“Give her one for me,” Mal said. “I have to get back to the Haus.”
“Mal,” their mom chided. “How will she even know you were here?”
“She knows.” And though their mom looked skeptical, Mal turned to leave anyway.
The walk back toward the river was calming, and over the course of those twenty-five blocks, Mal formulated a plan. They would come back, and surely only Emerson would be left, and together they would put right whatever madness had happened in their absence, even if it took long hours into the night to do so.
That was where Mal wanted to be.
The sun had started to set when they walked back into the back room of the Haus. The table had been cleared of its chaotic snowstorm of papers. A paper garland now hung from the ceiling, clearly made from some of the discarded layout pages, and newly added twinkle lights glowed bright and rainbow among the exposed beams.
“They’re cool, right?” Nylan said, grinning at Mal as they walked through the door. “I thought they’d add a little extra gay to your desk.”
“They do have a certain juh nice seekwa to them,” Emerson agreed.
“It’sje ne sais quoi, you goofball,” Parker said, but laughed.
“Come on, Mal!” Nylan said, sitting and patting the folding chair beside her. It was just the four of them left now, but the space felt comfortably full. “Emerson ordered us pizza.”
“And it’s Mac’s,” Parker said through a mouthful. “The good stuff!”
“Stella left when she couldn’t convince us to order Dewey’s.” Nylan shrugged.
“Did you get french fry pie?” Mal asked, stepping farther into the room.
“Can you even order Mac’s without getting one?” Emerson asked. “I don’t think that’s legal.”
“Here, I’ll grab you a couple slices,” Parker said, taking one for herself and putting two on a plate for Mal.
Mal took the plate and sat in the seat next to Nylan. They took a bite and let out an accidental, appreciative sigh. It was the first time they’d eaten all day, they realized. They’d been so caught up in tasks and worries that they had totally forgotten.
“Good, right?” Emerson winked at them.
“So good,” Mal said.
And then they were simply folded into the conversation around the table—they answered Emerson’s “So, how was it?” with easy chat about Maddie’s game, which bled into Parker’s insistence that she didn’t do sports, which slipped into which sportsdidpeople like (Nylan was a not-so-secret figure skating fan,definitely notdue toYuri!!! on ICE), then skated off into the next topic. Mal ate their pizza, and then an extra slice and one of the cookies that appeared on the table as if from nowhere (or, it turned out, from Emerson’s bag), and the final bit of anxiety that had knotted their eyebrows together relaxed in just enough time for them to help clear away the plates.
“Well,” trilled Emerson when the table was empty. “Should we show Mal what we got done?”
“Oh, totally,” said Nylan, slinking back into her seat.
“It’s not eventooglittery,” said Parker.
“Much to my dismay, as you might guess,” sighed Emerson, a playful grin curling her lips.
Mal returned the smile. Somewhere in the back of their mind, Maddie’s warning about Emerson sounded again, but Mal shook their head once, gently, to clear it away. Evenifthere was a version of Emerson whose big ideas made following through on English projects difficult, Mal knew that the version of Emerson who showed up in the back room of the Haus had their back. There was a big difference, after all, between the Mal who left math homework undone for days at a time and the Mal who sat down at the table again, eager to work.
Here, Mal thought, maybe theybothgot to be those versions of themselves for each other.
“Okay,” Mal said, their smile deepening to crinkle their eyes, “but how does glitter even translate from… you know,glitter… to a flat black-and-white page?”
“I’m so glad you asked!” Emerson said, laughing. She pulled her laptop to her and then, grabbing onto Mal’s chair, pulled herself close to them, the wheels of her desk chair rattling across the wood floor. She stopped only when her knees rested against Mal’s thigh. “Here, let me show you.”
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