Page 32 of Do You Ship It

‘Cerys!’

I’m hyperventilating. I don’t even know who’s shouting my name. I stumble out on to the damp cobblestone street, lungs clawing down thin scraps of cold air through the vice locked around them, and I keel forward, hands on my thighs, trying to make the world stop spinning, or falling apart, or whatever it’s doing.

It’s not Jake. It wasn’t Jake.

The kiss – that kiss – Max …

And Anissa, mentioning ‘Runic’, and I assumed she meant Jake because they were always talking and hanging out, and why shouldn’t it be Jake?

I’m mentally scrolling back through months’ worth of conversations in Discord, all the things we talked about – me and Max – and suddenly so much else starts to make sense. Why ‘Jake’ didn’t invite me over to watch the season finale, why he ghosted me after I asked him to forget about the kiss because – God, no, I asked Max to forget about the kiss, not Jake, I said ‘ friends? ’ with a goddamn smiley face – no wonder he didn’t want to talk to me after that!

I have been the most colossal idiot.

I haul down another sharp breath, the cold slicing through me, blade-sharp, and straighten up. People are looking, staring, but for once, I don’t care.

‘Cerys,’ says the voice again, and when I turn, it’s Jake.

His hair is damp, and there’s rain spotted on his glasses. It patters down around us; my own face is wet with it, too. I hadn’t even noticed.

It’s exactly as it should be. A movie-worthy scene.

‘I thought it was you,’ I say, not sure how to explain, how much to explain, about what’s going on. ‘You sent me a link to Discord, and I joined, and you started messaging me – or – or Max did, and I thought … All this time, I thought I was talking to you, and when you wouldn’t text me back, we were still talking there, so … And …’

There’s just one huge, vital missing puzzle piece I don’t understand.

My face crumples, and my voice is thick through the lump in my throat. ‘Where did you go, Jake? You’ve been acting weird with me since college started. I thought the Worlds Beyond con, all the OWAR stuff – I thought that’d get us back on track. And then after the party – after … You just disappeared on me. You’re my best friend, and you vanished . I thought you’d forgiven me, and we were okay when we were talking again in Discord after New Year’s, but – it wasn’t you, and … Maybe we aren’t okay? I don’t understand .’

Jake’s chest heaves, and his mouth twists into a thin line.

‘You were so upset when you caught me snogging Max at the party,’ I press. ‘You said, “How could you?” and I thought … I’d had this unrequited crush on you for ages, and then I assumed from your reaction that maybe it wasn’t so one-sided but now I’d ruined my chance. I thought I broke your heart, or something, which was ridiculous when I thought I was falling in love with you, too, and –’

‘I didn’t have a crush on you, Cerys.’

‘Well – well, that’s fine, that’s –’ Actually not the soul-destroying blow it should be, but I don’t have time to think about that right now. ‘But then I don’t understand why –’

‘I didn’t have a crush on you , Cerys,’ he says again, but this time, I hear it.

Oh.

Oh.

‘But – but you – you …’ I blink; the rain is making my mascara run, and my eyelashes are sticking together a bit.

And a few more things slot into place. Jake never showing much interest in dating anybody, not being obsessed with snogging a girl he liked at a party the way some of the other guys we were friends with did. I just thought he generally wasn’t bothered, or – or was being mature, or something. How could you? he’d said at the party. You don’t even like him .

But Jake did. Jake liked Max.

‘You never told me,’ I say, because it’s all I can say. ‘I thought I was your best friend, I – did I …’ Did I do something, to make you think you couldn’t tell me? But that’s not fair, I can’t make this about me. This isn’t like Chloe revealing to Daphne that she’s secretly a semi-successful Twitch streamer and Pokémon afficionado.

‘I didn’t know,’ he says. He shrugs one shoulder, then sways a bit awkwardly, and holds a hand over his eyes to shield them from the drizzle. It’s getting heavier. ‘I mean, you know, I thought … I thought everyone else looked at people – at guys – and were like, “He looks really good” or “That’s kind of hot”. I didn’t think it meant anything. But then I got to know Max, we started hanging out a lot, and … I just wanted to see him all the time. I thought about him all the time. And you’ve had me watch enough romcoms over the years that I just realized one day, shit , I’ve got a crush on my best friend.’

‘That’s why you were so upset at the party, why you didn’t want to talk to me, after. That’s … But – even before that, you weren’t talking to me. You only saw me –’ To watch OWAR. When it involved hanging out with Max.

Was I the third-wheel? Or was Jake, in Max’s eyes?

I shake my head. ‘Jake, I wish you’d just talked to me. We could’ve avoided this – this whole …’ I wave my hand around in a vague, all-encompassing gesture, and a smile quirks the corner of his mouth up on one side.

It drops away again when he says, ‘I couldn’t, though. Because then it would’ve … been A Thing. I’d have been, you know, coming out , and you’re my best friend, so that would’ve felt … I don’t know, final? Like a rubber stamp on it, or something? And I didn’t even know for sure what I was coming out as. Bi? Pan? Gay? I didn’t … want to choose the wrong thing, and then it not feel right.’ He takes a deep, shuddering breath, dragging one hand through his hair and gesturing agitatedly with the other. ‘It just felt like pressure to tell you – or any of the guys from football or college, or even Thomas and Ginny. I actually ended up talking to Anissa about it all. She’s been a really great sounding board and it just felt sort of low stakes, because we didn’t know each other all that well in the first place – and … And all I’ve wanted to do was talk to you, Cer, but I didn’t know how.’

He looks so lost, so tired , right then, that I fling myself at him, giving him the big, warm cwtch he usually doles out so freely. He grabs me back, tight, and I hear him sniffle.

‘Oh, Jake. You gumball .’

‘You … what?’

I laugh, making a mental note to tell Evie how annoyingly catchy that word is. ‘Long story,’ I say. ‘Are we friends again, though?’

His face is squashed next to mine. ‘Yeah. Best friends, Cer. Until the end.’

‘Until the end,’ I repeat, and it mends some of the cracks in my heart.