It was more than their usual math class near-meltdown—more than the frustration of keeping all the numbers and letters and equations in strict, neat lines so their eyes could follow them rather than watch them all swim into the worst alphanumerical soup imaginable, more than the fact that it was always a losing battle. As they sat neatly folding their paper in half lengthwise to form a careful column that would organize their practice problems, they had a different problem screaming in their mind instead.
The problem was Emerson-shaped—or rather, rule-shaped, or maybebroken-rule-shaped.
But that wasn’t right, exactly. Replaying their conversation in their mind, Mal remembered there weren’t any rules for Emerson tohavebroken. The Haus had no policyagainstdecorating the space they used as theirMixxedMediaheadquarters. And with the way the Haus had come to be in the first place, created for the community by the community, it did seem like the kind of place where people decorated each room how they pleased. In the absence of any rule against it, other people had done what Emerson suggested: just moved in, making the space what they needed it to be.
But in the absence of rules,Maldefaulted to believing that whatever they wanted or needed to do was probably against them. There hadn’t been an explicit rule about not singing at the lunch table in kindergarten until Mal did it too much—and then, suddenly, there was. Taking some quiet time to decompress was totally within the rules until Mal spent most of Stella’s freshman-year birthday party hiding in the bathroom. And there still wasn’t anactualFlowers family rule about how long laundry could sit unfolded in a basket, but somehow Mal always managed to leave it (according to their mom, at least) Too Long. Decorating their side of the desk—especially in the waytheyliked, not in a predetermined style and color palette—felt in their gut like it would be very much Against The Rules.
They rubbed out an incorrectly copied problem with their eraser, for the third time in a row, and frowned.
But what if Emerson was right?
Could Mal really just… move in? Make their own space? Their ownrules? It felt so contrary to everything they held themself to that they still recoiled at just the thought, lookingover their shoulder to where Mrs. Grimes paced the room as if they were about to get caught.
But they thought of the photograph of Prince Pringles and how nice it looked on the old desk. They thought of the big gold-toned floor lamp they’d helped Emerson drag in yesterday and of the soft yellow glow it added to their corner of the room. And they thought, too, of the light of Emerson’s smile when she encouraged Mal to move in with her, to make their spacetheirs.
Mal liked the idea of being in atheirswith Emerson, no matter how it was decorated.
“Give yourself about five more minutes on these problems,” came Mrs. Grimes’s voice, cutting through the waves of worries in Mal’s mind. “And then we’ll work them out together on the whiteboard.”
And like that, the problem on their page became the more pressing one. Mal would work out the other later, when the threat of public math humiliation didn’t loom large like their teacher in the aisle.
In the end, Mal didn’t really solve the problem. What they did instead was decide to acknowledge it, let it linger in the corner of their mind and tell them they were probably doing The Wrong Thing, and then bring a box of things to the back room anyway.
MixxedMediawas already a little against the rules, they figured, and so far nothing bad had happened. Maybe this slight infraction would go unnoticed too.
Today’s walk to the Haus proved even nicer than the one the day before: cooler but sunny, with soft rays of light filtering through the yellowing ginkgo trees and warming their cheeks as they went. Clutched in their arms was a cardboard Dollar City shoebox they’d carefully packed last night.
When they arrived, they scanned the mugs behind the counter, spotting Emerson’s pink cat easily and knowing it meant she wasn’t here yet.
Good, thought Mal. They wanted a moment to do this alone—just in case they chickened out.
Balancing a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and the box on their hip in the other, Mal headed to the back room. It was brighter than they remembered it, with the sun shining through the colorful bunting strung across the windows. The little rainbow flags looked like they belonged there. Surely something so pleasant couldn’t be against the rules.
Before they could second-guess themself, before they could tell themself they shouldn’t, Mal got to work.
They plunked the box down on the desk and unpacked it. Some of the items inside were purely decorative, like theAnimal Crossingprintout of Mal’s favorite character (a pink rhino who looked like she was made of shortcake), or the embroidery hoop Maddie had made for them, with a heart striped in the colors of the nonbinary pride flag. Some things were functional: a fewgoodred pens, Mal’s favorite Pilot G2s, which were worth the splurge at Target every time; some craft supplies from their house, which they thought might come in handy for working on the layout later this month; a wall calendar they’d found deep within the Dollar City clearance shelves.It was meant to be theirCollagecalendar, and it still bore the scars of cancelation in scribbled-out notes across the bottom of the dates. Though they now had a shared Google calendar with Emerson to keep track of Important Dates, Mal’s brain remembered things better when theyactuallywrote them down, so it felt correct to have a calendar here too.
But there was no place close by to hang it—just a painted-over nail on the far opposite wall, beside the out-of-place sink.
Mal frowned. That wouldn’t do.
And then, before they could tell themself it wasn’t Allowed, they fished in one of Emerson’s desk-supply mugs. Among the mulch of debris at the bottom (old paperclips and dust and broken pencil lead) was an old pushpin, practical and clear and ready to be used. Mal plucked it from the cup, a feeling of daring wiggling in their belly. Leaning forward, they sunk the pushpin into the wooden frame of the window in front of their side of the desk. With an odd little thrill, they looped the metal hanger of the cheap wall calendar over it, balancing it so it sat mostly straight.
It fit the wide frame perfectly.
Mal sat back and admired their work. The gold print of the calendar looked good against the bright white paint.
“Oh,” said Emerson, close and sudden enough that Mal jumped from the sound. Feeling caught, they snapped their head over their shoulder to look at her, waiting for a new rule to materialize.
But Emerson was only smiling, bright and toothy, and nodding so enthusiastically that the motion made her red hair bounce. “Good. I’m glad you decided to move in too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mal said, waving their hand like it was no big deal. But itfeltlike one, like a swelling of unfamiliar but exciting daring in their chest. They smiled. “I’m just trying to be punk rock, like you.”
“You know? It’s working. I like it.”
Mal nodded, though they weren’t sure yet whether they liked it too.
“Oh,” they said. “One last thing—”
