Chapter 13
After dinner, I looked at my poor, neglected loom leaning against the wall. It had been a long time since I’d woven something, but after thinking about it last week … I couldn’t get it out of my head. It would be fun to make another scarf, wouldn’t it?
Impulsively, I cleared off the top of my dresser—okay, all the stuff went onto my bed—and placed a few yarn cones up there.
Then I took a picture. But it looked boring and bland under the overhead light, so I turned that off and brought my bedside lamp as close as I could without ripping out the cord, held it out awkwardly with one hand, and took a photo with the other, then collapsed a little.
Unfortunately, that shot wasn’t good, either, on account of straining to hold both the phone and the lamp. It was … blurry.
I put the lamp on the floor, then went out and knocked on my sister’s door.
“Hang on a second,” she said—not to me. When she answered the door, her headset was on, her game running in the background. “What’s up?”
I peered at her screen. She wasn’t currently battling dark forces; her character was just standing around in a capital city. “Can you hold my lamp for me?”
She stared at me, but when I didn’t explain, she just said, “Uh. Sure?”
“It’ll only take a minute,” I promised.
After she excused herself to her game friends, she came to my room and looked from my cluttered bed to the lamp to the yarn on my dresser. “Ah.”
It took closer to two minutes, but I got several shots at different angles, and at least three photos that weren’t cat barf. “Thanks,” I said as she was leaving.
“Any time, weirdo.”
I sat on my floor and edited the photos until I had one I actually liked, with golden lamplight glowing softly against the red, green, and blue yarns. The wood surface of my dresser shone like honey beneath them. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.
I saved the photo and sent it to Knight.
Knight Errant:
Pretty! But … what’s happening?
Me:
Meet my weird hobby!
Knight Errant:
String volcanos?
Me:
Weaving!
Look, here’s my loom!
It was not a good photo of my loom, but all the parts were there: the rectangular wooden frame with the front and back beams, the heddles (which moved threads up and down), and the shuttles (which held yarn for the actual weaving part).
Knight Errant:
I have a LOT of questions. How does this work?? Are you going to weave something??? Are you going to document the process for me?
And most importantly
WHY TELL ME NOW?
Has are future best friendship escalated?
Me:
Are you SURE you want me to tell you how this works? I can monologue about it for a long time!
Knight Errant:
Yes PLEASE monologue!
Me:
GOOD.
And yes I think our future best friendship has escalated! We’ve been future best friends for almost a week!
Knight Errant:
Wow you are RIGHT!
Tomorrow is our week-a-versary!
Me:
It seems like the right time
Knight Errant:
This is unironically so exciting!
Me:
YES! Okay, weaving. I always wanted to talk to my former best friends about it but they mostly weren’t interested except when I made things for them.
Well, maybe one was curious. But the others’ eyes glazed over like they were just waiting for me to finish talking so they could get back to their real discussion
And then I quit weaving because I guess it wasn’t cool enough
Frantically, I tried to unsend that. But it was too late. Knight had already read the text. And he was replying.
Knight Errant:
Dang. That’s a bad feeling.
I had kind of a similar experience last year.
My mom lost her job so I couldn’t do a bunch of the stuff I used to do because it was too expensive.
And when I stopped having activities in common with my friends … I stopped having friends, I guess.
Or I discovered I never had friends, only people who thought I was cool. I’m still not sure.
Me:
That sounds really lonely.
Knight Errant:
Yeah. That’s when I started writing my story, actually
And I guess that’s why I was so excited when you texted out of NOWHERE and you turned out to be someone my age who (presumably) lives nearby (we have the same area code, but I think it covers like five counties, sooo)
And you liked my art. That was great.
My former friends didn’t even care tbh
Wow, that hit home.
I sat on the floor (since my bed was still covered with dresser stuff) and let his words sink in.
In a way, Knight and I had the exact same story.
Because now that I thought about it, I’d built a whole separate world from my ex-friends—the library, reading, weaving—and I’d done my best to keep them from knowing how much I cared about any of it.
Like a deeper part of me had understood I couldn’t—shouldn’t—trust them with it.
That part had been right. But wow, no wonder Kat thought cans of tuna had more personality than me. She didn’t even know me.
Knight Errant:
Did I share too much?
Me:
No, sorry. I was just thinking
This month has been a social apocalypse for me
Fire rained down and burned me to a crisp
Knight Errant:
DARK??
Me:
Maybe
But … thinking about losing my friends in world-ending terms helped me
I know it’s weird
Knight Errant:
Oh nooowwww your first texts make sense
I thought you were just really interested in the Great Dying
Me:
I mean who isn’t
Knight Errant:
Fair, fair
Cardinal, do you want to talk about what happened with you?
Me:
No
Thanks, but … I don’t think that’s a good idea.
