Page 76 of The Fangirl Project
Max can’t meet my eye.
That hurts almost as much as Jake storming out on me. I feel sostupidfor thinking Max was more than this superior, judgmentalass.
I feel so stupid for thinking maybe he meant it, when he acted like he cared about me, and that’s why he kissed me.
Anissa gives his elbow a quick squeeze, saying something to him that I don’t catch, before coming over and slipping an arm around me. “Do you want to go home?”
I nod.
We don’t ask Max for a lift. He makes himself scarce. Anissa and I wait at the foot of the stairs until my dad texts to say that he’s outside.
“How was the party, girls?” he asks brightly.
“Yeah, great. Really good. We’re just tired,” I say, and if he thinks our mood is subdued, he understands now is not the time to ask about it.
We’re halfway home when Anissa waves her phone at me. “Jake went back to the party. He’s going to get a lift home with some of the others.”
Right. Of course. They’ve been chatting in the Discord. She’s someone he likes chatting with about the books.
Mom tries to give us more of the third degree when we get home, and I offer up a few half-hearted responses. Anissa fills in for me with a bit more enthusiasm, and a huge yawn that has Mom sending us both off to bed to get some sleep.
Anissa and I change quickly and in silence, and I don’t think this is how sleepovers are really supposed to go. I’m not being a good host.
Then again, we’re not twelve, and my life has just imploded because of a kiss.
I roll over to face Anissa down on the air bed.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I whisper into the dark. I don’t think she’s asleep yet. “I didn’t even really mean to kiss Max, it just…happened.”
“I thought you and Runic…I mean—”
“Yeah,” I say. “I thought so, too. I don’t know. It’s all a mess, and…God, the look on hisface…I’ve never seen Jake like that. He was devastated. The things I said to him…I really didn’t mean…”
Anissa props herself up on one elbow, the air bed making a plasticky rustle. “He said some pretty harsh things, too, Cerys.”
“It’s nothing I didn’t deserve. He’s right, I do…tag along,I’m—”
“He was out of order,” she reiterates, so sternly that I let myselfbelieve her. At least for the moment. “And anyway, he’d really been putting those hard ciders away, plus a few vodka Jell-O shots…Give him a couple of days to get his head straight, he’ll see things differently. You can both apologize and go back to normal. It won’t all seem so horrible then.”
“Do you think?”
She nods; I see her silhouetted head bobbing as my eyes adjust to the dark.
Weirdly, I trust her judgment. If she’s been chatting with Jake for a while—and she knows him from school and spent all night at the party with him…At the very least, I trust her judgmentfarmore than mine right now.
Can I blame Jake, for being so hurt? He caught me kissing his best friend. He wouldn’t have reacted like that if he didn’t feel the way about me as I do about him. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t this what I wanted?
So why is itMaxthat my mind keeps circling back to—putting his arm around me, keeping me warm from the chill, coming after me when I got upset, thennot looking at me after the kiss? Why is that the part that seems to hurt so much more right now?
Is this how Jake felt when he saw me kissing another boy? This overwhelming ache in the pit of my chest that feels like it’ll drag me down, drowning me?
A couple of minutes pass in silence, though neither of us falls asleep. Instead of processing anything, my brain just feels full of raging white noise I can’t decipher. My lips are still tingling from the aftermath of the kiss, and I touch a finger to them.
I really don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t even knowhow we got to a point where we were kissing! I thought Max hated me. I thoughtIhatedhim.That can’t all change in the span of one conversation on opposite sides of a bathroom door, can it?
Is this what the whole fuss is with the enemies-to-lovers trope? I kind of understand it if that’s the sort of kiss it leads to.
One very quiet but very clear thought swims to the surface:I wish we hadn’t been interrupted.
