“Do you need a ride, honey?” she asked, still giving Mal that Look. She nodded at the large, flat bag Mal still held to their side. “Your project there looks cumbersome.”
Mal snorted a strange laugh. “It’s plenty light, actually. I’m fine.”
The door swung shut behind them.
“Yeesh, keep it down over there, would you?”
Though Kodi’s words were harsh, her deep voice was teasing. Mal looked over to catch her expression; she wore a smile, and before she bent back to her laptop to work on her December essay, she laughed.
“Sorry, sorry,” Mal said, but they weren’t.
They also weren’t entirely sure they were allowed to do what they were currently doing: hammering a nail into the wall beside the editors’ desk, to the left of the editor in chief side window, so that any time Mal looked away to try and find a word or recall a tricky punctuation rule, they would see it: a framed copy of the article Sam had written aboutMixxedMedia.
Mal had been right: the walk to the Haus with it tucked under their arm had not been cumbersome at all. It felt like a secret victory against their mom’s insistence that Mal neededoptions.
And the piece had continued to go Cincinnati viral, getting shared byCityBeatand reposted by Buffy Muller, a prominent local queer activist who put a lovely spin on it in her caption about the “unbeatable audacity of queer kids” that had been liked by both the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati Pride accounts.
It was getting some truly wonderful comments. And some really horrible ones. Mal had stopped reading them, designating Maddie their Share The Good Things person: the one who brought back the tidbits of good so Mal could be spared the few absolutely atrocious things.
Before they had had time to figure out how they felt about any of it—good, mostly, and also a little weird, like most thingsMal felt lately—they had printed out a copy of the article at the library, where Emerson was helping Nylan and Parker set up for a Secrets & Sorcery open play session they were starting together. With Emerson’s assistance (and assurance it was a good idea), Mal carefully arranged them in a grid of four pages so they fit neatly into the frame they’d bought for them. It was a little gaudy (made of gold plastic), and a little expensive (one of Dollar City’s rare ten-dollar items, worth almost an hour and a half of the shift Mal worked last night), but it fit. Mal had never been one to win the sort of medals or trophies that lined Maddie’s walls, so they thought that this once, they could be afforded a little sparkle.
Mal was sure they should feel guilty about it—that if their mom had spotted their framing project through the Dollar City bag in the kitchen, she would have had something to say about it, too. But even as her strange confession that Mal reminded her of herself still echoed in their mind, Mal felt… good. The article made them feelgood—so much so that, when they were up late last night trying and failing to start their History essay, they read it over again instead of their assigned chapters.
Seeing it here on the wall in the back room felt Correct, because the Zine Lab made Mal feel good too. Their chest swelled when they’d walked in to find Kodi, Alex, and Stella already working on layout ideas for the upcoming issue.
Giving the framed article one last look of appreciation, Mal turned to the worktable and asked, “How’s it going over there?”
They braced themself for Stella’s trademark sass, but instead she said, “Perfect. This theme’s exactly what we needed.”
And while Mal couldn’t tell whether her tone was serious or sarcastic, Alex’s insistence that they give him a high five was pretty clear. Once they made sure everyone had what they needed, Mal turned to their old laptop to check e-mails for new submissions.
A different e-mail waited.
Subject:Funding
Thursday, November 7 | 1:38 PM
From:Dr. Jordan Barnett
To:The MixxedMedia Editors
CC:Russel, Sam , Donna Merritt
Hi Mal and Emerson,
I hope this e-mail finds you well. I’m Dr. Jordan Barnett, a professor at Northern Kentucky University and Sam Russel’s Interdisciplinary Studies advisor. I would like to congratulate you both on the success you have found with your zine,MixxedMedia. As both a creator who is passionate about the artform and an academic who makes its study her specialty, I find what you have been able to accomplish together with your team inspiring.
I am excited to share that I am not the only one—a collection of colleagues and friends have come together to secure the funding needed to resume your school’s literary magazine in an official capacity. I have been in touch with your staff advisor to coordinate these efforts.
As of the start of next semester,Collagewill be refunded in its entirety. An amount sufficient for its continuation for the next five academic years has been set aside inMixxedMedia’s honor.
I hope this brings you both a well-earned sense of achievement and that you both consider NKU for your academic future. With talent and drive like yours, I believe you have much to offer.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jordan Barnett
For a breathless moment, lasting both an eternity and no time at all, Mal just blinked at the message, not quite reading it again and again until all the words swam together, untangling themselves until they were only letters taking up all the space on the page of Mal’s brain.
