Twelfth Knight

15. Everything Trying to Kill You

Everyone’s abuzz at school leading up to State. It’s been promised to us since I was a freshman—Jack Orsino is the best running back in the state, mark our words, Messaline High is the team to beat, every single year for the last four years—and now, finally, it’s here. It’s hard at first, knowing how little I can really make an impact on the outcome of this game, but I do manage to put my ego aside, helping my dad run drills with the team and prepping Curio for the biggest game of his life.

“I don’t see how this is helping,” he says over the shouts of a diss track I’m playing on the speakers.

“Crowd’s going to be huge,” I yell back. “Might as well get used to not being able to concentrate.”

“Are you helping me or torturing me?”

“Both,” I assure him, as he shakes his head and goes long to connect with Andrews.

It’s the first time I can’t really lose myself in Twelfth Knight, or in wooing Vi. Helpfully, though, Vi isn’t the kind of person who needs wooing.

“Coming to the game on Saturday?” I ask her while we sort through projector cables, vaguely wondering if her answer will disappoint me.

“Ha,” she says, which does disappoint me, a little. But I always knew Vi wasn’t the cheerleader Olivia is, and it still doesn’t really change anything. Certainly not the way she makes me feel, or the time I’m willing to wait.

I also get an email back from Illyria, because of course when it rains it pours. The offensive coach, Williams, doesn’t say much aside from telling me he’d like to chat in person at State. It’s NorCal’s year to host the state championships, so we’ll be playing for the title at Illyria’s stadium. I wonder if he’s going to try to talk me out of something, or into something. I’m getting more comfortable with my decision, though—a little more so every day.

Illyria’s stands are packed with people, the energy in the air humming like stadium lights. I’m absolutely freezing and it’s awesome.

“Orsino!” Dad shouts, and yep, he’s Coach again, only I’m happy to be part of the team in whatever way I can today. I expect him to ask me to keep Curio’s arm warm, or play catch with the receivers or something before the game starts, but instead he waves someone in my direction.

Ah. So we’re doing this now, I guess.

“Coach Williams,” I say, greeting the Illyrian offensive coordinator with a deferential hand extended.

“Mr. Orsino,” he replies. “How’s that knee?”

Starting right off with a loaded question. “Coming along, sir. Ready to dig into my run regimen next week.”

He nods. “Feeling good?”

“Feeling really good.” I’ve been itching for it. “I’m ready.”

“Are you planning to stick with the same PT in the spring?”

I nod. “I believe so. My orthopedist has a lot of football-specific plans, so—”

“Otherwise, you’re welcome to transition to an Illyrian training plan,” Williams cuts in, which surprises me.

“Sorry, I… am?”

“Well, we like to think we have the best,” Williams jokes. “Here at our humble multi-million-dollar training facility.”

“Oh, that’s—” This is confusing, right? “Thank you, I just… I didn’t think—”

“Jack, there’s a place waiting for you at Illyria,” Williams says, looking surprised by my hesitation. “Were you not aware?”

“I… well, no, not really—”

“We respect your honesty and dedication to your training, Jack. Not every high school student is able to advocate so well for their long-term needs.”

I frown. “But if I do take the full eighteen months of recovery—”

“Redshirt your freshman season,” Williams says simply, meaning I can have academic standing, but not as an active player on the roster—a full year of college training with the team, but without putting my injured knee at risk. “Come back the following season ready to run for us, if that’s still what you want.”

It’s a solution so neatly, unimaginably perfect that I can barely believe it exists. I mean, I knew redshirting existed in theory, but for him to offer it to me now, after all the torment of wondering—

“Yes, absolutely, yes,” I blurt out, totally losing my chill for a second. “That’s… that’s an incredible offer, thank you—”

“Listen, a great player is more than a set of knees. We know you’re going to do big things when the time is right, or we wouldn’t have signed you,” Williams says. “But anyway, I’ll let you get back to the game. I’m sure you want to be there with your teammates.”

I can still hardly believe it. “Thanks! I mean—” I clear my throat, aiming for professional or at the very least calm. “Thank you, I really do appreciate it—”

He nods to me, giving my dad a nod from afar, and slips away in time for me to catch Olivia’s eye. Hard not to—she and the other cheerleaders have glitter all over them, like human disco balls, and she darts over to wave a shiny pom-pom in my face.

“That looked like good news,” she says, practically vibrating. “You still in?”

“I’m still in.” I could scream it, or sob it. “He said everything is fine. I can’t believe it. It’s, like, too easy.”

“No way, Jack. None of this was ever easy for you.” She smooshes the pom-pom into my face until I duck it, laughing. “Go, fight, win!” she bellows at me, and it’s nice, seeing Olivia this happy. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her let loose.

