Chapter Nine Move in with Me #2
They rubbed out an incorrectly copied problem with their eraser, for the third time in a row, and frowned.
But what if Emerson was right?
Could Mal really just… move in? Make their own space? Their own rules? It felt so contrary to everything they held themself to that they still recoiled at just the thought, looking over their shoulder to where Mrs. Grimes paced the room as if they were about to get caught.
But they thought of the photograph of Prince Pringles and how nice it looked on the old desk.
They thought of the big gold-toned floor lamp they’d helped Emerson drag in yesterday and of the soft yellow glow it added to their corner of the room.
And they thought, too, of the light of Emerson’s smile when she encouraged Mal to move in with her, to make their space theirs.
Mal liked the idea of being in a theirs with Emerson, no matter how it was decorated.
“Give yourself about five more minutes on these problems,” came Mrs. Grimes’s voice, cutting through the waves of worries in Mal’s mind. “And then we’ll work them out together on the whiteboard.”
And like that, the problem on their page became the more pressing one. Mal would work out the other later, when the threat of public math humiliation didn’t loom large like their teacher in the aisle.
In the end, Mal didn’t really solve the problem. What they did instead was decide to acknowledge it, let it linger in the corner of their mind and tell them they were probably doing The Wrong Thing, and then bring a box of things to the back room anyway.
MixxedMedia was already a little against the rules, they figured, and so far nothing bad had happened. Maybe this slight infraction would go unnoticed too.
Today’s walk to the Haus proved even nicer than the one the day before: cooler but sunny, with soft rays of light filtering through the yellowing ginkgo trees and warming their cheeks as they went. Clutched in their arms was a cardboard Dollar City shoebox they’d carefully packed last night.
When they arrived, they scanned the mugs behind the counter, spotting Emerson’s pink cat easily and knowing it meant she wasn’t here yet.
Good, thought Mal. They wanted a moment to do this alone—just in case they chickened out.
Balancing a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and the box on their hip in the other, Mal headed to the back room.
It was brighter than they remembered it, with the sun shining through the colorful bunting strung across the windows.
The little rainbow flags looked like they belonged there.
Surely something so pleasant couldn’t be against the rules.
Before they could second-guess themself, before they could tell themself they shouldn’t, Mal got to work.
They plunked the box down on the desk and unpacked it.
Some of the items inside were purely decorative, like the Animal Crossing printout of Mal’s favorite character (a pink rhino who looked like she was made of shortcake), or the embroidery hoop Maddie had made for them, with a heart striped in the colors of the nonbinary pride flag.
Some things were functional: a few good red pens, Mal’s favorite Pilot G2s, which were worth the splurge at Target every time; some craft supplies from their house, which they thought might come in handy for working on the layout later this month; a wall calendar they’d found deep within the Dollar City clearance shelves.
It was meant to be their Collage calendar, and it still bore the scars of cancelation in scribbled-out notes across the bottom of the dates.
Though they now had a shared Google calendar with Emerson to keep track of Important Dates, Mal’s brain remembered things better when they actually wrote them down, so it felt correct to have a calendar here too.
But there was no place close by to hang it—just a painted-over nail on the far opposite wall, beside the out-of-place sink.
Mal frowned. That wouldn’t do.
And then, before they could tell themself it wasn’t Allowed, they fished in one of Emerson’s desk-supply mugs.
Among the mulch of debris at the bottom (old paperclips and dust and broken pencil lead) was an old pushpin, practical and clear and ready to be used.
Mal plucked it from the cup, a feeling of daring wiggling in their belly.
Leaning forward, they sunk the pushpin into the wooden frame of the window in front of their side of the desk.
With an odd little thrill, they looped the metal hanger of the cheap wall calendar over it, balancing it so it sat mostly straight.
It fit the wide frame perfectly.
Mal sat back and admired their work. The gold print of the calendar looked good against the bright white paint.
“Oh,” said Emerson, close and sudden enough that Mal jumped from the sound. Feeling caught, they snapped their head over their shoulder to look at her, waiting for a new rule to materialize.
But Emerson was only smiling, bright and toothy, and nodding so enthusiastically that the motion made her red hair bounce. “Good. I’m glad you decided to move in too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mal said, waving their hand like it was no big deal. But it felt like one, like a swelling of unfamiliar but exciting daring in their chest. They smiled. “I’m just trying to be punk rock, like you.”
“You know? It’s working. I like it.”
Mal nodded, though they weren’t sure yet whether they liked it too.
“Oh,” they said. “One last thing—”
Mal pulled out a mug of their own from the shoebox. It was plain white, except for a blue-printed silhouette of a cat in mid-jump and text that read CATFINATED in all caps. Maddie had gotten it for them last Christmas, and it had been Mal’s favorite gift in years.
Mal put it on the desk, then opened their to-go cup and poured its contents inside. Whatever didn’t fit, they’d add later.
“Oh, I love it!” trilled Emerson.
“Yeah,” Mal agreed, filling with a sense of pride that felt silly but still important. “I think it’s pretty cool.”
“I think you’re pretty cool,” Emerson said, and waggled her eyebrows.
That feeling swelled, making Mal both flustered and warm but not in an unpleasant way. They blinked at Emerson, then looked back at their mug. “We’re definitely going to need to get cat-finated to get through all the work we have to do today.”
Sitting down in her chair, her own cat mug overflowing with too-sweet coffee, Emerson nodded. “Did you see Kodi sent in her stuff? And she also sent this really cool art piece with it—I think we should run it.”
Mal frowned. They hadn’t seen that, actually. Between their two different e-mails, Mal worried that some things were falling through the cracks. And they still weren’t sure how they felt about running art. At Collage, it had been strictly against the rules.
Mal took a sip of their coffee, their favorite mug warming their hand, and glanced at the calendar on the wall. They could just see through the scribbled-out markings that Friday would have been the pitch deadline for the fall issue.
Grabbing a pen, Mal circled the last day of the month in red: the new date by which they and Emerson would need to have the zine finalized, printed, and put together before it went on sale on September 30. Mal considered.
“You know? I think we have plenty of time to make that work.”