home safe!
text when you care
*can
Saturday, 8:03AM
ugh i slept in!!!! was up late to spam you with those videos
good thin sam opens too they can cover i am LATE
*thing
can you let me know you’re okay?
Saturday, 8:12AM
okay for real please just let me know you’re okay, no pressure otherwise
I’m okay.
okay good
I just need the weekend.
To Process.
can you say if you’re processing All The Stuff or me?
All The Stuff.
Not you.
I’m sorry I made you feel like it was you.
thats why its always good to do a little checky-check
okay
i will be here Monday
or always
whichever comes first
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIXDIFFERENT WAYS TO WIN
Emerson was right: Mal needed rest. They could feel the want of it piling up in their bones, achy and stiff and hyperaware of the weight of their coat on their shoulders. This happened sometimes. When things got to be too much, Mal’s body responded by needing extra sleep.
Which they didn’t get, of course. Their mind was much too full of guilt and what-ifs and the memory of that look on Emerson’s face.
But over the weekend, Maldidget to retreat into the comfortable cave of how things used to be, before Emerson Pike andMixxedMediamixed up their life. On Saturday, after texting Emerson, Mal went downstairs and ate cereal on the sofa and filled in their planner pages for the weekend (without colorful Post-its, which made the page look boring but clear) to the tune of their dad’s morning news. They took extra time with the neighborhood cats, making sure to serve an additional scoop to a tuxedo that had just showed up on the street, looking skinny and scrappy. They walked to work, belly full of sugar and milk and undefined butterflies, and worked their shift, all scanner beeps and robotichave a nice days, beforewalking back home again. Maddie was there, and although no news about the rumored scout had materialized, she eagerly rehashed her best plays in yesterday’s game as Mal did their best to nod and smile at all the right parts.
Mal wanted nothing more than to flop into bed with their headphones in and some lo-fi, to think about the e-mail they hadn’t told Emerson about, to figure out what was supposed to come next and how—if—they would fit into it. It felt like they had been so close to solving the equation.
But math had never been their strong suit, so all they could fit into their schedule were the tasks they’d outlined in their planner that morning:
Math (5 lessons)