“How are you doing?” I ask her. “Audition prep going well?”

“Oh, Bash Reyes is a total drill sergeant,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “He had me rehearsing the same line in my monologue until, like, midnight. Oh, there he is!” she says, waving at the band section in the stands. “Speak of the devil.”

“Midnight?” Weird. Cesario and I were both online at midnight last night. I’m not really sure how someone goes around battling mages while also rehearsing monologues… though, I guess I’m also not entirely sure what that entails.

“Yeah, well… Oh my god, look who’s here! Vi—VIOLA,” Olivia calls, both hands around her mouth like a megaphone, and I whip around in surprise.

There she is.

She looks ridiculous. She’s bundled up in a woolen hat and a scarf and she’s grimacing next to someone I assume is her mom, and then a man who’s wearing a sweatshirt I’ve seen Andrews wear before—a youth group or something, so I take it that’s Pastor Ike. Olivia waves wildly, and Vi makes a face, sort of half oh my god stop and half ugh, fine as she grudgingly waves back.

I lift a hand, and Vi’s already pink cheeks redden.

So I wink, and she hurriedly turns away.

“You know what? I love this,” comments Olivia when I turn back to her, a note of amusement in her voice. “You couldn’t have picked someone more different from me, could you?”

Oops. “You’re not mad, are you?” I ask cautiously.

“No, god no.” She gives me a very Vi-like eye roll. “I think she makes way more sense.”

“You think Vi Reyes and I make sense?”

Just then one of the other cheerleaders barks for Olivia, who turns with a sigh, giving Vi one last pom-pom wave and me another omniscient glance.

“What?” I demand.

“You know what.” She jogs away backward. “Or-si-no, Or-si-no!” she chants, and for whatever reason—insanity, probably—the waiting crowd picks up my old cheer the way that only a crowd can.

“Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke—!”

I turn and lift a hand in the air as the cheer dissolves into shouts. My mom is screaming, because of course she is. I look over at my dad, who nods (he’s in the zone), and then I focus my attention on the person in the audience I’m happiest to see.

She catches my eye, smiling faintly, and I think she’s proud of me. I’m proud of me, too, and for a second of perfect freedom, I don’t need the winning TD, I don’t need the records, I don’t need a ring or a trophy to prove to me exactly who I am. It’s enough to be here, to take part; it’s enough that she sees me. It means everything to have come this far.

I hope you change me—I like to think you already have. That’s what I said to her.

What a relief to know that I was right.

The game is brutal from the first whistle. I know none of us wanted a start that ugly, but a fumbled punt return puts us at a disadvantage and Arden, an Orange County private school known for churning out celebrity quarterbacks, is a relentless opponent. The first half of the game is messy, and I would go so far as to say a mess. Curio’s head is everywhere, Andrews drops multiple passes, Volio can’t get more than a single yard before being pummeled by the Arden defense. We manage to hold them to a slim 10–0 lead, but morale filing into the locker room at halftime is bleak. Despite our perfect season, it’s clear right away that we’re suffering from underdog syndrome—nobody expects us to win, and the tide isn’t in our favor.

I wait for my dad’s usual Coach-isms. See it, make it happen. That kind of thing. Visualize the game turning around, turn it yourself. Big outcomes take big moves. But instead he stands up, tells everyone he’s proud of them, that this is a long way to come, that life doesn’t begin or end with a single football game. That sure, second place isn’t what they wanted for the season, but the best thing they can do is leave it all on the field. No regrets.

Then he looks at me, and before I know it, words are falling out of my mouth.

“Actually,” I say, “speaking as someone who really didn’t get to have the season they wanted, I’d like to say a few words. If Coach doesn’t mind.”

I don’t really know what comes over me until I’m already standing, but my dad waves me in like he figured I’d have something to say. Or maybe trusted that I did.

“Look, we’ve all seen the movies,” I tell my team. “We know that sometimes the best team doesn’t win, or the best-laid plans don’t work out. I happen to know that one wrong move can tear open a knee that’s perfectly healthy. We’re all a little f-messed up like that,” I correct myself quickly. “We’re always walking some line between triumph and disaster. And you can play this in your minds over and over—what if I’d done this, should I have done that?—but in the end, it doesn’t matter what you could have done. It matters what you do, and more importantly, it matters who you do it with.”