That was coward behavior, but the idea of telling him about my fight with the Four Takes, letting him know about “Deer Hill Dirt,” risking him reading all the mean stuff I’d said … I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want him to see me like that.
Knight Errant:
Okay. So … your weaving?
What are you making?
How do you get started?
I relaxed my shoulders. I hadn’t even realized they were up by my ears. It was nice of him not to try to force me to talk about it. He just dropped it.
Knight was kind. I wished I could be worthy of that kindness.
Me:
I’m making a scarf! Tbh I mostly make scarves. Sooo many.
Sometimes I think I’ll weave something else and ooops it’s a scarf
Don’t worry, I will send you pictures of my entire collection
But okay, are you SURE you want me to document the process for you?
Knight Errant:
EXTREMELY
Me:
Okay, I’ll send some pictures, but the first step is planning.
With math. I need to know how long and wide I want the piece (it’s going to be a scarf, so scarf size!), and I need to make sure I have the right number of threads—especially if there’s a special pattern I want on the scarf.
I’ve already done all that, so now I need to put the warp yarn onto the loom in a way that will make my pattern work right
Knight Errant:
This sounds INCREDIBLY complex!
Me:
It’s tricky at first, but once you’ve done it a couple of times, it starts to make sense
Knight Errant:
It’s kind of amazing to think about … this is how cloth is made! And how people have been making it for thousands of years!
And people all over the world were doing this complex math to make the right fabric for the right conditions.
Mostly girls probably huh? Women?
Me:
Absolutely!! Herstory!!
I peeled myself off the floor, fixed the lights (and clutter) in my room, and began warping my loom according to my plan.
As I worked, I took quick (mostly not good) pictures of the process and sent them to Knight.
By the time I was finished rolling the warp onto the back beam, it was late and Mom was knocking on my door for me to go to bed.
“Just a minute!”
Me:
I need to go in a sec. But what do you think??
Knight Errant:
This is amazing. And those colors!
What happens next?
Me:
Next I thread the heddles, tie it to the front beam, and make sure the tension is even.
Knight Errant:
Then you can start weaving?
Me:
Yep! I should be able to get an earlier start tomorrow—right after school.
Knight Errant:
I can’t wait to see!
Night, Cardinal!
Me:
Night, Knight!
After securing everything on my loom, I leaned it against the wall and went into the bathroom, where Victoria was standing at the sink, toothbrush working overtime.
“Talking to your text-door neighbor?” she asked around a mouthful of toothpaste. Then, disgustingly, she tried to do a sing-song voice like that. “How’s that going?”
My face suddenly felt like it was on fire. “Mind your own business.”
She snorted. Which was a mistake because she had toothpaste in her mouth—and apparently in her nose, because she made a horrible face and spit noisily into the sink. Her eyes watered. “Fine. Be that way. But if anything interesting happens, you have to tell me.”
“Is your face okay?”
She shook her head and rinsed again. “My sinuses are minty fresh and I hate it.”
“Does your Ivy League school know that you struggle with toothpaste?”
She wiped at her eyes. “Nope. And they never will. Not until it’s too late, anyway.” Then she hurried out of the bathroom.
I took care of my business—with zero incidents, thank you very much—and went back to my room, where Zooms was sniffing at my loom.
“Don’t nibble on my warp.” When she kept sniffing, I tossed a small blanket over the loom.
Not because I didn’t trust her. Of course.
But just in case one of the threads decided to jump between her teeth.
Then I crawled into bed and checked my phone before putting it on the charger. No notifications, but there was a badge on the messages app. Which meant someone I’d muted had texted me.
I bit my lip and looked.
Jess:
you haven’t responded so i guess you’re mad at me …
i don’t blame you
but just so you know, i didn’t have anything to do with that scroll
Me:
Why should I believe you?
UGH! I hadn’t meant to reply, but my thumbs had minds of their own.
Jess had always been the gentlest of the Four Takes, but that didn’t mean she was safe to talk to. She still sat with them at lunch. She’d clearly made that “Deer Hill Dirt” banner, and she was now lying about it. So she was obviously just fishing for information.
Jess:
you don’t have to believe me but i wanted you to know … they’re going to post something you never said
mh figured out how to edit a screenshot
i didn’t tell her how, i swear
they were just joking about it at first, but then kat said they should do it fr
i told them not to
it’s going up tomorrow so i wanted to warn you
i’m sorry i couldn’t stop them
Me:
Thanks for the warning.
My hands were shaking as I swiped away from Jess’s chain and found Knight’s. Before I could think better of it, a series of texts whooshed off. It was only as they filled up the screen did I realize what I’d said. What I’d done. How I might be ruining everything.
Me:
I need to talk to you
Sorry it’s late
Can I call you?