Page 24 of Do You Ship It

Nobody comes to knock and tell me to hurry up because they need to use the loo, so I don’t feel too guilty for hunkering down with my back against the bathroom door. Jake and Anissa are probably still downstairs realizing they’re soulmates, Daphne’s probably gone home early like she said, and Max is …

Well, who cares about him, anyway?

Me, I do . Just a bit.

Not because of the arm around me and the breath on my neck or any of that, but – because I know I shouldn’t have said that stuff. That I was out of line. That, even if there is a bit of truth in it, I had no right to say any of it.

My first proper house party is turning into a right royal shitshow. My new friend has abandoned me, my best friend has replaced me, Daphne’s definitely going to kick me out of the group, I’ve yelled at the one other person I know, the host and his friends will think I’m boring for not joining in their game –

– and now I’m shut up in a toilet in the dark because I couldn’t find the light switch.

Brilliant.

Stellar work, Cerys, this is exactly how it always goes in the movies. Gold star, kid. You’re nailing it.

I unlock my phone. There are some notifications waiting for me – a few things in the group chat, the other girls telling me to have a good night and tell them how it goes with Jake, demanding outfit pics I forgot to send earlier. There are some from Instagram I ignore, and a few Discord ones I’m about to click on when I see an email. It’s from the website I posted my fanfic on. Someone’s left a comment.

UGH, THE SCENE WE NEEDED! THE SCENE WE DESERVED! LOVE ITTTT. Are you writing any more fics???

My heart gives a funny somersault, and I cradle my phone for a moment, smiling at the screen, this random internet stranger making me feel a little better. I grab a screenshot to send to @silversmithhh, aka Heather, who I know will freak out with excitement on my behalf. Someone liked that silly little thing I made! Someone else feels like we were robbed of a ballroom dance between Lady di Silver and Devon! They get me!

Heather isn’t online and doesn’t see my message, though, so I spend a couple of minutes scrolling through the latest messages in the main chat when I notice one that’s like a punch in the gut.

It’s from Anissa, a few hours ago. I hadn’t checked the chat while I was waiting for her to arrive, and then we were too busy getting ready. There’s a reply, too. I stare at them for a while.

@ladyanissadishipper

Ooh, sounds like fun @thesebootsweremadeformoonwalking! And good luck with that birthday party from hell @fauningforhim, hope your gluten-free cupcakes turn out okay. I’m off to my first proper party tonight (erk, talk about scary!) but at least I’ll get to meet @runicrascal properly!

@runicrascal

Excited to hang out with you! Glad Cerys was able to introduce us! Been nice having another book fan to debate with haha

Have Anissa and Jake been … talking, in Discord? Privately? Have they been messaging before meeting in person today?

He wants someone to talk about the books with, which obviously isn’t me.

Ironically, The Plan has worked.

Just not for me.

A knock on the bathroom door startles me and I fumble my phone, turning off the screen even though nobody can see it – or see me spiralling.

‘Just a sec,’ I call.

‘It’s me,’ the voice on the other side replies.

Max.

Why is it Max?

Surely I’m the last person he wants to talk to? Is he here to demand an apology? It doesn’t … It doesn’t sound like it. I mean, it’s not as if he hammered down the door, and his ‘it’s me’ sounded quiet, not pissed off.

He must need the loo. It’s the only explanation.

But as I start to drag myself to my feet, there’s a sound on the other side of the door like he’s … sitting down. The light spilling in beneath the door is sliced with a shadow, and I realize he has sat down. We’re back to back, with just the door in between us.

The noise of the party is muted, up here.

‘I’m sorry,’ Max says. ‘I thought I was helping you out.’

‘You did,’ I mumble. It’s a little easier to admit that in the dark, without him right there . It’s a little like talking to Jake over Discord, actually. That same sense of detachment and distance, allowing for a little more vulnerability. ‘I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said any of that stuff.’

There’s a beat before he says, ‘That’s really how you see me, huh?’

The fact I hesitate is all the answer he needs, because I hear a mirthless chuckle on the other side of the door. The wood creaks slightly, shifts behind me, as if he’s leaning further into it. I hear a muffled, soft thump like he tips his head back against it.

‘Is this the part where you try to tell me you haven’t been judging the hell out of me since the first moment you met me?’ I ask, even if my heart is a nervous hummingbird beating against my ribs, and my fingers preoccupy themselves by picking at the label on my bottle of cider.