I pause, a little worked up now. “This team did the unthinkable!” I remind them. “We pivoted our offense for a perfect season. Our defense is a well-oiled machine that’s currently keeping this game from being a blowout. This isn’t about who’s the better team!” I add with a thump of my fist to my chest. “The team who wins is the team that has a good day, that’s all. But we make our good days. We choose how we are remembered. A mistake does not define us. An injury does not define us. A loss will not define us, but how we make our fate? That does. It doesn’t matter what kind of day Curio has, or Volio or Andrews or Aguecheek, it matters what day we make as a team, for each other. It matters how we choose to take the field. It matters what we see when we look at our possibilities. What we see determines what we are.”

See it, make it happen. It doesn’t apply to making your girlfriend love you again, but it sure as hell means something when it comes to yourself.

“The only thing you can control on that field is you,” I tell them. “So don’t give up on you.”

I step down from the bench, a little winded, and Curio stands up.

“Messaline on three,” he says, and I can see it already, the way his shoulders are a little squarer. This is your last chance, I think to him, strong enough that hopefully he can feel it. This is your last dance.

“One-two-three-MESSALINE!”

We break and jog back out, though Coach catches my arm.

“Jack,” he says.

When I’m on the field, I’m just another member of the team. But this time, when he looks at me like I did something good, I don’t need to be told. I understand.

“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him. “Really. For everything.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I shrug, and then to lighten the mood, I offer in my smuggest voice, “Think I’ve got a future as a motivational speaker?”

He gives me the usual look of Calm down, kid.

“Get on the field with your team, Duke,” he says.

“Yes, Coach,” I say with my eat-shit grin, and make my way back to the bench.

Curio throws deep, then Andrews runs for almost sixty yards. Touchdown, 10–7.

Arden is held to a field goal. 13–7.

It stays like that, stagnant, until the final thirty seconds.

“You sure you don’t want in?” my dad says. “One run play?”

I know he’s just nervous. “They’ve got this, Coach.”

Sure enough, Volio makes it through to the end zone after a clever call from Curio—a play almost identical to the one that tore my ACL. Thankfully, though, they’re both unharmed.

13–13. Special teams wastes no time securing the critical extra point, and with one second remaining, the scoreboard flashes:

14–13. Messaline wins over Arden.

From then on, the whole stadium is one big stream of chaos. The band rushes the field. The rest of the school follows. Curio gets handed the State Champion trophy and he gestures me over, the two of us holding it up above the crowd.

The same chant starts up again, only this time, it comes from my team.

“Duke, Duke, Duke—!”

I look up to find Vi’s eyes on mine, and in that moment, I make a decision. I’m gonna kiss her. Right now.

So I push through the crowd and I do.

“I knew you had a boyfriend,” Lola says smugly when we come over for dinner that week.

“Oh my god, Lola—”

“Your mother tells me it was very romantic, like a movie.”

It was, and I spent the whole car ride home reliving the shock of Jack launching himself into the stands just to kiss me, but that’s hardly the point. The way people suddenly started whispering is also not the point. The quality of the kiss? Epic, but irrelevant.

What was I saying? The point is—“Mom did not say that.”

I read one of her most recent columns, curious to see if her relationship with Pastor Ike (he does not take offense to this nickname, which makes it a little less fun) has changed anything about her usual feminist overtones. Turns out she still thinks we should eat the rich and that women of color will ultimately save the world. So yeah, she may be in love, but not much else about her use of language has changed. She’s not suddenly Snow White or something.

“I can read between the lines,” Lola sniffs, which is confirmation that she made it up.

“And Jack’s not my boyfriend, he’s just—”

“The guy she’s currently lying to,” mutters Bash in an unusually derisive tone from where he’s sitting at Lola’s dining table.

There’s a loud sound and a burst of light from his laptop, and he grimaces.

“Okay, seriously?” I walk over to look at the screen, which he tries to hide from me. “You see how you just got killed again? That does not happen to Cesario. Like, ever.” I take the screen from him, frowning. “You’re still in the trial combat rounds? Bash!”

“First of all, of course I am,” Bash informs me at a mutter, “and secondly, this is pointless.”

“I don’t like these computer games of yours,” comments Lola from where she’s stirring the arroz caldo, a chicken soup that she’s insisting we need because she thought she heard Bash sniffle. “Too violent.”

“Lola, there’s people stoned to death in the Bible,” I remind her, and then to Bash I point out, “There’s no way Jack is going to believe this is you.”

“Uh, spoiler? I KNOW,” snaps Bash, flashing me a look of accusation.

A wave of frustration sweeps through me; Bash is on my case again today. I thought I’d already won him over on doing me this particular favor, but apparently there are limits to Bash’s philanthropy. “You said you’d help me, did you not?”

“I am helping you! That doesn’t mean I’m magically good at this,” he grumbles. “The last video game I played was, like, Pac-Man.”

