3. Ava
AVA
Nineteen days until OA Con
Empty. He thinks I’m empty.
Pressing a hand to my chest, I can’t deny the hollow ache that’s taken residence ever since the weekend’s closet debacle. A duck acting like a swan. He’s not wrong.
Admitting as much doesn’t lessen the sting, however.
Shouldering my way through the hallway, I make a beeline for my locker, in no mood to talk to anyone.
I’m still reeling from the fallout of my idiotic urge to talk to him.
Why did I do it? What possessed me to walk up to his table like I was anything other than the jerk traitor that I am?
You can’t just ignore someone for five years then pop over and say hi out of the blue and think everything’s going to be okay.
Good grief, I didn’t even have a follow-up ready. Just… hi.
At least I was saved from the humiliation of speaking.
A flash of silver catches my eye as I pass the school’s bulletin board, and I can’t help sliding my gaze over the glittering poster announcing this year’s prom theme: Seasonal Faerie Courts.
Each corner of the rectangular card stock is decorated with a different season’s aesthetic: cherry blossoms for spring, falling leaves for autumn, and so on.
An ivy-wrapped throne fills the center, with the faceless silhouettes of a king and queen in dazzling evening wear sharing its seat.
Saturday, May 6th at 7 p.m.
Tickets On Sale Now
I slow to a stop and sigh. I really should just give in and find a date already.
Mom is practically foaming at the mouth to go dress shopping, and Stasia has made it abundantly clear that she wants me there.
So what if formal dances aren’t really my thing?
Sure, I’d rather be at home crafting something, or curled up with a good book, but I’ve attended just about every one the district has had to offer since middle school.
Dressing up in a fancy dress and posing for awkward photos with some boy I’m not particularly interested in.
I’m used to it. And the look on Mom’s face when she waves us off is priceless.
It makes her happy, and isn’t that more important than a little disinterest on my end? Keeping Mom happy?
Nothing but an empty shell.
Declan’s words ring in my ears, and my cheeks burn from their blatant truth. And yet. He doesn’t understand the stakes. His parents are a perfect love match, living perfect lives. He could never understand what it’s like to be me. I’m the way I am for a reason.
A crinkled flyer peeking out from behind the prom poster distracts me from my inner rant, and a single word leaps off the page, drawing my attention like a moth to a flame: Otaku.
I pluck the paper from its corkboard home before I can overthink it.
Otakus Anonymous
Seattle Convention Center
Friday, May 5th – Sunday, May 7th
OA Con. That’s right. It’s always the first weekend of May. My heart kicks into overdrive as I stare at the colorful flyer, complete with both a red-haired anime girl and boy laughing while they slide down a rainbow Care-Bear style.
It’s been so long since I’ve gone to one of these.
Not since—the paper crinkles in my tightening fist—not since the one Dad brought me and Declan to at the end of fifth grade.
We had tickets to go the following year, had costumes prepped and ready, but then Phoenix Con happened, and Dad was just…
gone. Off on some sick honeymoon with his new wife.
By the time OA Con arrived, I was too busy cleaning up Mom’s trail of empty wine bottles to care.
And I still don’t.
Frowning, I try to stick the flyer back up on the board, only it was held up by staples that have torn through the paper when I impulsively ripped it down.
“There you are. What the heck happened back there? One minute you were getting up for a drink, the next you were just gone.” Stasia pops up beside me like a freaking jack-in-the-box, and I stuff the flyer in the back pocket of my jeans so fast I might as well hire a skywriter to spell suspicious over my head.
“Oh, hey,” I squeak. “I was just, um, going to check the gym’s vending machine. The one in the cafeteria was out of green tea.”
“You’re in luck, then,” a second voice says, and Tyler’s face appears behind Stasia’s shoulder. He holds up a bottle and tosses it my way. I fumble to catch it before it can hit the floor. “Snagged the last one,” he adds. “Green tea is my favorite.”
I hold it out to him, a nervous flush heating my neck as the flyer burns a hole in my back pocket. “I couldn’t possibly take it. It’s yours.”
Tyler shrugs, the casual move catching the eye of just about every passing female. A ripple of sighs follow as his mouth tilts up in a flirtatious grin. “We could always share it.” He winks. “My cootie shots are all up-to-date, I promise.”
A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat, and I practically shove the bottle into his chest. “Thanks, but I’m good.
I’ll, um, hit up the water fountain so…” A panic I can’t explain sends me backpedaling down the hall, much to the bemusement of Stasia, who watches me with those hawk-like eyes of hers.
I whirl around and walk as fast as I can without openly running.
It isn’t until I reach my locker and dig in my pocket for the flyer that I realize it’s fallen out. Lost to the busy hallway. The inexplicable ache in my chest deepens, and I trudge off to class feeling as empty as Declan claimed.
The house is quiet when I come home from school, setting my backpack on the counter and nabbing an apple from the fridge.
I toss it back and forth between my hands while I stand in the open kitchen, surrounded by a sea of ocean-themed tile and stainless steel.
The clock ticks as the apple slaps against my palm.
To heck with it. The bandage is already peeling. Might as well rip the thing off entirely.
Jogging up the hardwood stairs, my heart pounds in anticipation, even as my gaze bounces nervously around the second-floor landing. “Mom? You home?”
No answer.
She won’t be home until five. I know this, but still. I had to check.
