Chapter Twenty-Eight A Change of Plans
After their Wednesday shift at Dollar City, Mal was ready to plan.
With two days until the meeting at the Haus, there was only a small amount of time between them and What Comes Next.
But instead of feeling rushed to figure it out, Mal felt like the amount of time before the meeting was too long.
As they walked home, the late-night Covington streets draped in a deeper dark as fall gave way to dreary Midwestern winter, they knew they should make some notes, prepare an outline for the conversation. And they would; they always did.
But the strange thing was that this time, they didn’t feel like they needed to.
Mal still carried Emerson’s assurance that all versions of them were Good in their chest like a glowing secret.
And while they still couldn’t commit to it fully, they did feel safe knowing that the version of themself who showed up for the meeting would be exactly the version they, and the team, needed.
Mal couldn’t remember ever harboring this feeling before.
When they walked through the door to their house, they were more than a little nervous about what a run-in with their mom might do to it, sure that she’d be able to sense it and would want to squash it.
But their mom was probably already asleep at this hour, and this close to Christmas, their dad probably wouldn’t be home until just before midnight.
So it was Maddie who Mal ran into, the blue glow of the TV illuminating her silhouette against the sofa. When the door closed behind them, she turned, a strange, soft smile unfurling across her face.
“Hey, you,” she said. “Want to watch this Christmas Baking Show with me?” After half a beat, she added, “Only if it feels like something you might like.”
Mal wasn’t quite ready yet to let go of the fall.
If they could have things their way, this season would go on for them forever, or at least until the end of November before Christmas swept in, all sparkles and shades of red and green.
But they weren’t wound down enough for sleep yet either, and some low-pressure time with their sister sounded like a good way to get there, so they said, “It does.”
Setting their Dollar City apron on the entryway dump table, Mal headed to the living room and sank onto the sofa next to Maddie.
Maddie immediately wiggled her toes to tuck under Mal’s thigh, then spread half her blanket over their legs.
She said, “I think this is the one where Harrold gets mad about his mincemeat and throws it in the trash.”
“A classic,” Mal said.
And for a while, that’s all they wanted to say. They watched the baking show drama unfold, nodding along to Maddie’s commentary—“She’ll get a soggy bottom if she’s not careful, see, this is why I would blind bake!”—and humming to the smooth, twinkling background music.
It was comfortable there, cozy and warm and the smallest bit tingly as Mal defrosted from their brief but chilly walk home.
With the glow of the TV in front of them, Maddie’s comfortable weight beside them, and the world outside the living room forgotten, Mal felt safe.
And while they didn’t feel Correct here with a capital C, like they did beside Emerson, they didn’t feel Incorrect either, the way they did so many other places—places they found themself when they were in the shadow of Maddie’s light.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Their voice was small—barely a whisper, easy to miss over the chatter of the baking on-screen.
“Always,” Maddie answered effortlessly.
“Will you be mad if I don’t go with you to University of Kentucky?”
Maddie bumped her shoulder against Mal’s. “I told you not to worry about that. You’ll get in. They’ll be lucky to have you.”
“I mean,” they said slowly, “what if I go somewhere… else?”
In the TV’s glow, Mal watched Maddie’s profile carefully. She blinked at the screen twice before asking, “Like where, Mal?”
They shrugged, trying to be casual. “Northern Kentucky University, maybe.”
Maddie waved her hand at the TV, where it turned out a baker did indeed have a soggy bottom. “But that would mean staying in Covington,” she said, still watching the screen. “You don’t want to stay here.”
“I don’t want to stay here, no,” Mal admitted.
They waved their hand at the house: at the pile of unopened bills on the kitchen table, the ancient windows that rattled with the night’s wind.
Maddie would understand, too, that Mal was waving at Dollar City, at Holmes down the street, and at their mom, whose light snores could be heard drifting down the stairs from the floor above.
“But I might want to stay in Covington.”
Maddie snorted a laugh.
Mal swallowed. “Or on campus, in Highland Heights.” When Maddie was quiet, Mal rushed on. “NKU has this Interdisciplinary Studies program that seems cool. It’s a double major where you’re basically studying zine-making—like this kid Sam, who works at the Haus.”
