CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVENWHAT COMES NEXT
In the magical way that it always did when Mal was up against something proper-noun Important, time vanished suddenly—and before they knew it, it was nine and Emerson was coming through the Zine Lab door as the last of its staffers—Parker and Nylan, holding hands—filtered out.
“Hey,” she said, giving Mal an uncharacteristically small smile.
They deserved that. The last time they had really spoken, here in this back room, it hadn’t been pleasant.
Mal still didn’tfeelpleasant, if they were being honest. Anxiety spun circles behind their rib cage, mixing them all up.Wherehad the hour they’d spent practicing this conversation gone? They wished they were better at time: that it didn’t move for them in unequal ways, that they could fit inside of it right.
And so, instead of greeting Emerson back, Mal said, “Can we talk?”
Emerson came over to the desk, a fresh coffee in her hand despite the late hour, and grimaced. “Oh no. Does this mean you’re breaking up with me?”
“What?!”Mal spat the word like it tasted bitter in their mouth. “No, of course not! I don’t ever want to do that.”
“I don’t ever want to do that either.” Emerson smiled—a real one this time, sweet and soft. But just as quickly as it had shown up, she squelched it. “But that’s not how you made me feel this weekend, Mal. It wasn’t cool.”
“I know, I know.” Mal should have expected this—having to confront feelings first. They wrung their hands in their lap. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I might. I just—I get Like That sometimes.”
But the way Mal said it was Like That, proper noun—the same words their parents always leveled at them. Shame surged through them. They hurt Emerson when they got Like That.
“Everyone can get Like That,” Emerson said. She sat in her rolling chair but didn’t scoot close yet. “Ican get Like That. Just—even when you do, can you do me a favor?”
“I can try.” Mal swallowed. They’d always try for Emerson.
“That’s all I can ask, really.” Emerson took one scoot closer. “I just—I want you to remember that I’m on your team, always. When you’re Like That, or when you’re like this—” She mimed pulling her own hair and made a quick, highAAAAsound. “Or when you’re like this—” She flapped her hands and wiggled her hips like she had that first time in the library. “Or like this—” Going very still, she did her best zoned out impression. “Or like this—” She mimed switching between typing on a laptop and writing on a piece of paper and reading a book. “Or like this—” She mimed crying, hard and graceless. “Orlike this.”
Emerson reached out and grabbed Mal’s hands, holdingthem tight in hers like she was trying to press the meaning into them. Mal understood. They just… couldn’t believe it.
“Even when I’m…” They trailed off, their eyes dropping to their hands where Emerson clutched them. “Not Good?”
“Mal.” Emerson waited, not for Mal to look at them, but to make sure Mal was listening. They were. “You areAlways Good. All the versions of you.”
Mal smiled at their lap. Their eyes felt wet, and they let them stay like that. They went quiet, and Emerson followed them there, her thumb gently stroking the round shape of the bone at the bottom of their thumb. For a while, Mal focused only on that—the feeling of Emerson’s palm, its weight and shape, its minute movement against theirs as she traced the same curve over and over—letting it ground them in the moment.
Mal still didn’t believe her—not all the way—when she said that every version of them was Good. It felt like too big a thing to accept all at once. But her words made Mal brave enough to consider something more manageable: that maybe all the versions of them that existedhere, in the back room that had become theMixxedMediaZine Lab, were Good.
That, Mal could believe.
That, Maldidbelieve.
“Emerson?” Mal finally asked, their voice small and a little shaky. “Have I ever told you about The Plan?”
Emerson shook her head. “I don’t think so, no—not if it’s in caps, like”—she arced a hand through the air like she was underlining the words, before quickly rejoining Mal’s—“The Plan.”
“It is, yeah.” Mal laughed, but it caught in their throat.They had never spoken about The Plan out loud with anyone—not even Maddie, who knew almost everything about them. Orhadknown almost everything. At some point that had changed, but Mal couldn’t quite pinpoint when. Even now, Mal couldn’t think of a way to explain it to their sister that she might understand.
But if anyone could, Mal knew it was Emerson.
“So I have kind of always had this plan,” Mal said, looking at her then. “When it comes to where I’m going in life, I mean. And it’s pretty simple, mostly—The Plan was to make it through high school, get the best grades I could, work onCollageso I have something to put down as an extracurricular on my college applications, and scrape a high enough score on the ACT that I can get into whatever school Maddie does for soccer and then just… go there.
“Like, those were the steps—easy to follow, or easyenough—and then I would get out. I would achieve The Plan. Things would be okay. Easy-peasy.”
“It sounds like… a lot, actually,” Emerson said hesitantly. “Why do you feel like you need to do all that—follow The Plan?”
Mal had never asked themself this, so the question stopped them short. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—whyis that The Plan?” Emerson prompted. “Why the grades andCollageand going to college with Maddie?”
