Page 80 of The Fangirl Project
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26
I hardly hear from Jakein the weeks following our last Discord chat. I send him a few texts asking if he’s okay and if he’s free to hang out, and try to break the ice by sending him a couple of funny Instagram posts or TikToks I think he’ll like, but the most I get is the thumbs-up emoji.
It’s worse than if he just left me on read.
I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if Icanfix it.
I thought finding out that Jake had feelings for me and I didn’t have some enormously unrequited crush would be the best thing in the world, that I’d be over the moon, but I’m left with this hollow ache in my chest, and whenever I think about it, it’s hard to breathe.
Is this what heartbreak feels like?
Except…I’m not sure that’s what it is.
I keep picturing his face and the tears in his eyes, the betrayal that cracked his voice, and it just feelslonely.And then Ikeep thinking about Max shielding me from the chill and saying, “Because—because—” and feeling the ghost of his lips on mine.
Max hasn’t tried to reach out to me, either. We never swapped numbers, but it’s not as if I’m hard to find on social media the way he is. He could DM me if he wanted to.
Which, clearly, he doesn’t.
His radio silence doesn’t hurt as much as Jake’s does, but it still stings. I can only assume that he’s keeping a distance from me for Jake’s sake, for their friendship. It’s harder for them to avoid each other when they have classes together and are on the same soccer team, I suppose, and I can’t really blame him. I’d do the same in his shoes, wouldn’t I?
It was just a kiss, though.Oneconversation andonekiss, and it doesn’t matter if it’s all I keep thinking about, because Jake and I have a foundation so much stronger than that. I keep scrolling back through the Discord to prove that to myself, every time I’m tempted to reach out to Max on his latent Instagram account.
Icannotthrow it all away for a boy who barely even speaks tome.
I know Anissa talks to Jake; sometimes, I see messages from @runicrascal flash up on her phone screen when we’re hanging out in the art rooms at lunch. And two weeks after the party, Jake uploads an Instagram photo of him and Anissa at the Argonauta concert, the one Max told me about that time he drove me home.
Max isn’t in the photo. He and Jake must not have patched things up too well, if Anissa’s taken his place.
I can’t bring myself to hold it against Anissa the way I did with Max. Max felt like an interloper; the fact Anissa and Jake eveninteracted at all is my doing. And she’s sonice,so warm, I don’t begrudge her the friendship—even if it does feel like it’s at the cost of my own.
My friendship with the other girls is on thin ice, too. Every message in the group chat feels stilted, I keep avoiding the morning Costa runs, and Daphne and I still aren’t talking.
Chloe corners me one day to ask, “What’s going on with you two? Did you have a fight?”
Daphne clearly hasn’t told them how awful I was to her, which makes no sense to me, so I settle for shrugging and saying, “Nothing. We’re fine.” Which we both know is a blatant lie, but it’s the only way I can think to get out of it.
I’m the one in the wrong, though, so I do Daphne the favor of withdrawing from the group as much as I can, even if I have classes with Nikita and Evie I can’t avoid. In media lessons, Daphne has taken to sitting at an empty desk at the back of the room—as far away from me as she can get.
And if the girls notice I’m spending more time with Anissa instead of them, they don’t confront me about it. Nikita sees the Instagram photo from the Argonauta concert and asks if I want her tohex the man-stealing witch,but the laugh I give in response is high and false, and we don’t talk about it again.
I don’t talk about much of anything with them these days, actually.
—
In the end, I retreatinto the Discord. I have eighteen tabs open on my phone with different fanfictions I’m reading, andupload a couple more one-shots myself. Mostly they’re about Lady diSilver trying to muddle through conflicting attraction to the Moonwalker and her long-standing bond with Devon.
I, obviously, can’t relate at all.
I do venture to the dark side, though, and read some of the Moonsilver ship fics that I find linked in the Discord.
I start painting more, too, feeling consumed by the need to actually finish the pieces I’m working on. Dark, moody scenes of Lady diSilver and Devon standing on opposite sides of the horse they shared in season one, unable to look at each other. A busy ballroom in a more fuzzy style with too-bright colors where she twirls across the floor, caught between the Moonwalker and Devon. Her abandoned vanity strewn with weapons and jewels in a place that never really felt like home anyway.
It’scathartic.So much so I’m almost annoyed at how well the fandom, the artwork, all of it, is helping my messy emotions feel a little less overwhelming. Even if I can’t make sense of them yet, it’s helpful to process it through this medium, to express it without having to make it so personal. I get a weird sense of satisfaction from the paint splotches staining my hands and fingernails, a sense of real triumph when I finish a piece. I finally see why those girls wrote that eight-hundred-thousand-wordOWARfanfic, why Max devotes so much time to perfecting his Moonwalker cosplay. Art has always been a fun outlet, a distraction, butthisis…
It’s the equivalent of a kiss that makes you weak in the knees and too dizzy to think straight. It feels like finally being able tobreathe.
