Page 28 of Do You Ship It

We won!! 3–1

@runicrascal

Our goalie bunked off with his girlfriend in the second half so we had to bring in one of the subs lol. He’s benched next week now, but that sucks for the rest of us more than it does him really

@mythicwitch

Is that Alfie? Ugh, I thought he’d split with his gf? I thought it turned into a whole mess that had them arguing at college?

@runicrascal

It did haha, but guess they patched things up. True love conquers all! Or something like that, right?

@mythicwitch

‘Until the end’?

@runicrascal

Coming in hot with the big quotes! Congratulations, your fangirl score has just increased to a solid 6/10

@mythicwitch

What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good love story …

The hours slip away as we message back and forth over the Discord chat.

When I ask what else he got up to this weekend, he mentions how his dad drove his older sister up to uni yesterday; he asks me how things are with my parents, and I appreciate it. It feels different talking about it in Discord. Secret, almost, like I can put it away and erase it if I ever wanted to, and it wouldn’t ever be part of our real friendship, our real life. It makes it a bit easier to talk about, so I say everything that’s on my mind. Until …

Mum arrives home, calling to someone outside, ‘Thanks, Naomi!’ and then staggering up the stairs to bed singing ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’ with a slur in her voice, and I hear Dad follow her upstairs, the two of them chatting – still with that annoyinglyreasonableandpolitenew tone. Is he staying in the spare roomagain? That’s a recent development only slightly less horrifying than if he was staying in their room. Mum evengigglesat something, and I pull a face, slumping lower against my headboard.

Am I going to have to, like, reverse-Parent Trapthem? I can’t cope with the whiplash if they call off the divorce. Whatever’s going on, it can’t last.

Even though I meant it when I told @runicrascal I’m a sucker for a good love story, my parents’ relationship brings out the cynic in me.

I turn back to my phone, reading through our Discord chat for comfort. His replies are more thoughtful than usual. Jake’s always been valiantly sympathetic for me, but I know he gets a bit awkward about deep stuff, using silly jokes to make me feel better when he can’t really relate. His dad – his stepdad, technically – has been in his life since Jake was three, and Jake, Ginny, and their big brother love him. He and Jake’s mum have been happily married – and soppily, disgustingly in love – since before Jake can even remember.

So while Jake has always been there for me, and is a great sounding board and always has a hug and a joke ready to cheer me up, he doesn’t really know how tohelp. But behind the screen name, and the weird sense of anonymity we have in Discord, he takes extra time to type out his replies, talks about how stressful and tricky it must be, and asks if I want to rush off to uni just to be away from it.

It feels really nice.

And maybe he feels the same way? That this isseparate, a space that exists away from everything else, where we can be a little bit more honest.

And I like that when I tell him I don’t really want to talk about my parents anymore, he changes topic to tell me about some inane writers’ room drama behind the scenes of OWAR. It’s a bit silly and dramatic – at least in Jake’s version – he even embellishes the story with screenshots of old Twitter threads and digs made in the comments of Instagram posts – but it’s enough to take my mind off things for a while longer.

It’s pitch-dark outside by the time my eyes begin to droop, and I’ve moved from slumping against my headboard to being curled under the covers, still in my leggings and sweatshirt from that morning, and when I check the time I’m startled to find it’s gone midnight. We’ve been talking non-stop for hours.

@mythicwitch

I should probably get some sleep, it is a school night

@runicrascal

Damn, I didn’t notice it had gotten this late! I’m holding you personally responsible if I don’t manage to finish my physics homework before class tomorrow, I was meant to get to it tonight

@mythicwitch

You’re a terrible procrastinator. It’s very rascal-y of you

---