“Okay, that’s—” I press a hand to my forehead. “Twelfth Knight is an RPG. Pac-Man is, like, a friggin’ arcade game—”

“LOLA,” explodes Bash, storming to his feet. “Tell Vi to go pray the rosary or something. She looks all devilish again.”

“You need to stop getting so overexcited, anak,” Lola calls to me, which is incredibly unhelpful. “Not good for your heart.”

“Lola, I’m seventeen, I don’t have heart problems—and as for you, Sebastian—”

I shove him back into his chair and start a new combat round. “Okay, so I feel like this is obvious, but try to make sure the other knight doesn’t stab you this time.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re an incredibly gifted teacher?” Bash mutters.

“Just focus, please?”

“I want to meet this boy,” Lola announces.

“No,” Bash and I say in unison, which surprises me until he adds, “It’s not going to last, anyway. Vi is lying to him.”

“Some lies are healthy,” says Lola. “Keeps the peace.”

“She’s catfishing him on the internet,” Bash clarifies with a pointed glance at me.

“Bash, focus—”

“Vi’s a pretty girl, Sebas,” Lola says. “Don’t call your sister a catfish.”

“Thank you, Lola,” I tell her, watching Bash’s health drop to yellow. “What did I say about not getting stabbed? And I’m not catfishing him, I’m just—”

“Pretending to be someone you’re not?”

“Bash, pay attention, you’re going to—!”

Boom, he’s dead. The screen flashes with his latest defeat and I sink into the chair beside him with a grimace. “Are you being this bad on purpose?” I ask with a sigh. “Like, because you want to teach me a lesson or something?”

Bash gives me the closest thing to a glare that Bash is capable of producing. “Do you think I enjoy being bad at this, Viola? Believe me, I do not. And might I remind you that I agreed to do this as a favor to you—”

“Okay, sorry, sorry,” I say quickly, before he launches into some Hamlet-inspired soliloquy. “I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m nervous, that’s all.”

“You’re nervous?” he bleats. “You’re not the one who’s going to look stupid in front of the entire school—”

“It’s not the entire school, it’s just—” I hesitate, knowing that with all the effort Jack put into hyping people, this tournament is about to sell more tickets than the homecoming dance. “Okay, it’s sort of well attended so far, but that’s only because Jack is promoting the hell out of it—”

“Heaven,” Lola corrects me from the kitchen.

“Not really the vibe I was going for, Lola,” I call back.

“Vi,” Bash says twitchily, “you’re really not helping—”

“All right.” I exhale, taking a deep, conflict-resolving breath. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s fine. It’s fine, okay? We just have to work on a few things. Some tactics. We just have t—”

“Vi.” Bash cuts me off with a wearied look. “Can I take a break?”

“I mean, I feel like we’d be more productive if—” The expression on his face stops me in my tracks. “Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, of course,” I say in a forcefully positive voice that I never use except for when Bash looks like he’s going to kill me. “After dinner we can try again?”

“Yeah, fine.” He pushes the laptop away. “And I’m really not trying to screw this up for you, Vi. I mean it.” He gives me a long look—one that I can’t quite interpret. “You get that, right? That I’m trying to help you?”

“Oh, Bash, I’m…” I trail off, because yeah, he’s right. Bash would never do that, ever. He’s a better person than me, times a million, and as hard as it is to puncture Bash, I get why he doesn’t want to do this, like, at all. He’s used to praise, to being naturally talented at things, and this is just not in his wheelhouse.

“Bash,” I offer in plaintive reconciliation, “I really am grateful to you.”

“You’d better be,” he mumbles.

“I am, I promise—”

“Because it would be way easier if you’d just—”

“I know. I know.” But I’m practically breaking a sweat just thinking about it.

The truth is that yes, contrary to how it might appear, I do care that I’m lying to Jack. I care a lot; more than I expected. I know he’s going to be angry because I would be, too. He thinks he knows who I am, that I’m the kind of person who wouldn’t keep secrets from him, who would only do things if they were right…

And I wish I didn’t have to prove him wrong.

Jack: you ready to prep the gym tomorrow??

Jack: I know you must be pretty sick of being impressed by me

Vi: please

Vi: don’t hurt yourself on all this humility

Jack: there’s that classic viola charm

Jack: so glad finals aren’t draining that cheery wit

Jack: (no but seriously, can’t wait to see you)

He’s going to hate me. When he finds out exactly who I am, he’s going to absolutely hate me. I just need to get through the tournament that means so much to him, and then…

I don’t know.

“Everything okay?” Bash asks, arching a brow, and I hurry to put my phone away. The last thing I need is for Bash to know that I think he’s right. He’ll get completely insufferable.

