Page 33 of Do You Ship It
Jake and I hang outside for a little while longer, taking refuge from the rain underneath an awning. We talk about how this whole realization had left Jake feeling confused and overwhelmed the last few months, and I joke that he should’ve watched Heartstopper with me, he might relate to Nick Nelson a bit. But mostly we catch up on things we’ve missed in each other’s lives – things I thought we’d talked about on Discord, but apparently not.
We stand shoulder-to-shoulder looking out at the rain, talking about anything and everything, and it feels like I’ve finally got my best friend back.
He has a great laugh at my expense about the revelation that I had a crush on him, but I can’t stay too mad at him. It feels … distant , somehow, now. I attached so many of my feelings to my chats with @runicrascal that the screen name makes it unnervingly easy to separate those feelings from Jake .
Although that may also be helped by the mind-blowing kiss I shared with Max …
‘So wait, wait,’ Jake says, gasping for breath, hugging a stitch in his side, undeterred by the way I’m currently glowering at him. ‘You got into OWAR and the conventions and stuff just to impress me?’
‘So we could spend time together!’
‘So I’d fall for you .’
‘I swear to God, Jake –’
He snorts, but tips his head back against the brick wall behind us and sighs. ‘So … you and Max, then?’
‘I … I don’t know.’ I squirm, twisting to face him better. ‘I don’t want to get in the way of –’
‘Of what – my massive unrequited crush on my mate?’ He raises his eyebrows, and his smile is self-deprecating. ‘I don’t think Max is even a blip on the Kinsey scale. And if he is, I’m not his type.’
‘The what scale?’
‘Ah, my heteronormative friend, so much still to learn.’ He nudges me with his shoulder, though, smiling, and tells me, ‘I only just found out about it the other week, don’t worry. Anyway, point is , he’s definitely not into me. I’ve been spending months trying to untangle whether I’m gay or bi or what, and get over a crush so it doesn’t ruin my friendship –’
‘Mood.’
‘So you’re not getting in the way. I mean, it’s weird, yeah, and I don’t have to feel good about it, but … you’re my friends. I care about both of you. I don’t want to get in the way, either.’
I groan, leaning to rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Is this growing up, Jake? Being all messy and mature? I don’t like it, take it back.’
He laughs, shifting to sling an arm around my shoulders and tuck me into his side in a way that says tell me about it .
And I take a deep breath and tell him, ‘Love ya, Jake.’
‘Love ya, too, Cer,’ he says softly, sincerely, and it’s not at all like how I pictured it being.
It’s better.
Eventually, though, we’re interrupted by Anissa, popping out to eye us both awkwardly. ‘Er, are you guys …?’
She leaves it dangling: okay, coming back in, all sorted now?
She looks at Jake, first, and seems to read something in his expression. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘Yeah!’
Anissa breathes out, smiling, and he lets go of me to let her give him a quick, fierce hug. I hear her whisper, ‘I’m so proud of you,’ and it’s a very real reminder of how close they’ve gotten since November.
It doesn’t feel so much like someone stealing my best friend, though, more … like an expansion. Widening, to include all of us.
And then she turns to me, and she’s cringing, nose scrunched up and thick eyebrows twisted at odd angles, mouth in a grimace. ‘So … you were not talking about Max earlier.’
‘I …’ I was? I just … didn’t know it? Or I wasn’t at all? I don’t have an answer, so I settle for an exasperated, ‘You should’ve told me!’
‘I thought you knew! I mean the two of you talk all the bloody time, and I was new to Discord, but I knew who he was! Why would you not know? I got used to thinking of him as ‘Runic’ whenever I mentioned him in conversation, and we were obviously talking about the same person … And you kissed him! You had this whole thing and then you snogged his face off and then said you just wanted to be friends! I don’t know!’
‘Apparently I didn’t know either,’ I say, and Anissa clicks her tongue, rolling her eyes at me.
‘If I’d said something, maybe this whole …’ She gestures at the two of us. At me . ‘Maybe you wouldn’t have told the wrong guy you were falling for him.’
‘Oh, you’re squarely at fault here, this is one hundred per cent on you,’ I joke, but then it hits me – what she said, what I did. Max. Max . I told him after the kiss I just wanted to be friends, and then I stood in front of him telling Jake I had feelings for him – was falling for him – and …
‘I have to talk to Max.’
Jake and Anissa raise their eyebrows at each other.
Anissa says, ‘He already left.’
‘But I have to –’
‘Cerys,’ she says, ‘come inside. Everyone’s here. Text him, tell him to come back.’
‘What if he doesn’t? What if he never wants to see me again? What if –?’
‘He’ll come,’ she tells me, and sounds so certain I can’t find it in me to argue. I have to remember that it’s not only Jake she’s built a friendship with in the last few months, it’s @runicrascal, too. Max. ‘Come on. We’re just about to start a game of Settlers of Catan. I’ll show you how it works.’
Private chat with @runicrascal
@mythicwitch
Max, please come back to the board-game cafe. We need to talk
@mythicwitch
(Oh God, that sounds really break-uppy, doesn’t it? I promise it’s not)
@mythicwitch
I know you’ve given me a lot of chances already, and I’m sorry I’ve squandered them, but it’s because I didn’t realize it was you I was talking to. Please, please give me one last chance
@mythicwitch
Well, I’ll be at the cafe til closing, if you can make it, if you want to talk. Until the end x
@mythicwitch
(*Until eight o’clock – I don’t want to miss the last train home. Bloody Sunday schedules)