Mal shrugged. “I don’t know. Aren’t you?”
It was so hard to tell at times like this.
“Nope,” she said. “Sad, sure. But I think that’s mostly because you didn’t feel like you could talk to me about this.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Mal apologized in a rush. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, stop,” Maddie interrupted, frustrated. She took the same sort of breath Mal sometimes took when they were trying to center themself and clarified: “I’m not angry with you, I just want to understand—we can talk about anything, right?”
“Yeah,” Mal answered quickly. They wanted it to be true.
But… something new needled at them as they said it, something that came from the same secret place Mal had been keeping Emerson’s words all week.
Right now, Mal realized, they weren’t showing up for themself as their own best version—the one who sat at the left side of the editors’ desk, sometimes confident and sometimes scared but always doing things anyway.
“Actually,” they amended, making a note in their own margin. “No. Sometimes I feel like I can’t talk to you about things.”
As the words sank in, Mal watched something spread across Maddie’s face: a cracking, like the surface of an over baked biscuit. When her voice finally came, it was cracked too.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” The same question had been lurking at theedges of their mind, like their thoughts about NKU: undefined, but all around them all the time too. “I mean it’s not always easy being your sibling. I love youso, so, so much, and it’s so easy to love you because you’re a goddamn delight. But there’s so muchelsethat comes with that.” Mal hurried to include the same reassurance they would need in Maddie’s place. “None of it’sfromyou—it isnotyour fault—but you’re just sogoodat everything, and everyone sees that, and then they see me and they see how I’m just… not.”
“You’regreatat things, Mal,” Maddie rushed to interject.
“And I know you believe that, because you’re Maddie.” Mal looked at her, a little sadly. “But most peopledon’t, because anything I’m good at, I have to tryreally hardto be good at. Or, no—that’s not right. Just that—the things you do automatically all the time, like your homework, or, or—brushing your teeth. I have tothinkabout those things, every time. We’re… really different.”
“We’re not different, Mal.” Maddie’s eyes glimmered strangely in the light of the TV.
“Weare,” Mal said gently. It was a fact. “We’re wired differently, and that’s okay. But what works for you is different from what works for me.”
“But we’ve always done the same things,” Maddie protested.
“I mean, sort of?” Mal shrugged. “You’ve done things, and I’ve done them with you. And some of them have been really cool. And I absolutelylovewatching you kick ass on the field! It just… it can feel like you’re always winning the gold medal, while I’m just getting a participation ribbon.”
“You just haven’t found yourthingyet, Mal.” Maddie’svoice was pleading. “You will. That’s what college is for.”
“I think I already found my thing, though,” Mal said. The words rushed out of them, like they’d been waiting all this time and only now felt comfortable enough—here, under the blanket—to come out. “I’m kicking ass withMixxedMedia. And it’s weird, to be doing my own thing after following in your footsteps for so long. But this is what I want to do.”
Even as the words left Mal’s mouth, they recognized the truth in them. They recognized, too, that the person theywantedto say them to wasn’t the sister beside them but the woman who slept a floor, and a world, away. But there was no version of their mom that would ever really see this version of Mal the way they were starting to see themself—even if theycouldfind all the right words. And part of them was okay with that. This version of Mal didn’t care as much about what their mom thought.
“But when you’re following in my footsteps, I can make sure someone’s always looking after you, that you’re safe.” Maddie made a strange sound—half a laugh, half a choke. “From people who don’t get you, or from…” She pressed her lips into a thin line, and then finally said, “From Mom. Because she’s the worst. And if you stay here, and I leave, I won’t be here to pick up your shoes behind you.”
Mal watched Maddie more closely. The look on her face was serious and sad and scared, with a shadow of something deeper Mal didn’t fully understand. But they thought they recognized shades of it, like maybe Mal cast a shadow of their own.
“I think I’ve found a plan where it won’t matter so muchwhether I pick up my shoes,” they said, and felt a little thrill at the thought.
Maddie blinked at Mal, her big brown eyes round and wet. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. “Does it make you happy?”
“So fucking happy,” Mal said, borrowing one of Emerson’s f-bombs and reveling in the truth of it. “I feel like Imatterwhen I’m making zines.”
“You matter everywhere,” Maddie said, borrowing one of Emerson’s words too. “You matter tome.”
“I know,” Mal emphasized. “And you matter to me too. But I think… so do I? And so does this. And it feels worth seeing it through—even if that means only seeing each other on the weekends for a while. I don’t want to lose you. Sometimes other people lump expectations and rankings and—stupid things on top of us. But you arealwaysmy sister.”
“And Ilove you,” Maddie said, quiet, insistent. “And that means I will always support you, no matter what that looks like. And I’m sorry I haven’t been doing a very good job with that lately.”
“It’s okay,” Mal said. “I haven’t told you about any of it.”