“It will be once I can get you to stop embarrassing yourself,” I assure him, and we bicker until Lola tells us to start eating before the soup gets cold.

Finals week is a disaster.

Not because of finals. Those are fine. I’ve had my notes prepped all semester and Olivia makes a great study partner. But unfortunately, one of Bash’s weaknesses is that he… doesn’t deal with stress all that well. And his ineptitude at Twelfth Knight?

VERY stressful.

“Are you even listening to me? I said use your sword and don’t—Oh my god, Bash, do not do that—”

“STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!” he bellows.

“Okay, but if I don’t tell you what to do, you don’t know what you’re doing—”

“YOU CAN STOP REMINDING ME,” he says, “I AM AWARE.”

“Hey, kids?” says my mom, poking her head in. “You’re not actively killing each other, are you?”

“Not yet,” we shout in unison.

“Delightful,” she replies. “Snacks downstairs when you’re ready!”

It continues like that until the day of the tournament, which is a Thursday. I’m in the gym setting up the stage (we thought it’d be fun to display the chairs with usernames on the backs so spectators know who is who on the screen) when Bash comes in looking for me.

“Vi,” he says fretfully. “Vi, I’m… I don’t know if I can do this.”

I adjust the sign with Cesario’s username, trying to figure out how to play this. “Sebastian, you’re fine. Everything’s fine. You just have to play one round and then if it goes badly—” (Oh, it’s for sure going to go badly.) “We’ll just tell everyone you have food poisoning or something.”

In fairness, he does look extremely ill.

“Oh my god, I’m sweating,” he babbles to me, pulling out his phone. “Like, really sweating. It’s bad sweat, Vi. It’s stress sweat—”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m texting Olivia. I need her to run her scene with me so I don’t spontaneously implode—”

“What?”

“Shakespeare relaxes me, Viola!” he bellows at me, to which I obviously cannot argue. As usual, he looks like he might say something else, but again—frustratingly—he doesn’t. Instead he turns away, but I reach for his arm.

“Bash, listen.” I let out a sigh. “I know you hate this—and I get that, really. I know you’re not happy with me about any of this—”

“You do?” He squints at me.

“Well, I mean… it’s not like you’ve made it a secret,” I mumble. He’s been on the verge of yelling at me for what feels like weeks, maybe longer. “And look, I know I messed up,” I add, more adamantly this time. “I lied to you about Jack—”

“Mm-hmm,” Bash says profoundly, in something of a sung chorus.

“—and I was mean to Mom, and weird about Pastor Ike—”

“Correct,” he confirms, ticking off his invisible ledger.

“—and now I’m forcing you to do something embarrassing or whatever,” I say with a roll of my eyes, “but I really just—”

“Hang on.” Bash jerks so unexpectedly out of my grip that it startles me into silence. “That’s what you think this is about? You think I’m worried about being embarrassed?”

“I—” I stop, considering where on the ledger I might have gotten tripped up. “I mean,” I attempt at levity, “I think my alleged crimes against your hummus are kind of overblown—”

“No. No, hang on a second.” He turns to face me, squaring off like we’re in the ring. “Do you really not know why I’m upset?”

Okay,I sigh internally, here we go. I thought Bash had already come to terms with what I did—you know, because he’s Bash, and he sincerely did seem to think it was funny—but I guess I always sort of wondered whether I was due for a bigger reckoning. “Bash, I know it was wrong to say I was you,” I say, guiltily inspecting my feet, “but I swear, I was honestly just—”

“Oh, screw that, Vi.” I blink, shocked into meeting Bash’s eye again. “You think I care that you used my name? That you pretended to be me? Come on,” Bash scoffs, visibly repulsed that I could be so wildly off base. “That’s nothing.”

I gape at him, completely incapable of following the thread of this conversation. “If that’s nothing, then what—”

“Are you serious?” He folds his arms across his chest, his brow now furrowed so deeply I’m concerned he’ll give himself a migraine. “Is it really this hard for you to figure it out?”

Apparently so, which is doing nothing for my temperament. “Bash,” I grit through my teeth, “would you stop being so cryptic and just tell me—”

“All I wanted,” Bash suddenly explodes at me, “was for you to come to me. That’s all.”

“What?” At first I assume I misheard him. Then I’m just confused. “Wait, come to you for what?”

“For anything.” He gives me a plaintive glance. “Viola, come on. Don’t you get it?”

I know he’s my brother and for obvious (genetic) reasons I know his face like it’s my own, but sometimes he manages a look that’s so open, so impossibly honest, that I can’t believe we’re even remotely related.