‘Can you blame me? You didn’t exactly do a good job of pretending like you cared about anything at the Worlds Beyond con except for Jake. You were obviously just there to hang out with him, not because you had any interest in OWAR.’

‘Um, excuse you, but I’ve watched the show . I started the audiobooks. I – I made fanart, and … and stuff. And you still –’

‘Got defensive,’ he interrupts me, but it’s matter-of-fact, not argumentative, and I’m shocked by both the evenness of his tone and by how much his words remind me of what Jake said in our Discord chat the other week. No wonder they’re such good friends; they have so much in common. Max goes on, ‘I didn’t think you were serious about it, and … Of Wrath And Rune means a lot to me.’

‘It’s more than just “some stupid fantasy series”,’ I say, echoing what Jake said online. What I said I was starting to understand. But I can’t resist biting back at Max, ‘I didn’t realize being deadly serious was a requirement for being a fan – even if you do a very good job of embodying that. People can like something in a different way than you do, you know.’ Now, I’m thinking of another Discord chat – and what Heather/@silversmithhh told me after I admitted I couldn’t bring myself to wear the cosplay.

‘I think I just thought it was …’ He sighs. ‘Kind of performative . You just seemed …’

I raise my eyebrows, even though he can’t see it, daring him to finish that sentence.

He does, saying, ‘Clearly, other people’s opinions of you matter a lot more than what you think.’

‘If this is your way of trying to convince me you’re not a self-centred prick …’

‘I don’t think it’s self-centred to want to live my life on my terms, not some … prescribed, conventional rubbish that I don’t care about, or doesn’t make me happy. Cosplaying and being into this nerdy fantasy series isn’t hurting anybody. I don’t see why I should have to push it aside or pretend it doesn’t matter to me just so other people accept me better.’

When he puts it like that …

‘It –’ he starts, and falters, and my ears perk up. I turn my face towards him – or towards the door, rather. Straining, I hear the stilted, ragged breath he draws. I imagine him running his hand over his hair.

I wonder if it feels as soft as it looks.

Finally, he says, ‘You were right. It does get lonely sometimes. D’you think I didn’t get bullied for being such a nerd? For – I don’t know, for everything . For wearing my hair too long, for reading too many books, daring to be a decent left-wing and earn a place on the football team when I was supposed to fit this mould everyone else designated for me, for being interested in stuff at school, for … And I … I tried, once. For a while. I cut my hair, I stopped trying in class so much, I did all the things everyone else told me I was supposed to be doing.’

Wore the right clothes. Got the right school bag.

Got off the bus at the right stop before school to bump into the right classmates.

Max must be finding it easier to talk without having to fully confront me, too, because this is more than I ever would’ve imagined him saying to me otherwise. Half the time, he talks around me and won’t even look at me. Normally, that would annoy the hell out of me, but right now, it feels … different.

Like we’re on level ground.

And I want him to keep talking.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

I imagine him shrugging. After a beat, Max lets out another of those curt, dry barks of laughter. ‘I was miserable as sin, what do you think happened?’

‘Oh.’

‘I still got bullied, but at some point I just thought, fuck it, why am I even bothering?’ His voice rises, gets heated, but it’s still not angry. It’s something else, something that makes me wish the door wasn’t between us and I could see the look in his eyes. ‘Why should I make my life – make myself – smaller for their sake, when it didn’t change anything anyway? If they were going to pick on me, I might as well enjoy myself. My dad’d say, “They’re just jealous,” or that they’re dissatisfied with their own lives, but I don’t know how true that really is. I just figured that I didn’t want to waste my life pretending I didn’t care about the things I do care about.’

He falls quiet, and I’m too frozen to do what I really want to, which is reach for the handle and open the door. His words bounce around inside my head, and I remember the way he walked around the cons in full cosplay, how unbothered he was. I thought he was being superior and all up himself, but … maybe it’s not that after all.

Defensive , he’d said, which checks, but also maybe he’s just …

Confident. Himself.

I wish I could be a bit more like that.

‘You’re right,’ I tell Max. ‘That’s not so self-centred.’

‘Sorry if I made a dick of myself by judging you.’

‘Sorry if I did that to you, too.’

