*Since the writing of this article, the school administration has prohibitedMixxedMediafrom being sold on campus as a violation of its no-soliciting rule, further limiting the group’s ability to fund their project.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOURA WALK, DIVERGENT
“You showed up in the Austinburg Facebook group.”
Mal froze coming down the stairs, their mom’s voice pinning them in place. They took two breaths, trying to do the math: She wasn’t supposed to be home this early in the afternoon (maybe her Quitting Time had come?), and they weren’t supposed to be here. The project they needed to take to the Haus tonight was too big to carry around with them all day at school, even tucked into its oversized Dollar City bag, and so they had doubled back home after school. The bag rested, flat and too tall, against their side.
Taking a deep breath, Mal followed the voice to the kitchen. “Huh?”
“You showed up in the neighborhood Facebook group,” their mom repeated, like that clarified anything.
Mal’s mind ran through all the possible reasons, but they came up with nothing. “I don’t think I’ve done anything?”
“For your magazine project.” Mal’s mom turned from where she’d been facing the counter. It looked like she was smiling. “Someone posted a link to the article.”
“Oh?” Mal was cautious, skirting around the table and toward the kitchen door. They floated the question carefully. “What did you think of it?”
“It was a good read,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It looks like your little group is working hard.”
She must have just skimmed it, then; Mal felt certain that if she had really read it, she would be grounding them for selling copies against the school’s rules. Their face flushed—with worry, but also something else: pride. “Yeah. We are.”
“It’s an impressive article,” their mom said.
For a moment, Mal waited for something else—for her to say thattheywere impressive too, or at least that their work was—but it didn’t come. After a quiet moment, Mal said, “Thanks, Mom,” and turned to go.
Holding their project tight to one side so their mom couldn’t see it, their free hand reached for the door handle. It had almost closed around the knob when their mom’s voice reached out again.
“Can I say something honest, Mal?”
No, they wanted to say. Or maybeDon’t you always, regardless of what I want?But like the compliment they ached for, they knew those words would never come either. They turned back to her and said, “Sure, Mom. Go ahead.”
“I wish you’d give that kind of attention to something thatmattered,”their mom said tiredly. She pulled her hands through the air on the last word, like it was something to hold on to, a stick to wave. “School, or a sport, orsomething. A hobby is great, and it seems like you’ve found one you like, but I mean something that matters to colleges.”
“This mattered to NKU,” Mal said, before they could stop themself. “Enough to run the article, at least.”
Mal’s mom waved her hand. “A silly little article by a student won’t count for anything on an application. I just—”
To their mom’s credit, she stopped, letting her eyes slide halfway closed. She clasped her hands together, and Mal thought they recognized the same flex of the muscles there that they sometimes made when they balled their own hands at their side during stressful moments. After a minute spent in silence, she finally continued.
“I see so much of myself in you sometimes, Mal,” she said, fixing them with a particular Look—one that Mal, who got all their mother’s Looks, was not familiar with. “I struggled too, when I was your age.” She said the words like she was confessing to something unthinkable. “With the homework, and the social situations, and—” Stopping short, she shook herself, redirecting. “But I knuckled down and I got itdone, and sometimes I wish you could just do the same. I know it seems harsh, but there weren’t as many opportunities for me back then as there could be for you now if you could just performnormally. I could do it, so I know you can too, even if it takes a little push. I just want you to have options.”
By the door, Mal stilled. They remembered their mom’s late nights at night school, how they would sometimes come downstairs for a glass of water to find their dad sitting up very late at the kitchen table with her, chatting while she did her coursework. They remembered, too, how her first medical coding job had lasted only a handful of weeks before she’d declared it too tedious and gone back to reception.
If that was the sort of option their mom wanted for them, they weren’t interested.
There was another option, though, that they found themself wanting in the quietest hours of the night—and now, in the loudness of their sudden, raging thoughts:
“But what ifthisis the option for me?”
“Oh, Mal.” Their mom shook her head. “This isn’t an option.”
And Mal wanted to sayI think you might be wrong, actually. That if Sam had this option, ifEmersonhad this option, then maybe they could too.
But something stopped the words in their throat. It took Mal a moment to realize what it was: the realization that they didn’t care, really, whether their mom thought this was an option. Because either way,theydid. Their chest felt warm with this sudden knowledge, glowing with it like a little rebellious secret.
“There’s still plenty of time to find something else,” their mom assured them, mistaking their silence for agreement.
“Sure,” they said, and smiled: another secret thing, just for themself. “I’m… going to go.”
