Chapter 17
Jake isn’t very talkative in the days following Comic Con, and the Discord chat goes quiet too, only solidifying the need for my recent adjustment to The Fangirl Project—an additional, slightly sideways step that involves pushing Max totally out of the picture.
I try stalking his social media to find some bad takes—something that would prove Max isn’t such a great person after all—but there’s nothing.
His Instagram looks inactive, and I can’t find a trace of him anywhere else—no Facebook or Snapchat or TikTok, and he’s not even in the Discord channel that he first mentioned to me.
He must have some cryptic username keeping him anonymous—but there are so many Moonwalker/Sir Grayson–related names in the forum I don’t know where to start looking for him.
After school on Wednesday, I’m hanging out with the girls in a field near campus.
It’s cold, and the weather switches between light drizzle and a loitering mist every few minutes, but there are some guys playing rugby there, including one Daphne is sort of talking to, so we sit huddled on a picnic bench pretending not to look like we’re watching—or shivering.
I’ve spilled all (well, most) of what happened on the weekend to them in person now as well as in the group chat, avoiding any mention of OWAR.
Their reaction to Comic Con was exactly what I’d been afraid of, so I can’t let them find out about the fandom thing.
I’d be totally ostracized. It’s not worth it.
Besides, I’m only doing it for Jake.
Mostly. Sort of. Anyway.
Nikita suggests confronting Max. “He sounds rude as hell, too. I’d call him out.”
“Maybe you can tell Jake?” is Evie’s advice. “He’s super sweet, I bet he’d understand if you told him this other guy is being a pain in the butt. You can always call it a ‘personality clash’ or something.”
“But what if he chooses him over me?” I say, and she grimaces, not having an answer to that.
“Doesn’t this Max guy have other friends?” Daphne says, and I admit that I don’t know. Even if he does, it’s clear that he and Jake have become best friends and near inseparable these days. Like we used to be.
It’s Chloe in the end who says offhandedly, “Maybe he needs a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend! Maybe it’s not about spending less time with this guy so much as inviting him to more things and trying to set him up with someone, or finding out if there’s anyone he’s got a crush on that you can help him with? ”
I snort. “I don’t think I’m very well equipped to help anyone else with romance when I’m failing so spectacularly with Jake.”
“You’re not failing!” Daphne cries, reaching to give my hand a squeeze.
Her brown eyes are wide and earnest; the damp weather has made her usually pristine dark hair frizz in a halo around her head.
“He’s definitely into you. The kiss on the cheek?
Hello? Are we forgetting that? And he made that really cute Instagram post of the two of you!
Plus, you spent the whole day at Comic Con with him, and I don’t know many people who’d put up with a hall full of obsessive nerds just for someone else’s sake. ”
The others laugh, but I find myself biting down a comment about how, actually, I’d…kind of enjoyed it, up until we reunited with Max and I felt so pushed aside.
But Daphne’s got a point. Saturday wasn’t a complete failure; and maybe Chloe’s right, too, although where I’d even begin to set Max up with someone is beyond me…
—
Friday, our art lesson runs into lunchtime. The classrooms are always open during breaks for anybody wanting to come and work on their projects and portfolios and, today, I decide to stick around.
Evie packs her things up and comes over to the easel I’m working at, in the corner. And while I can hardly hide my coursework piece, a surge of panic rises up from the pit of my stomach, remembering how the girls reacted to Comic Con.
But when she gets close she gasps, and says in a tone of quiet awe, “Omigosh, Cerys! The way you’ve captured the light…it’s like it’s actually sparkling. How’d you do that?”
The comment makes me feel like I’m sparkling, too, positively glowing with pride.
Having moved on from my sketch, I’m focusing on the acrylic backdrop to my next Téiglin-inspired piece, and have spent most of the last week adjusting the sunlight streaking through the glade in my painting, trying to capture the magic of OWAR.
Or I guess, since it’s OWAR, the magick.
Suddenly, I don’t even mind that I’ve become the kind of person who actively thinks things like that.
“A lot of patience” is my only real explanation, and Evie laughs.
“You’re going to have to help me when I get around to mine.
