Page 99 of The Fangirl Project
It’s better.
—
Eventually, though, we’re interrupted byAnissa, popping out to eye us both awkwardly. “Er, are you guys…?”
She leaves it dangling:okay, coming back in, all sorted now?
She looks at Jake, first, and seems to read something in his expression. “Did you tell her?”
“Yeah!”
Anissa breathes out, smiling, and he lets go of me to let her give him a quick, fierce hug. I hear her whisper, “I’m so proud of you,” and it’s a very real reminder of how close they’ve gotten since November.
It doesn’t feel so much like someone stealing my best friend, though, more…like an expansion. Widening, to include all ofus.
And then she turns to me, and she’s cringing, nose scrunched up and thick eyebrows twisted at odd angles, mouth in a grimace. “So…you werenottalking about Max earlier.”
“I…” I was? I just…didn’t know it? Or I wasn’t at all? Idon’t have an answer, so I settle for an exasperated “You should’ve toldme!”
“I thought you knew! I mean the two of you talkallthe bloody time, and I was new to the Discord, butIknew who he was! Why wouldyounot know? I got used to thinking of him as Runic whenever I mentioned him in conversation, and we were obviously talking about the same person…And you kissed him! You had this whole thing and then you kissed his face off and then said you just wanted to be friends! I don’t know!”
“Apparently I didn’t know,” I say, and Anissa clicks her tongue, rolling her eyes at me.
“If I’d said something, maybe this whole…” She gestures at the two of us. Atme.“Maybe you wouldn’t have told the wrong guy you were falling for him.”
“Oh, you’resquarelyat fault here, this is one hundred percent on you,” I joke, but then it hits me—what she said, what I did. Max.Max.I told him after the kiss I just wanted to be friends, and then I stood in front of him tellingJakeI had feelings for him—wasfallingfor him—and…
“I have to talk to Max.”
Jake and Anissa raise their eyebrows at each other.
Anissa says, “He already left.”
“But I have to—”
“Cerys,” she says, “come inside. Everyone’s here. Text him, tell him to come back.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if he never wants to see me again? What if—?”
“He’ll come,” she tells me, and sounds so certain I can’t find it in me to argue. I have to remember that it’s not only Jake she’s built a friendship with in the past few months; it’s @runicrascal, too. Max. “Come on. We’re just about to start a game of Settlers of Catan. I’ll show you how it works.”
Private chat with @runicrascal
@mythicwitch
Max, please come back to the board game cafe. We need to talk
(Oh God, that sounds really breakuppy, doesn’t it? I promise it’s not)
I know you’ve given me a lot of chances already, and I’m sorry I’ve squandered them, but it’s because I didn’t realize it was you I was talking to. Please, please give me one last chance
Well, I’ll be at the cafe till closing, if you can make it, if you want to talk. Until the end x
(*Until eight o’clock—I don’t want to miss the last train home. Bloody Sunday schedules)
34
Anissa was right to makeme come back in; even with no reply from @runicrascal, akaMax,I’m suitably distracted by all the rules that come with playing Catan, trying my best to keep up with Anissa, Andreas, Jake, and Heather in this nerdier, more strategic version of Monopoly. Luckily, not too many people overheard the details of my entire heartfelt confession to Jake, but they caught enough so that now everybody knows I have, essentially,You’ve Got Mail–ed myself.