“You were hurting,” he says, his hands falling to his sides in helpless surrender. “You’re hurting, and you could have told me. I would have been there for you. I tried to be there for you, Viola, so many times!”

“I—”

I don’t know what to say to that, because my mind suddenly treats me to an unsolicited flashback reel—a moody key change, followed by a montage of the past three months.

(Bash cheering me up about the ConQuest group.)

(Bash asking me if I’m okay after RenFaire. After Antonia.)

(Bash trying to get me to talk about my feelings.)

(Bash forgiving me for my mistakes without a moment’s hesitation.)

(Bash being there for me, even when I push him away.)

(Bash accepting me. Bash believing in me. Bash dreaming up adventures with me. Bash making me laugh when I don’t even want to smile.)

(Bash sitting in the car with me, telling me I’m worth loving, that I’m worth liking. That I’m something better than cool.)

“And you know what the worst part is?” Bash asks me, punctuating my internal revelation with a pained look of frustration and disappointment. “I know you think people suck, Vi, but that wasn’t supposed to include me. You know?” Bash shakes his head, and my stomach roils with pain. “You act like you’re alone, but you’re not. You’ve never been alone. You just didn’t want to choose what I had to give you.”

I swallow, something hot pricking dangerously behind my eyes.

“But this—” Bash swings a hand to reference the Twelfth Knight stage, as if he’s suddenly remembered the more pressing issue of me and my tyrannical schemes. “This is using me, Vi. You’re just using me, and I—”

He shakes his head again, defeated. And then, as if there’s nothing left worth saying, he turns resignedly away.

“Bash, wait.” I struggle to find my voice as Bash strides off toward the gym doors. “Just… Bash!” I call after him helplessly.

My feeble attempts to pause him fail, obviously. And what would I say to him, even if he did stay to listen? He must know that whatever the right response is, I don’t have it.

“Damn,” I whisper to myself, wincing a little through my guilt.

Because he’s right, of course. Of course he’s right. I’ve literally never been alone. Bash used to routinely crow “… and we were wombmates!” in my face to the point of utter madness (mine), so why did I feel I had to take everything on by myself? Even if Bash couldn’t fix my problems, he’s still always been there for me, and I’ve always taken him for granted.

For a moment, my own selfishness stings. Because I used his identity, and him, without ever acknowledging the truth: that he would have just given it to me—given anything to me—if only I’d asked.

Just before Bash disappears from view, I officially become the worst person in the world by noticing the definite wet spot on his back. It’s totally stress sweat, but what am I supposed to do now?

Inwardly, I sigh. I’m just relieved I had the foresight to send Jack to deal with the pizzas. Whatever needs to be fixed, I can do it. I’ve always done it.

“Everything okay?” I hear behind me, and instantly wince.

Spoke too soon.

It’s not Jack, so you’d think that would mean it’s not the worst case. But it’s Antonia, so the pinprick of hurt in my chest tells me it’s not not the worst case, either.

Looks like she’s been brought in to help with the projectors, which makes sense. We used to do this sort of thing together, once upon a time.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I turn away, ready to push past her and pretend to be doing literally anything else, but she pauses me.

“Vi, I just—”

She stops, chewing her lip.

“Can we talk?” she asks, looking troubled. No, looking sad. Looking like she really does need me, which is the SOS I would have known in a past life not to ignore.

Part of me is desperate to say no. Part of me? Ha, no. All of me.

But I also know that I dip my french fries in chocolate milkshakes and mix my candy corn with pretzels because Antonia loves sweet with salty. She might have started listening to ’70s pop because of me, but I love the Studio Ghibli films because of her. I went to MagiCon for the first time because Antonia convinced me to go with her, and I auditioned for the Renaissance Faire because she told me she’d do it if I did. I’ve never been afraid to wear outlandish costumes or even run for ASB office because Antonia always told me I could do it. Everything I love or have loved has traces of Antonia all over it, and even if I’ve had to spend most of this semester without her, she’s still there with me. She’s this fingerprint on who I am and what I do and where I go, and as much as I wish I could burn this bridge and stop suffering the ways she made me feel small, I don’t actually want to be someone who causes her pain.

“Yeah, sure.” I gesture. She nods, and we walk around the perimeter of the gym.

“So, um.” She folds her hands together. “This weird thing happened with Matt.”

“Matt Das?”

“Yeah. He, uh. He was kind of like… pushing me. Like—” She looks askance guiltily. “Pressuring me.”

“You mean, for like…?” I brace myself. I think I already know how this story ends; it’s a version of the same story I tried to tell her a few months ago. But as vindicating as it might seem, I really hope it goes differently for her.

