Page 66 of The Fangirl Project
“I didn’t realize my friendships were any of your business,” Isnap.
Max scoffs.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Clearly, it meantsomething.”
His jaw works for a minute before he shakes his head and mutters, “Forget it,” and sets about finding himself a drink. He doesn’t bother with the washing machine ciders, but yanks open a cupboard to find a glass, and pours himself some Coke.
That ever-present tension between us is back, amped up, crackling and angry, making me grit my teeth as I wonder who the hell he thinks he is to try to pick apart my newly forged bond with Anissa, and what the hell that scoff was all about. It takes every ounce of my willpower to try to let it go.
Fine. Let him think what he wants. Let him hate me. See if Icare.
But I amnotgoing to let him spoil my night any more than Jake and Anissa and evenDaphnealready have. Eventually, they’ll run out of steam and come hang out with us again, and I don’t wantto be in a foul mood when they do.
For now I’m stuck with him. I guess I have no choice but totryto be civil, if I want to salvage this night.
Max, it seems, has the same idea, because although he leans against the counter a safe distance from me, his frown looks more perturbed than annoyed now, and I get the sense he’s trying to think of small talk that’s safer ground.
If that even exists; I don’t think we’ve managed to have anything resembling a normal conversation since we met.
This time, it’s me who breaks the ice.
“You’re not drinking?” I ask, nodding at his own glass.
Max shakes his head. “I drew the short straw.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out his car keys, gives them a little jangle, then puts them away. Then he tilts his head in the direction of a few other people clustered in the kitchen. “Just wait till later, I’ll suddenly be everybody’s best friend, even if they don’t remember my name and call me ‘Matt’ half the time.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
He locks eyes with me, and it’s so piercing that I almost flinch. “Should it?”
I think about Anissa, about my conversation with Jake in the Discord channel, about how desperately hardI’vetried to fit in.
It’s definitely a lot easier to chat behind the safety of a screen with theOWARfandom as a shield, but I swallow, my mouth dry, and dare myself to ask, “I get that ‘finding your people’ is important, but…you don’t think it gets lonely, alienating yourself like that? Being…”
Max waits for me to finish that sentence, and I cringe.
Altering course slightly, I say, “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
His lips curve into a wry smile. “I do okay. Why? Do you get lonely,notalienating yourself all the time?”
Yes. That’s why I can’t afford to lose what I do have.
I take a fortifying sip of cider and fight back a grimace at the sickly sweet taste. Gross. How does Jake enjoy this stuff? I wish Ginny had made it home for reading week; she would’ve given us some of that cheap rosé I actuallydolike. I don’t much fancy minesweeping any of the open wine bottles scattered around the kitchen.
I tell Max, “Sure, when my best friend is replacing me. But I do okay, too.”
Mostly. Sort of.
At least, I thought I did.
Max, as if knowing there’s a lot more I’m not really saying, huffs a small laugh and clinks his drink to mine. “Here’s to doing okay.”
—
Drinks in hand, we leavethe kitchen and go to the living room. I check that there’s no sign of Daphne before deciding to stay. There’s a big group involved in a noisy card game at a coffee table, with even more people clustered around to watch. There’s a vile-looking mixture in a pint glass in the middle of the table, and as we find a spot behind a sofa at the edge of the crowd to watch, someone pulls a card that makes everyone howl and jeer, and they slosh some of their own drinks into the pint.
