“The queer audacity of it,” Kodi said, but she was grinning at Emerson.
“Y’all, I still don’t like it,” said Mal. “This is a meeting about revampingCollage, not—MixxedMedia, or whatever.”
“Well, we can’t rename itThe Mal PartyorSad Sack Failed Lit Mag Straggler’s Monthly,” Stella said. “And I don’t super loveMixxedMedia, either—look, I’m not going to lie to you, Emerson—but it’s better thanCollage.”
“I actually think it’s really cool,” said Parker.
“Yeah.” Nylan looked from Parker to the group. “It’s got promise.”
“Okay, it’s growing on me,” conceded James, leaning toward the Post-it Kodi now held.
Mal’s insides started to itch and squirm. The meeting had gone from Good Enough to spiraling out of their control in an instant. Mal looked to Emerson, who was bopping along with it all, bouncing happily in her seat. When she caught Mal’s eye, she smiled, but the meltdown Mal was barely staving off must have been sharp on their face. Emerson quickly fixed her expression into a serious one.
“Oop! We’re running out of time. We’ll talk specifics about everything else later,” she said decisively. “But for now, let’s take a vote on the name. All in favor ofMixxedMedia?”
Parker and Emerson’s hands shot up together. Nylan and Kodi followed, with James slowly joining them. With a long-suffering sigh, even Stella raised her hand.
They waited almost a full minute before Emerson asked, “All opposed?”
Mal didn’t raise their hand then either.
Deciding on things together was a terrible idea.
“And the measure passes with six yeses and one impartial editor in chief abstaining.”
And just like that,Collagewas dead.
When Mal got home an hour later, they still felt spiky all over, like too many staples in the bindings of a zine. Not even the long walk home would smooth out their edges. They had taken what they called the Scenic Route—a longer loop than usual, which took them up through the upscale, historic neighborhood of Seminary Square, where cats peeked out of windows instead of from around street corners like they did in Mal’s neighborhood, and then across to Linden Grove Cemetery, the closest thing Mal had to real green space in the city. Mal had hoped they could lose some of those sharp feelings in the autumn twilight, with the sun setting earlier but not quite early enough that it wasdarkdark yet. But even with a cooling, cleansing breeze blowing through the yellow trees in the cemetery’s arboretum, all the Too Muchness of the meeting still followed them home like a street cat.
Luckily, Mal had nothing else to do with their Friday night, unlike some of the others involved inCol—MixxedMedia, who had rushed from the meeting to other exciting, hopefully less-ruinous things. That left Mal with the space—and quiet—they needed to right themself. After all that coffee and no snacks since their cafeteria lunch, they felt a little woozy, underfed, and overcaffeinated.
Rifling through the fridge, they gathered Odds And Endsfor themself: cheese, grapes, and bologna they cut into triangle-shaped fourths. They had just opened a fresh pack of saltine crackers when their mom came into the kitchen from the living room.
“Hey there, Mal,” she said, reaching into the fridge for a bottle of wine. “What’cha cooking?”
“Nothing,” they said, then shook their head. That wasn’t right. “I’m making snacks.”
“Oh, nice, nice.”
She wasn’t really listening. Mal stewed silently for a moment, annoyed. It must have been palpable, because their mom looked over as she refilled her glass, really seeing them for the first time all day. “Is it a spiky day, hon?”
Mal was instantly suspicious. Their mom didn’t typically check in like this. But Mal referred to days like these enough that Spiky Days were as good as a proper noun for the other Flowerses, too. They nodded.
“My meeting didn’t go…” It hadn’t gonebadly. By most accounts, it was a rollicking success. It just hadn’t gone in the direction theywanted. They corrected course. “How I thought it would go.”
“I’m sorry,” their mom said. “What happened?”
Mal placed a handful of crackers on their plate so hard the bottom two split in half. “Just—stupid stuff. People had someverywrong opinions, which happened to be the popular ones, so.” They shrugged. “I guess we’re going to do things the wrong way.”
“Oh, Mal,” their mom tutted. “Remember what Dr. Benson said—don’t get stuck in black-and-white thought patterns.”
A groan rolled out of Mal’s chest without their permission. Dr. Benson was their middle school psychiatrist—the one who had diagnosed them with ADHD after their first eighth-grade year. They had only seen him a handful of times, when their dad’s insurance still covered it, to help with Mal’s ADHD Problem (another proper noun in the Flowers household). What Mal remembered most about those sessions was the going and the waiting, and also their mom doing most of the talking during the actual appointments. While they hadn’t found those sessions helpful at all—to them, his advice had amounted basically to “just don’t have ADHD”—their mom had latched onto a few of the phrases he gave them as coping mechanisms.
This,black-and-white thought patterns, was one of them. Most often, she deployed it when she thought Mal was being particularly stubborn. If Mal was being honest, most of the borrowed phrases their mom criticized them with—use your time-management skills, find your motivation—were thingsshestruggled with as much as Mal. But the one time Malhadbeen honest and pointed this out, their mom had had a Mal-size meltdown of her own. And then when Dr. Benson had casually mentioned that ADHD is often inherited from a parent, she had had another, and suddenly it was Mal’s dad taking them to appointments, and then not taking them at all.
“I’mnot,” Mal huffed, finishing their snack plate with a fun-size box of Nerds. “I’m just a little overwhelmed right now is all.”
“Mal, honey, if it’s too much, you know you don’t have to do this,” their mom said. “I don’t want you to get behind.”
