumors about her.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the pens she’s holding out. The last real interaction I had with Anissa was that Thursday morning debrief in Costa, when we thought she’d overheard us commenting about her hair. I wonder if she remembers it, too; it’d be burned into my mind, I think, if things were the other way around. As an olive branch, I tell her, “Your hair looks nice. That length really suitsyou.”
She rolls her eyes. “My mom didn’t give me much choice. I made a real botch job bleaching some of it a few weeks ago.”
“Is that why you…?” It’s too awkward to sayhad those awful, uneven chunks at the front, so I mime a pair of scissors near my face instead.
“Yeah.” She laughs, a brash and short sound, but not unfriendly. “I was trying to dye it purple and after I started thought maybe I should just do a test patch, which is just as well because I basically fried it.”
“Oh shit! Well…it…looks…”
Better,I don’t quite say, but she obviously knows that’s what I meant, because she holds my gaze, and there’s a little more spark to it compared to any other time I’ve seen her. This is also the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and the most I’ve heard her say in onego.
I stand up, bag haphazardly packed, and Anissa stands, too, holding something else out to me.
Of Wrath and Rune: Book 1—The Wakening.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap!
It’s mine, it’s definitely mine, with the pages crinkled, the front cover creased where it bent in half in my bag, and a makeup stain on the side where I spilled some foundation. My heart thunders in my chest. She might as well be handing me a hive of angry wasps.
I stare at the book in horror, too alarmed to even try to play it cool—oh, I’m just hanging on to it for a friend—and Anissa gives me a soft, barely there smile.
“I thought it looked like Téiglin that you were sketching before,” she says. “And I saw that photo of you and Jake from school at Comic Con over the weekend, with the guy who plays Daxys. That was really cool.”
“It…” I swallow the lump in my throat. The classroom is empty now, but it won’t be for long. “Itwaspretty cool actually, yeah. He was really nice. He liked my—”No, not “my” friend, Max is not “my” friend by any stretch.“He liked Jake’s friend’s cosplay.”
“Was that the guy dressed as Sir Grayson?”
“Yeah. Max.”
“Omigod,” she gushes, suddenly animated, her hazel eyes bright. She smiles wide enough to show a gap between her front teeth I’ve never noticed before. “He lookedsocool! That’s so amazing. I can’t believe you guys all got to meet Daxys like that.” Her eyes skirt past me then, lingering on my painting. Her mouth falls open as she drinks it in. “Is that the Gilded Glade?”
“Yeah.” I point to an area of the trees. My heart is pounding, but it feels more like excitement to actuallytalkabout my piece than worry at being found out. “I’ve gone for a kind of more abstract look, but if you squint you can sort of make out—”
“Téiglin!” she cries, and laughs, the sound lighter this time as she tilts her head to see the vague shape of an antlered man blended into the trees, her eyes tracking across the canvas and picking out the subtle, half-hidden shapes of fauns, a Minotaur, gnomes…You wouldn’t know unless you were looking for them, and it’s unrecognizable asOWARfanart except to those who know.
And Anissa, unquestionably, knows.
“I didn’t realize you were a fan too,” she tells me as I wash my paintbrush at the sink. Splotches of dried paint are caked onto my fingers, but I’ll have to deal with that later—I need to get to class. “How long have you been into it?”