“Yeah,” she confirms uncomfortably. “And, like, not that I wasn’t… It wasn’t that. I mean, it almost was. But it was more how he reacted, when I…”

She falters, cheeks flushing red.

“Said no?” I offer, because unfortunately, I do know a version of this story.

“Yes.” She exhales it out in a rush. “He just got really mean, like I wasn’t giving him something he—”

Another pause.

“Deserved?” I guess.

“Yes.”She’s adamant now. “Like he thought because he’d been nice to me—”

“You owed him?”

“Yes! And then he said—” Her cheeks turn slightly pink. “He said that maybe I was a bitch like you, and I said—”

This time, I don’t fill in the blanks for her.

“I said I wished that were true, because you knew a lot sooner than I did what kind of guy he really was,” she finishes abruptly, and then she stops, like she’s waiting for my reaction.

People are starting to filter into the gym, trickling in gradually for the event, so I gesture her to the door and we step outside for some quiet, both a little chilly as the wind whips by.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry,” she says.

I wait for something to happen. The earth to shift, I guess. I wait for triumph or validation or something, for the cosmic synchronicity of confirming I was always in the right, but even against the shameful backdrop of Bash’s confession, all I can feel in this moment is… relief.

Not just relief. Catharsis. As if suddenly—finally—I can set the pain down and breathe.

“I’m sorry, too,” I say, and I am.

She gives me a grateful half smile. “Things are probably different now, though. Aren’t they?”

“I guess so.” I tuck my hands into my jacket pockets.

“Right.” She stares into one of the many Messaline campus planters while I inspect my shoes.

“But different doesn’t have to mean bad, right?” I ask quietly.

From the corner of my eye, I watch her shift a glance to me.

“Larissa Highbrow casts a friendship healing spell,” she says.

My smile twitches.

“Astrea Starscream takes a critical hit,” I reply.

We turn to face each other.

“So. What’s wrong with Bash?” she says.

“Oh, god. Uh. It’s a long story.” I could easily lie and say it’s just Bash being Bash, but this secret has burned through enough of my conscience already. “There’s, um. There’s maybe… something going on. With me and Jack Orsino.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole school knows that,” she says, and I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, but… you know how I play Twelfth Knight?”

“Of course.”

“I guess I never mentioned I play as a boy. Like, as a male knight. Named Cesario.”

“Oh.” She tilts her head. “I mean, makes sense.”

“Right. Well.” Deep breath. “Jack plays too, with Cesario.” I clear my throat. “Which is me. But also not me.”

“Oh my god.” Her eyes widen. “He doesn’t know it’s you? At all?”

“No, he has no idea. But then he signed Cesario up for this tournament, so…”

She looks at me blankly, waiting, and I sigh. “Well, I had to do something, right? I had to find a boy who could conceivably be Cesario in real life, so—”

“Oh my god,” she says again, one hand flying to her mouth. “So you’re trying to pass off Bash as you?”

“Yes.” I grimace, and she frowns.

“But Bash is, like, a disaster at gaming. He’s hopeless.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you even—?”

“Temporary insanity?”

“Dang,” she says, whistling. “You must really like Jack, huh?”

“I don’t—” But I stop, because the look she gives me is the one that means Don’t bother, I already know you’re lying. It’s annoying, but there’s that feeling again: relief.

I really, really missed my friend.

“I don’t know what came over me,” I admit with a grumble. “Probably a severe head wound.”

She shrugs, rolling her eyes at my expense. “I keep telling you he’s really hot.”

“That’s not… that has nothing to do with this,” I protest.

“Oh, it doesn’t?” she says skeptically.

“I mean—”

“HA!”

“Look,” I sigh, cutting her off before she can make it worse. “I just need to get Bash through this, and then… I don’t know.” I kick at the sidewalk. “This whole Jack thing was bound to fall apart anyway. I’m, like, very me. And he’s very him.”

“He seems to like how very ‘you’ you are,” Antonia says drily. “And contrary to things that certain people might have said while they were angry, you are… not really so bad.” She bumps her shoulder with mine. “In fact, I always liked you.”

“Until a boy changed your mind?”

She groans. “Okay, okay, not my finest move, I get it. And it wasn’t—”

“I know it wasn’t.” This wasn’t really about a boy. Certainly not in the classic sense.

“The thing is, you don’t have to always push people away, Vi.” Antonia looks at me squarely. “You don’t have to assume they’ll leave.”

“You did.”

“You shoved me out. And anyway, I came back, right? People come back.”

“He’ll be pissed,” I sigh.

“Yeah, probably.”

“I deserve that.”

