Page 90 of The Fangirl Project
January is as much ablur as December: I end up taking on extra shifts at work, school feels more hectic than ever, and now that I’m not avoiding the girls or trying to keep my friendship with Anissa so secret, I make more time to see them all. Anissa even joins us for a few Thursday morning trips to Costa before class; it’s awkward at first, with Nikita being guarded, Daphne working too hard to carry the conversation, and Anissa being overwhelmed and shy—but she and Chloe bond quickly, and she has the same dry sense of humor as Nikita, a fact that seems to surprise them both. They’re not all instant besties, but nobody expected that. It’s kind of nice to see them all opening up, though—and to feel like I’m doing the same thing.
It’s nice to feel like after all the years I spent taking Jake’s lead when it came to friendships, I can finally return the favor for someone else.
Jake is still quiet over text, even if I do get a couple ofactualreplies every so often, but at least the Discord chat is nonstop. Things still feel off-kilter because we aren’t hanging out in person (though he is spending time with Anissa), and because I haven’t seen Max since our kiss, but it doesn’t make me spiral and panic the way it did before.
Maybe Jake had a point about me tagging along: Idofeel more independent these days. And I feel happier, too. This must be how Max feels all the time, I think. Wholly, unashamedly himself.
The true weirdness isn’t in me mentioning some fanart I’m working on to the girls, or Anissa boldly swapping seats in history to sit by me and Nikita, but at home—which is actuallygood,foronce.
The forced friendliness between my parents has worn away into something more comfortable. Dad still comes by, but it’s usually—as I now know—when Mom is on a date with her new boyfriend, Jeremy. I even go visit Dad’s new flat. We pick out paint for my bedroom there, and I notice there’s an easel set up in the living room, and a box of shiny new acrylic paints.
“Working on something?” I ask him.
“Not yet…I’m out of practice. I’ve signed up for an evening class, though. You inspired me to try to get back into it, and actually your mom encouraged me, too.”
“She did? Seriously?”
Dad puts an arm around my shoulders. “And here we thought we did such a good job of shielding you from our problems. I know things have been tough, kiddo, but it’s going to get better for all of us from here on out, I promise.”
Then one morning, when I’m pouring cereal before school and Mom is waiting for the bagel in the toaster to pop, she says, “Jeremy and I have been talking, and I wondered if you might like to meet him, soon. Maybe he could come over for dinner one night? Or we could go out for lunch somewhere.”
She says it totally offhandedly, like she’s asked me to pass the butter out of the fridge, but I can feel the tension radiating off her.
I think about it for a minute. My brain can’t quite wrap around the idea of Mom with someone who’snotDad, but equally, the idea of them as a couple has been so toxic the past few years, this might be a breath of fresh air. And I guess it’s nice that she’s found someone?
I remember my chat with @runicrascal when he mentioned his dad being upset about the reality of an empty nest after he goes off to uni, and I decide this will be a good thing for Mom. For Dad, too, who’s apparently not dating anyone right now but is “opento the idea if he meets the right person,” proving that my “soppy romantic” trait isn’t something I only inherited from Mom.
“Yeah,” I say, and the nervous lines in Mom’s face relax away into a tentative smile. “I’d like that.”
Also file under things I’d like: to finally, FINALLY, get through season four ofOWAR.Now the chat with Jake (via Discord, at least) is well and truly back to normal, and as February slides in with sleet and pale skies and long nights and more time to myself, I spend a few evenings settling in to watch it properly. I have to try not to hurl my laptop at the wall or scream when Lady diSilver and the Moonwalker cross paths again and havethebest sexualchemistry and tension I’ve ever seen onscreen, or when Daxys, now a palace guard again, comes across Roach being interrogated in the dungeons about the rebellious Rascals.
Jake obviously receives my every thought and reaction about the show via Discord. I wait for him to suggest a proper watch party again, so we can sit down and share the experience together, but he never does, and I’m not quite brave enough to ask him. I still have a lot of making up to do, and I don’t want to fracture the friendship we’ve begun to rebuild too soon. Especially with him being somehover text. It’s hard to know where the line is now, and I can’t risk it.
Plus, those watch parties might involve Max, and…I’m not sure how I feel about that. Beyond the flicker ofsomethingakin to the warm fuzzies that I try not to think too hard about.
One boy drama at a time, please.
Saturday night rolls around and I’m up to the finale of the show. It’s pretty much caught up to the books at this point, and from what I’ve gleaned in the Discord threads, this episode is another “doozy.”
Still, I’m inno waybraced for what unfolds.
At last, the main cast has assembled. Daxys broke Roach out of the dungeons and they stumbled across the Moonwalker; Téiglin has banded together with Rogdan and the Rascals, along with a couple of his fellow forest creatures from the Gilded Glade; Lady diSilver and Devon have been traveling with a trio of goblins and a blind, aged blacksmith dwarf who forged the Eldritch King’s crown. Everyone has met up and joined forces, shared theories and legends and answers, and put their magick together, and now they’ve found the Eldritch King at last.
I can’t help but hold my breath, laptop balanced on my stomach and phone poised, half forgotten, in my hands. Wasn’t the whole point of this convoluted plot tofindthe Eldritch King so he can be restored to his throne and save the realm? What more story can there possibly be after this, to warrant atleastanother season and what’s rumored to be three more books? There’s only seven minutes left. Maybe they’ll end it on a cliffhanger of everyone walking into this hidden cavern in the woods, but they won’t actuallyfindhimyet?
Even as I think it, the cast spill into what can only be described as a sort of throne room, bowing and dropping to one knee before a throne made of white birch with roots tangling into the ground and branches weaving high. The pale, wizened man upon it seems like he could be made of the same bark; the makeup department have really knocked that look out of the park.
“O King,”says the Moonwalker, and Lady diSilver cuts him a look, irritated he beat her to the punch.“Long have we searched for you, and finally destiny has led us all here, to restore you to your rightful place.”
Téiglin whispers to Rogdan,“He’s even older than you are. I didn’t think that was possible.”It earns a few snickers from the Rascals, and a long-suffering but fond eye roll from the grizzled man with his broken glasses.
Lady diSilver pitches in,“The realm is dying, my liege, and a new age is upon us—one of bloodshed and anarchy—if we do not stop it. You are the only one who can save us all.”
There are similar weighty comments from some of the othercharacters, and the Eldritch King’s pale, milky eyes sweep over them all. He finally opens his mouth, and I wait for the inevitableOf course I will help,or whatever, but instead all that comes out is a bone-chilling laugh that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. His eyes turn black, his mouth gapes open too widely, and the flesh seems to rot from his skin, the birch-tree throne creaking and snapping around him.
@mythicwitch
WHAT