I hate working with acrylics, but apparently I have to ‘expand my artistic horizons’ if I’m serious about getting into a good university course…
” She casts a glare over her shoulder at our teacher, but grins, relaxing, when I promise I’ll help her if she can give me some tips on working with pastels, which is her strength.
Evie looks at the paints still spread around me. “Aren’t you coming for lunch? Nikita’s driving us to the retail park, remember?”
“Oh, um…I actually want to try and finish some stuff on this. It’s nearly there, you know? You guys have fun, though!”
A tiny panic siren sets off in my mind, one that screams FOMO. Like if I say no to things they’ll stop inviting me altogether, and I’ll lose the group just when I feel like I’ve found my place with them.
But it’s only this once, and my agitation to get back to my painting wins out.
I haven’t felt this inspired in a long time, and for once I don’t feel like I’m finishing pieces for the sake of a good grade in class, or losing steam and abandoning them before they’re complete.
I keep finding my mind drifting to them, my fingers itching to reach for a pencil or paintbrush.
It’s like a fire in my veins, energizing me.
I’m worried if I don’t take advantage of it, it might disappear entirely.
Evie only shrugs, though, and says, “That’s cool. See you later, yeah?”
Once she leaves, I slip my earphones in and get back to work. I’m trying out the first Of Wrath and Rune audiobook, and even though I’m not giving it my full attention I’m sure something will sink in. Plus, the narrator’s voice is really soothing, so it’s at least nice background noise.
Right now, conveniently, he is narrating a very long-winded passage about the Gilded Glade, where Téiglin and so many other creatures have taken refuge since the Eldritch King went missing decades ago, and one of the few places where magick is kept sacred.
The book describes it just like it was in the show: shafts of golden light filtering through great oak trees and majestic pines, casting dappled shades of emerald and amber on the forest floor; a place where the world seems to almost stand still but for the rustle of leaves and lilting birdsong.
Fresh brown earth and vibrant purple mushrooms and crawling vines of ivy, clusters of pure white daisies and swaying dandelions with their puff caught in the breeze—“as if the glade itself were making a wish.”
The sudden mention of a dandelion has me gritting my teeth. I’d daubed a couple in, but now it only makes me think of that Just Dandy mug, and Max.
I swap out my paintbrush for a finer one, meticulously dabbing in the tiny grayish-white seeds floating in the air, and make wishes of my own.
I wish he wasn’t always lurking around spoiling things.
I wish Jake would see me, really see. I wish he’d kissed me on Saturday, I wish this didn’t feel like the be-all and end-all, I wish he’d just message me back already…
Jake’s been annoyingly quiet all week. He’s replied to most of my texts, but none of it has been with his usual enthusiasm.
It’s always curt, cursory, polite. When he didn’t reply to me asking if we’d be resuming our Wednesday watch parties, I went ahead and watched a few more episodes myself…
and then a few more. Even if Jake wasn’t inviting me over, I could still prove myself to him—and if I’m being totally honest with myself, I did get a little sucked into the show.
I’m up to season three now, the action really starting to kick off, but the message I sent Jake in the Discord to chat about it, thinking OWAR was some safe, neutral ground, got a similarly short response, so I didn’t bother after that.
Jake must have some stuff going on. Maybe with his family? Or school? Perhaps he’s just really busy, or not feeling too well, and he’ll be back to normal in a few days, and it’s nothing personal.
Or maybe I did something wrong?
There has to be a reason. Jake wouldn’t just…vanish. We’ve been best friends for too long for him to ghost me like this.
I’m so lost in my painting and mulling over every minuscule interaction with Jake and trying to pick apart where I’ve messed up or haven’t noticed something going on with him, that when the bell rings to signal the end of lunch I yelp and practically topple off my stool, knocking my bag over and dropping my paintbrush.
A couple of girls in the year above, who’ve come in to do their own work, giggle at me.
Face flaming, I pull out my earphones and set them aside, along with my palette.
I pick my paintbrush up and see that practically everything has spilled out of my bag.
A loose tampon, the lip gloss Daphne used on me a few weeks ago that I bought in a different color in the hopes it would suit me better, all my notebooks and some pens…
I’m shoveling it all back in, knowing I still need to tidy up and get to my next class, when someone steps over in a pair of lilac Converse and tights with a run in them, bending down to help me gather up my things.