“You do. But has he ever asked you to be something you’re not?” she poses to me. “Because if he has, then he isn’t worth it. And if he hasn’t, then I don’t see the point of not being exactly who you are.”

I’m about to answer when someone else calls my name.

“Hey, Vi?”

I turn to find Olivia poking her head out from the gym. “Oh, sorry,” she says, noticing that Antonia and I are talking. “Want me to give you a sec, or…?”

I glance at Antonia, who shrugs. “We’ve got lots of time,” she tells me. “Maybe we can meet up over break? The ConQuest group kinda fell apart,” she adds sheepishly. “Leon and Danny Kim were getting on everyone’s nerves. So if you wanted to play again…”

“Sure, yeah. Yeah, maybe.” I nod, and she steps back, acknowledging Olivia with a thoughtful half smile before she wanders back to the gym. It’s been gradually filling up during the time I’ve been out here with Antonia, and I can already hear the buzz of the projector, the tinny sound of speakers coming to life with the Twelfth Knight theme. I can hear Jack’s voice on the mic, too, though instead of being soothing, it’s like the start of a countdown in my chest. Seconds ticking before a bomb goes off.

“That seemed promising,” Olivia comments, flipping a look over her shoulder at Antonia’s retreat. “You guys okay?”

“Getting there. What’s going on?”

“Oh god, um. It’s Bash.” She winces. “It’s just… he’s freaking out.”

“I know.” I echo her wince with a grimace. “I know.”

“He kind of told me the whole story,” she adds, and hastily continues, “which, no judgment, right? I’ve told some lies too, so I get it. But I figure maybe you might want to hear what someone once told me when I was feeling a little… not myself.”

She gives me a knowing look, and I shrug, resigned. “Why not? Hit me.”

“You told me that if I decided to be myself, I wouldn’t have to be alone,” she says simply. “Neither will you.”

But,I think witheringly.

(Plus a thousand flimsy excuses that have been holding me back for weeks.)

“It’s a little different when someone else’s feelings are on the line,” I attempt.

“Yeah, but better a late truth than another timely lie, right?” she prompts me, and I think again how my mom was right about connecting with people. About forgiving people and letting people in. I understand it a little bit more every day, like something slowly taking root.

Because whatever pain love brings me, I wouldn’t give it up for a second. Not for a single irrational beat of my ravenous heart, so even if I’ve made mistakes with Bash, and with Antonia, and especially with Jack, it’s not too late to do things differently.

Because Jack Orsino may think I’m helping him, but maybe thanks to him, I can do him one better.

I’ll let him help me.

“Okay,” I sigh. “Okay.”

Olivia smiles her brilliant cheerleader smile, steering me toward the gym.

“That’s the Vi Reyes I know,” she says, and gives my shoulders a squeeze.

It was Jack’s idea to do a practice round before the tournament to let the others orient themselves to the game, and I walk in just in time to see him frowning with confusion at Bash, who’s been completely demolished, while Bash refuses to look anywhere but his keyboard.

Ultimately, there’s nothing like watching my twin brother look like he’s about to pass out to convince me that I absolutely need to intervene. Like, now.

“Hey.” Ignoring the voices of confusion around me, I trot up the platform stairs to tap him on the shoulder. “Come on. I’ll do it.”

Jack’s brow is furrowed, but I can’t look at him right now.

“What?” Bash croaks.

“Come on, you look like a ghost.”

“Remember me,” he whimpers, never too vulnerable to skip the theatrics.

“Hamlet, really? I knew you’d go tragedy.” I nudge him again. “I’ve got this, Bash. Thank you.”

The look that passes between us is one I’ve known forever. It’s a precious, wordless exchange of I’m sorry and I forgive you. It’s equal parts I love you and I know.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He fumbles out of his chair, stumbling down the platform, and darts right for Olivia. The others in the tournament—all boys—frown at me, beginning to whisper among themselves, but they don’t matter. I calmly pull out Bash’s chair to take Cesario’s seat across from Jack, who is looking at me very strangely.

“What are you doing?” he says.

I reorient the keyboard to suit my preferences, adjusting the chair. My Cesario avatar fills the screen, flashing in wait, and there it is. The truth.

The real me. No more secrets, finally.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Jack. “I hope you’ll let me explain.”

He blinks. His eyes flicker with calculation, then narrow. If he hasn’t already figured it out, he will soon. I know his confusion is slowly giving way to betrayal, just like I know that this will be a long, difficult day.

But for once I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything, and that feels good. As good as knowing I’m about to lose him can possibly feel, anyway.

“Ready?” I ask.

He looks at me like he’s never seen me before.

“Let’s play,” he says bluntly, hitting Start with the click of a mouse.