For a moment, Maddie was quiet, her face working through a series of expressions Mal could only see in profile.
It made them harder to decipher, but it looked like their sister was having a small battle with herself, figuring out how to react.
Finally, she looked over at Mal, her head tilted to the side, her expression unreadable.
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you? ”
The answer was no, they hadn’t—not all at once, directly.
They’d been too busy trying to keep up with everything else that had been falling apart, and coming together, in their life.
But in the stillness of the living room, with Maddie at their side, they picked up the thoughts that had been lurking in the back of their mind, beneath all the other Things they’d had to handle lately.
“Yeah, I think so,” they said.
Maddie fell quiet again. The only sound in the room was the twinkling background music of the baking show. Mal resisted the urge to wiggle along with it, like Emerson did to the lo-fi that was always playing in the Zine Lab.
“But we’re supposed to stick together, Mal,” Maddie finally said. “That’s the plan.”
How very right she was, without even knowing it.
Even then, the words pulled at Mal like they were in capital letters, their font size expanding on the page of their brain.
That was how it had always been: the two Flowers siblings against the world, or at least against the busy schedules of their parents and Mal’s penchant for forgetting homework.
It had always worked for Maddie, who had her soccer team and her successes. And it worked for Mal, too, but it was often lonely, even with Maddie at their side.
“I know,” they said, because they did. The Plan needled at them uncomfortably. “I just wonder what it might look like for us, if I make a different plan.”
“I mean, I’d miss the hell out of you, Mal,” Maddie admitted, looking curious. “Like, I don’t know what I’d do without you around. Who would I watch Baking Show with? And like, could I even play soccer without you in the stands? And who would I give my History homework to—”
“Okay, it’s fine, I’ll—”
“Wait, Mal, don’t—”
“I don’t want to make you mad,” Mal had started, curling harder into the blanket.
“No, don’t do that,” Maddie fussed, trying to gently pry Mal out of their ball shape. “Let me finish.”
“Okay.” Mal opened and closed their hands in their lap beneath the blanket so their nails bit their palms. They went quiet.
“Like, I would be upset! You’re my sibling and I’d miss you. But I guess—why do you think I would be mad?”
Mal shrugged. “I don’t know. Aren’t you?”
It was so hard to tell at times like this.
“Nope,” she said. “Sad, sure. But I think that’s mostly because you didn’t feel like you could talk to me about this.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Mal apologized in a rush. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, stop,” Maddie interrupted, frustrated. She took the same sort of breath Mal sometimes took when they were trying to center themself and clarified: “I’m not angry with you, I just want to understand—we can talk about anything, right?”
“Yeah,” Mal answered quickly. They wanted it to be true.
But… something new needled at them as they said it, something that came from the same secret place Mal had been keeping Emerson’s words all week.
Right now, Mal realized, they weren’t showing up for themself as their own best version—the one who sat at the left side of the editors’ desk, sometimes confident and sometimes scared but always doing things anyway.
“Actually,” they amended, making a note in their own margin. “No. Sometimes I feel like I can’t talk to you about things.”
As the words sank in, Mal watched something spread across Maddie’s face: a cracking, like the surface of an over baked biscuit. When her voice finally came, it was cracked too.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” The same question had been lurking at the edges of their mind, like their thoughts about NKU: undefined, but all around them all the time too.
“I mean it’s not always easy being your sibling.
I love you so, so, so much, and it’s so easy to love you because you’re a goddamn delight.
But there’s so much else that comes with that.
” Mal hurried to include the same reassurance they would need in Maddie’s place.
“None of it’s from you—it is not your fault—but you’re just so good at everything, and everyone sees that, and then they see me and they see how I’m just… not.”
“You’re great at things, Mal,” Maddie rushed to interject.
“And I know you believe that, because you’re Maddie.
” Mal looked at her, a little sadly. “But most people don’t, because anything I’m good at, I have to try really hard to be good at.
Or, no—that’s not right. Just that—the things you do automatically all the time, like your homework, or, or—brushing your teeth.
I have to think about those things, every time. We’re… really different.”
“We’re not different, Mal.” Maddie’s eyes glimmered strangely in the light of the TV.
