“It’s COFF-chocolate!” Emerson beamed, wiggling where she stood so that her own cup spurted a few bubbles out of its lid. Her pink glitter cat ears bobbled. “It’s hot chocolate but made with coffee, not water. It’s one of my favorite things ever.”
As coffee went, it was pretty vile. But if it was one of Emerson’s favorite things, Mal wanted to at least try to love it.When they thought of it more as coffee-flavored hot chocolate, and not as hot-chocolate-flavored coffee, it was bearable.
“Come on,” Emerson said, taking the lead again. “You need a breather.”
Mal allowed themself to be led to the far end of the promenade, into the crowd, and then back out of it, crossing the street toward a low stone fence that looked perfect for sitting—and then directly past it, through an iron gate and up the steps of a grand house that was, despite the ample number of pumpkins in every color and shape and size that decorated its wide, wraparound porch, certainlynotpart of the Haint History Festival.
“Emerson!” Mal hissed. They didn’t care how rebellious Emerson felt, it was still true: “We can’t just go up on people’s porches!”
“This one we can,” Emerson said, her voice thick with laughter. At Mal’s confused, concerned look, her giggles spilled over, as sweet as the smell of roasting marshmallows in the chilly night. “It’smyhouse, you goofball.”
As Emerson threw herself easily into one of the rocking chairs on the porch, Mal cocked an eyebrow. It was mostly to themself; the house was huge and restored in a way that made the restorations on Mal’s street look like they had been done by toddlers. Eyeing the stained-glass window over the enormous, heavy wood front door, Mal considered that maybe it had neverbeenrestored. Maybe houses like this stayed well cared for and never fell into disrepair in the first place.
Mal’s chest tightened with a familiar feeling, one they often felt when they found themself walking through the rich partsof Covington: like they might get caught, like someone would realize they didn’t belong.
But here with Emerson, Malwantedto belong.
“Are you going to sit?” Emerson asked, patting the gingham cushion of the chair beside her.
Mal sank into it. And instantly, they realized how much they had needed to sit down. They could not honestly remember when—if—they had last rested. Though the arms of the chair were tight on their hips, they relaxed into it, rocking gently back and forth.
Emerson made a pleased hum, but aside from that, they fell into a quiet spell together. Or, Mal considered sleepily, into as quiet a spell as there could be, fifteen feet away from a busy Covington Halloween festival. At this distance, the noise became indistinct, a gentle wall of sound. They let it wash over them: the laughter of friends, the hum of generators powering food trucks, the occasional shriek of a child. Mal drank their coff-chocolate and watched.
From this vantage point, they could see the whole festival. And it seemed likeeveryonewas there: people Mal recognized as customers at the Haus, people they passed on their walks, people who lived in their neighborhood, people who went to their school. There were city officials Mal recognized from social media, and they shared the same space as some of the unhoused library patrons Mal remembered from their visit with Emerson. And though there was an abandoned house around the far corner, its windows boarded up with plywood and aFOR SALEsign bleaching in its front yard, right now it felt seasonal and spooky instead of a little sad.
From where they sat, Mal could see that the festival wasn’t silly, like they’d always thought—or that if it was, it was a kind of silly they liked.
MaybeCovingtonwas the kind of silly they liked.
Mal had never taken the time, really, to consider this. The Covington they knew had never felt like the right fit for them. It was for people like their parents, with their jobs in Florence—or Sai, running businesses like the Haus. It wasn’t for people like Maddie, who had a way out through sports and book smarts, and so Mal had always thought it wasn’t for them, either.
But as they gazed out at the warm lights and the cheerful crowd, they suddenly felt like the Covington they knew was limited. It existed within the walls of Holmes High School, which had never felt comfortable, and in the aisles of Dollar City, which felt like it could be inanycity, anywhere, for the low price of one dollar to five dollars an item. It existed, mostly, with Mal at Maddie’s side, understanding the world around them through her experiences rather than their own.
But here, beside Emerson, with a comfortable quiet and a pair of chocolaty coffees between them, Mal thought they might be discovering a new Covington. One that was vibrant and a little weird and a bit against the rules. It was niche, like this festival, and varied, like the zines they’d brought to it, and a little punk rock, like Emerson.
LikeMal.
Maybe it was a place where they could be all those things too.
And before they had given themself permission to do it, they were talking, staring straight ahead toward the center ofthe action, where the bright light of the central bonfire created dark, moving silhouettes in the night.
“It feelsCorrect,” they said, making sure Emerson would understand the capitalC. “Here.” They gave the word time to take up space in their chest. But it wasn’t just here, at the Haint History Festival, or even here in Covington. There was another important part. They added, “With you.”
That wasn’t the whole of it either. Mal tried again, looking at Emerson at last.
“Ifeel Correct, here with you.”
Mal had never felt that way before—like they wereright. And more importantly, like they werenot wrong. Sometimes Mal felt like most of their baseline brain page paragraphs were there to prove to people—their mom, their teachers, on bad days even themself—that they were not fundamentally flawed in some way.
But with Emerson, the usual need to explain, to write it down and figure out the formatting of it first, wasn’t there. They knew Emerson would understand them, because Emerson, for Mal, was Correct too. She fit into Mal’s life perfectly, in all-caps comments in Mal’s margins, in clever, brilliant additions on Mal’s pages in twelve-point Georgia Bold font.
“YouareCorrect.” It didn’t surprise them, the way Emerson looked at Mal then—like she saw them,reallysaw them, for exactly who they were. Mal looked back like they saw Emerson, too—her paw-print sweatshirt the same shade of very bright yellow as her favorite Post-its, her smile shaped like the same curve she used to dot heri’s, her brain big and beautiful and weird and wonderful.
It didn’t surprise Mal either when both of them moved at the same time, when their lips met with such force that Mal’s coff-chocolate splashed out of their cup and onto the sleeve of their sweater.
When they were kissing Emerson, Mal felt Good. Confident and sure, like their hands on her round cheeks. Successful and important, like the zine that had brought them together. Dreamy and bright, like the glow of the promenade fires and the promise of their future ahead of them.
Tucked away from the noise of the night, but still very much a part of it, Mal felt like they Mattered.
