Page 96 of The Fangirl Project
But I can’t put aside the past few months and everything that’s changed and grown between me and Jake over the Discord for a single kiss.
For Max.
Jake’s holding on to my elbows, and he falls quiet to let me speak.
“I was scared that I might lose you as a friend, but now I’m understanding how ridiculous that is, and I thought it was all just some one-sided crush, but it’snot.Is it? Because we—I mean, we are friends, aren’t we, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? That’s what all this has been about, right?” I gesture between us, my heart racing. My smile is nervous, but I can’t help letting it spread across my face, and my voice sounds a little steadier when I carry on. “The eighty-seven missed messages gushing about a season finale, and staying up till midnight swapping theories andtalking,properlytalking—about our families and school and uni andeverything.Analyzing why we love certain characters so much because we relate to them a little too hard! And—and being the ‘newbie’ and the ‘rascal,’ and I know things have changed between us, and we don’t always talk like we used to, but—it’s changed for the better, hasn’t it? And we—what I mean is—”
Oh God, I’m going to do it, I’m going to actually really finally do it—
“And it’s not just a crush anymore,” I say, and drag my eyes from Jake’s collar to his face as I say, “because I’m falling for you.”
But even as the words leave my mouth, my brain registers that something about this is off—andnotbecause none of this is like I would’ve imagined last summer: in a tightly packed board game café surrounded byOf Wrath and Runenerds.
Because Jake’s mouth is slack and his hold on my elbows is loose, and it’s not that there’s a spark of hope in his gaze or a twist of regretful rejection in his eyebrows, it’s…
The completely, utterly blank look in his eyes.
“Cerys,” he says slowly, and my smile falters. “I don’t…What are you…?”
He’s not rejecting me…
…because he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
There’s a small, strangled noise from just behind him, and that’s when I notice the wide eyes, flushed cheeks, and speechless, stunned, confused look—onMax’sface.
And, suddenly, it all falls into place.
Truce? Truce.In the Discord chat. Through the bathroom door.
The way he kept calling me “newbie.”
The admissions about being defensive of his fandom.
Mentioning football or school or the sister at uni, and I alwaysassumedit was Jake, but—but it wasn’t, was it? Because Max shares the same classes, and is on the same football team; he has an older sister at uni too.
Being sobotheredby how upset I was about Jake and Anissa at the party, likewehad a connection of our own, enough for him to care about my feelings.
Talking to me about how I was afraid of being judged and liked, like he knew what he was talking about, like I’d told him—because Ihad.
The times he scoffed when I said something about the show or the characters, and I thought he was being disparaging and didn’t believe I was genuinely invested, but he was probably just reacting to something he already knew, like it was blatantly obvious already, and went without me saying, and…
Oh my God.
It’s not Jake.
It was never Jake.
The shock sets in, turning me cold all over. My body doesn’t feel like mine; it’s leaden and heavy and when I fall back half a step, I see Jake’s hands drop back to his sides more than I feel it happen.
I’m not even sure which of them I’m talking to when I say, “You’re not Runic Rascal.”
Jake says, “Who? Cerys, what’s…?”
I force myself to look at Max.“You are.”
Max gulps. Audibly. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down in a hard knot, his jaw clenched so tight now that it strains all thetendons in his neck. He inhales sharply, but again, doesn’t manage to say anything.
“Oh my God. Oh, I—I don’t…” Another step back. Another. I bump into a table, and there’s a clatter of some game pieces toppling over. Someone asking if I’m okay.
