Page 32 of The Fangirl Project
“What’s up?” Jake asks, noticing.
“My hair,” I say, then laugh because I don’t think he’ll understand. I roll my eyes and try to explain anyway, and Jake nods solemnly.
“Ah yes.” He tosses his own head, as if shaking out a long mane of hair. “I, too, know the struggle. Beauty is pain, my dear Cerys, and how we both struggle. It is simplynoteasy, to look as lovely as we do.”
My face warms and my stomach fizzes, but I’m all too aware of the interloper, dampening the opportunity for further flirting. Jake notices me glance over at Max and adds, “Alas, our tall, dark, not-at-all-handsome companion knows not of these pains, doeshe?”
“Cheeky bugger,” Max mutters, flipping him off, and even I crack a smile at that.
Now that he points it out, though, I guess Maxdoeshave the whole tall, dark thing going for him…And while he’s not conventionally handsome, not with that long hair, he’s…well, he’s not exactlybad-looking, I suppose. Really, I think, it’s not fair that someone that annoying and judgmental shouldn’t look as ugly as they are on the inside. Max’s full lips and dark eyes framed with thick lashes are anythingbut.
He’s a little shorter than Jake, but broader, more…filled out, sort of, and his white school shirt is undone a couple of buttons at the top, showing the rope chain of a necklace. Is it the same one he wore with his cosplay? Is it fandom-related, or something else, maybe more sentimental?
Aware that I’m staring, I tear my eyes away.
I feel too awkward to engage in the banter now—too awkward to flirt with Jake in front of Max, and I don’t know Max wellenough to poke fun at him without it coming off as mean—so instead I start taking my hair down, holding the hairpins between my teeth so I don’t have to speak. The boys turn to talking about Alfie the goalkeeper and his frenetic relationship with his girlfriend; apparently, there’s yetmoredrama there.
Jake and I wouldneverbe like that.
Whatever Max is saying, he cuts himself off mid-sentence—and mid-eyeroll, too—when he catches sight of me and turns his gaze more fully on me before letting out a loud, sputtering laugh he tries to hide behind a cough.
He fails miserably, blushing.
I sit up, indignant, and take the pins out of my mouth.
“What? What is it?” I scowl, but he’s still laughing, and when I turn to Jake his eyes blow wide and he lets out a snort, too, before making a show of hiding me from view so he won’t laugh. I scramble for my phone and swipe on to the camera to see, and—
Oh, crap.
My hair is amess.A huge, puffy cloud of pale blond sticking out around my head in uneven bumps and not-quite curls, so voluminous it stands out several inches—except for the extremely stubborn flat section on the very top where I’d slicked it down with heaps of product this morning. I look totally ridiculous. I watch in the screen as my cheeks turn a bright, almost glowing shade of pink beneath all my freckles and the makeup I tried to cover them with.
Jake’s seen me sweaty after an intense PE class, with some spots, or on a bad hair day, butthisis…
This is straight-up hot mess—easy on the hot.
Taking a page out of Jake’s book and opting for a joke so theycan’t tell how truly mortified I am, I whine, “You’re both horrible, the pair of you.Rascals.”
Jake laughs even harder at that, giving my leg a nudge and saying, “See, you’re getting into theOWARspirit! I knew you would! Ah, Max, I take it back—weare the hot, handsome ones here, it seems, not poor Cerys.”
Max, meanwhile, inclines his head low in an imitation of a bow, and drawls, “Here to service your rebellions and mischief alike, fair lady.”
God, he issucha dork.
I settle for just rolling my eyes at him and pull my frizzy mass of hair back into a rough, looser ponytail.
I redirect the conversation with Jake to the almost-abandoned group chat with our old school friends, where there are halfhearted plans to organize a cinema trip. I assume everyone’s just busy with school these days and that’s why we don’t talk as much. The longer the silences stretch, the more hesitant I am to reach out to any of them. It’s not as if they’ve reached out to me, either. Idomiss them, but I can’t tell how much of that is because I actually just miss the extra opportunities to hang out with Jake…
But he shrugs and says, “I’m not sure if I’m going to bother with the cinema, to be honest.”
“What? Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t speak to anyone except you that much anymore.”
I can only stare, horrified, because, while he’s right, I can’t wrap my head around his blasé attitude. He doesn’t even sound like hecares.
“But…but they’re our friends.”
“Yeah, I’m not saying otherwise, it’s just…you know…”