I slip inside my room and—after a moment’s hesitation—press the lock on the brushed nickel doorknob. I want to get through this without the need to check over my shoulder every two seconds. Maybe if I just get it out of my system, I can move on.
Then perhaps I’ll finally be able to silence the echo of Declan’s words in my head.
The squish of the carpet beneath my stocking feet seems unusually loud as I pass the end of the bed, stopping in front of the closet door.
It stares back at me as if it knows exactly what I’m up to and is judging me accordingly.
This is ridiculous. There’s nothing illicit about looking through a box of photographs.
People scroll through old pictures on social media all the time.
I yank the door open and duck beneath the mass of shirts, skirts, and dresses hanging from the antique rod below the shoebox shelf.
After cleaning up the mess Saturday afternoon, I’d refrained from returning the checkered box to its former position, shoving it into the back on the floor instead.
A big old onigiri pillow smiles up at me from its place atop the hidden box, where it stands sentry as the guardian rice ball.
I give it a quick squeeze before pulling the shoebox out into the light and settling cross-legged on the floor beside it.
“Here goes,” I whisper, flipping the lid off. I automatically cringe back, waiting for the proverbial snake to strike, but nothing happens. Obviously. All I’m doing is psyching myself out over nothing. Taking a slow breath in, I pluck a photo off the top of the pile and simply look.
My heart melts into a pile of goo.
It’s a picture of me and Declan when we were seven, dressed as Spike and Radical Edward from the old space meets jazz-style anime Cowboy Bebop.
Declan’s dark hair is all floofed up with gel, and he’s striking a mean karate pose in his blue suit and yellow button-up shirt.
Meanwhile I’m dangling upside down from the playground’s jungle gym in a white tank top and a pair of black spandex, a stuffed corgi clutched in my skinny arms.
It was our very first time going to a convention together, our first official cosplay—assuming you don’t count matching Halloween costumes—but we were having so much fun goofing around at the playground for the photo shoot.
Dad had to practically bribe us to get in the car and go to the con itself.
Pocky was involved, if I recall. Lots of it.
I place the photo on the floor beside me, the old familiar hurt creeping in when I think of my father.
It was bad enough that he left Mom—left us—but he just had to go and make himself my hero before that.
Not only is he the voice of a myriad of awesome anime characters, making him the star of every convention panel he participates in, but he took me and Declan to all the local ones he could.
Which, looking back, must have been hard when we were young and dragging our feet after the first two hours, asking constantly for snacks and literally every piece of merchandise the vendor halls had to offer.
Not to mention, he had to keep his face hidden behind masks most of the time, so we didn’t get swarmed by rabid fans.
And it wasn’t just conventions. It was helping us with our costumes after school and watching Lord of the Rings marathons on the weekends.
Or even just snuggling up with me and quietly reading back issues of The Amazing Spiderman together.
We were the super nerds, the geeky duo (or trio, when Declan was involved).
And he just gave it all up because some woman in a Furiosa cosplay made him—and I quote—feel things.
And now that woman is my stepmom.
Becky.
Stomach souring, I push the box away with my foot.
Maybe it was stupid to open this thing up.
After all these years, I still can’t separate the culture from the cad.
The fandom from the fraud. It’s one of the reasons why I gave it all up in the first place, so I didn’t have to think about him and his new, perfect nerd wife.
Which, by the way—come on. If he wanted to marry someone just like him, why’d he even get with Mom in the first place?
She was a college cheerleader, for crying out loud.
She was in a sorority, and thought the Lord of the Rings referred to a famous Irish Riverdancer.
He knew all that going into the marriage, so why couldn’t he just be happy with what he had?
My phone buzzes with an incoming text, and a quick glance down shows a message from Stasia. But when I slide the lock screen away, it’s not her message my gaze flicks to, but one from earlier this morning.
Hey kiddo, it’s Dad. Hope school’s going well and all that. I have some exciting news to share, so call me as soon as you can. Or answer the phone. Either way.
Yeah, not happening. He can wax poetic about whatever “amazing career opportunity” he’s been presented with to someone else, thanks. I couldn’t give a crap.
Sighing, I toss my phone on the bed and move to put the photo I’ve set aside back in Pandora’s box. Memory lane is officially closed. Only…
I glance at the photo again, at Declan’s and my rosy cheeks and mile-wide grins. The ache in my chest squeezes tight, and I frown.
Declan was such an integral part of my childhood.
We learned to ride bikes together in the cul-de-sac when we were four.
At six, we built a giant cardboard replica of the houseboat from Tumble Leaf on my back deck and sewed fuzzy fox ears onto headbands so we could make believe we were Fig and Maple off on some scientific adventure.
When we were eight, we got to work digging an epic pit in Declan’s backyard, fully intending to make our own hobbit hole.
That plan got scrapped as soon as his parents caught wind, but still.
I can’t imagine doing any of those things with a little Stasia or Tyler.
Declan and I were a force of our own, and I let Dad ruin that friendship right along with everything else in my life.
I swallow, staring at the dark-haired boy with the bright green eyes. I miss seeing those eyes laughing at me from the adjacent swing, daring me to jump. I miss his corny jokes and slightly-too-loud ska music, and the way he always challenged me to push the limits. To do hard things. I miss…
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Will the ache away.
When that fails, I pad across the carpet to the head of my bed and slip the photo beneath my pillow.