“We are,” Mal said gently. It was a fact. “We’re wired differently, and that’s okay. But what works for you is different from what works for me.”
“But we’ve always done the same things,” Maddie protested.
“I mean, sort of?” Mal shrugged. “You’ve done things, and I’ve done them with you. And some of them have been really cool. And I absolutely love watching you kick ass on the field! It just… it can feel like you’re always winning the gold medal, while I’m just getting a participation ribbon.”
“You just haven’t found your thing yet, Mal.” Maddie’s voice was pleading. “You will. That’s what college is for.”
“I think I already found my thing, though,” Mal said.
The words rushed out of them, like they’d been waiting all this time and only now felt comfortable enough—here, under the blanket—to come out.
“I’m kicking ass with MixxedMedia. And it’s weird, to be doing my own thing after following in your footsteps for so long. But this is what I want to do.”
Even as the words left Mal’s mouth, they recognized the truth in them.
They recognized, too, that the person they wanted to say them to wasn’t the sister beside them but the woman who slept a floor, and a world, away.
But there was no version of their mom that would ever really see this version of Mal the way they were starting to see themself—even if they could find all the right words.
And part of them was okay with that. This version of Mal didn’t care as much about what their mom thought.
“But when you’re following in my footsteps, I can make sure someone’s always looking after you, that you’re safe.
” Maddie made a strange sound—half a laugh, half a choke.
“From people who don’t get you, or from…
” She pressed her lips into a thin line, and then finally said, “From Mom. Because she’s the worst. And if you stay here, and I leave, I won’t be here to pick up your shoes behind you. ”
Mal watched Maddie more closely. The look on her face was serious and sad and scared, with a shadow of something deeper Mal didn’t fully understand. But they thought they recognized shades of it, like maybe Mal cast a shadow of their own.
“I think I’ve found a plan where it won’t matter so much whether I pick up my shoes,” they said, and felt a little thrill at the thought.
Maddie blinked at Mal, her big brown eyes round and wet. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. “Does it make you happy?”
“So fucking happy,” Mal said, borrowing one of Emerson’s f-bombs and reveling in the truth of it. “I feel like I matter when I’m making zines.”
“You matter everywhere,” Maddie said, borrowing one of Emerson’s words too. “You matter to me.”
“I know,” Mal emphasized. “And you matter to me too. But I think… so do I? And so does this. And it feels worth seeing it through—even if that means only seeing each other on the weekends for a while. I don’t want to lose you.
Sometimes other people lump expectations and rankings and—stupid things on top of us. But you are always my sister.”
“And I love you,” Maddie said, quiet, insistent. “And that means I will always support you, no matter what that looks like. And I’m sorry I haven’t been doing a very good job with that lately.”
“It’s okay,” Mal said. “I haven’t told you about any of it.”
“But I haven’t asked, either,” Maddie said. “And I should have.”
Mal shrugged. “Well, you are now.”
“So,” Maddie said, scooting even closer to Mal. “My answer is no, I will not be mad at you, and yes, I will miss the hell out of you, but if staying’s what you want, then I want that for you too.”
“I think it is,” Mal said.
“Then it is for me too,” Maddie replied, and snaked out her arms for a hug.
Mal consented, wiggling forward to wrap their arms around their sister. They fit awkwardly but tightly, with Mal’s face pressed against Maddie’s strong shoulder, their nose scrunched up.
“I’m really proud of you,” Maddie said. And when Mal snorted into her sleeve, she reiterated, “I mean it. I’m so proud.”
It was not a word Mal heard often—from their parents, or their teachers, or, until recently, from themself. To hear it from Maddie, who had so much to be proud of, meant more to Mal than they could have expected.
“I’m proud of you too, duh,” Mal said into Maddie’s shoulder, and for a while they just stayed there, the warmth of that word hot in their throat and Maddie’s familiar scent in their nose. Then finally, through their squinched nose, they said, “Okay, I think we can watch Baking Show again.”
Maddie laughed and pulled away, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Ugh, I got your hair all wet. Okay, sure. Let’s rewind, though. Patricia got kicked off at the end of last episode, and it’s a good one.”
Mal smiled, patting the wet spot on their hair, and settled in to watch.