‘Truce?’ he says, and there’s a smile in his voice.

‘Truce,’ I agree. Then I say, ‘It wasn’t … I mean, I don’t think I’ve been totally fair to you, either. To be honest, I’ve been … really jealous of you.’ The words taste like ash, and I press the cold glass of my cider to my forehead, hunching over my knees. But I’ve said it now, I’ve put it out there, I might as well carry on. ‘Because you and Jake got so close so fast, and I thought we were best friends, so I felt really pushed out. Maybe I did go a little harder on the OWAR stuff at the beginning when I wasn’t actually that into it, to try and make up for that.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘But I think I was … maybe a bit harsh to you, because it was hard for me.’

After a moment, Max says, ‘Like at Comic Con.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, like then.’

‘Cerys,’ he says, and his voice pulls all consonants in my name into something soft and enticing. ‘I wasn’t trying to steal him from you. I mean … you do realize that, right?’

‘Yeah. Obviously.’

Ish. Sort of. Not really.

I must not sound very convincing, because he laughs again.

‘You’re impossible,’ he informs me.

‘I do my best.’

‘D’you wanna come out of there yet?’

I shrug, debating it. I should get myself together, go downstairs, join in with the party, try to find Jake and Anissa, maybe even Daphne if she’s still here somewhere …

But I also know that the second I open the door, I’ll end up face to face with Max, and that suddenly seems … like a lot. Like too much.

There are goosebumps all along my arms, and I hug my legs a bit tighter into my body.

No, I decide. I am not ready to leave yet.

Rather than answer him, I say, ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘What’s the deal with the necklace? The one you always wear. Is it part of your cosplay?’

‘It’s … I mean, yes? No. Both? I got inspired to make it because of OWAR, and it fit my Moonwalker cosplay, but it’s …’

There’s something raw in the edge of his voice that prompts me to say, ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

‘Nah, it’s okay. It just sounds kind of stupid.’ He laughs, self-deprecating, in a way that makes me think it’s the very opposite of stupid. ‘So they don’t make it as obvious in the show, and I don’t know if you’ve gotten to this part in the books, but the Moonwalker wears this pendant to remind him about his mission –’

‘An arrowhead from the attack that killed his family, yeah.’

‘Right. And – well, my dad’s always wanted us to do well with school, worked hard to make sure we have the opportunities he didn’t. I remember when me and my big sister were little, he took us to the zoo one time, and obviously we wanted to go mad in the gift shop –’

‘The best part of any day out,’ I agree sombrely.

‘But things were kind of tight, so he took us over to one of those pressed penny souvenir machines. He got us to make a wish while we turned the crank and this tiny, crappy piece of copper felt like magic , you know? Way beyond anything else we’d have found in the gift shop. It turned into a bit of a tradition whenever we went anywhere, or what we’d come back with from a school trip, and we thought they were so cool. Me and my sister had this whole collection. I kind of forgot about them until a couple of years ago, and found this box full of them, and I realized this really fun memory we had with our dad was … you know, his way of trying to make the best of things when they were tough. So I drilled a hole in one, to wear. It’s … I don’t know. It feels like a good luck charm, or something …’

He trails off a bit quietly, a bit awkwardly, a lot uncomfortably.

My hand shifts, even though I can’t reach for him from here. It lands next to my side on the floor, empty and cold.

‘That’s not stupid. That’s really sweet, Max.’

It makes me wish things were different with my parents. It makes me wish I were different – that I could have some mature, inspired, grown-up take on why they act the way they do, like Max had about his dad and those pressed pennies.

I inhale deeply through my nose, but it ends up sounding like a sniffle, and when I bring my hands up, my cheeks are wet.

I don’t even know why I’m crying. Tonight has just been a lot , and it’s not even over yet.

‘Cerys? You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ It’s a little shaky, but I stand up, and sound steadier when I add, ‘I’m just gonna use the loo. I’ll come find you and the others downstairs in a sec, okay?’

He pauses, and I think about that arm around me after someone bumped into me, and close my eyes. As if I’m not frazzled enough right now without adding that whole weirdness to the mix. But Max says, ‘Okay,’ and I hear him leave.

I dump my mostly-untouched Kopparberg down the sink. I don’t need to add ‘drunken mess’ to the state I’m in. I’ve already got the ‘mess’ part down pat.