Page 37 of Do You Ship It

Jake

Definitely do! I love how invested you are! Wish we’d done this ages ago lol x

Me

Me too x

Why has he cancelled? Is this because of Max not being able to make it – does he not want to spend time with me, like he doesn’t want to with the gang from school? Is it total coincidence? Why did he ignore that part of my message?

I take a breath to calm my racing thoughts. Knowing Jake, it’s because he responded faster than he thought and just didn’t even notice that he hadn’t answered my question. And he seemsgenuinelyexcited about me joining them for Comic Con; I believe that.

My stomach sinks as I stare at our text conversation, my message left on read even though I don’t really know what he would’ve replied to it anyway.

And then a notification slides down the top of my screen, a Discord message from Jake – a link to Instagram posts of Lady di Silver cosplays – and I open it with a little more enthusiasm than I’d shown Max in the car.

If wearing some elf ears is the way to Jake’s heart … Well, if I’ve learned one thing from all those romcom movies, it’s that a little dent to my pride and dignity is a small price to pay for true love.

CHAPTER 15

For the next two weeks, Jake goes quiet. Over text, he tells me that he’s too busy with college stuff; on Discord, I learn that he cancelled our Wednesday watch-party because his dad wanted to take him out for dinner and talk about universities. It sends me into a bit of a spiral of my own, and in a panic I order about twenty prospectuses even though I have no idea what I’m evenlookingfor in a uni, if I want to go, or what I’d study.

There’s a little flutter in my chest that screamsART!!!, that dreams of being able to work on sets and designs like the ones on OWAR, but I shove that ridiculous notion away as soon as it rises to the surface.

Dad sits with me after my shift on Saturday, helping me look through all the brochures. Then Mum takes me for coffee and cake on Sunday morning before I go to work and we make a spreadsheet of differentunis and their courses and their merits. I don’t know if they’re trying to one-up each other, if they’re genuinely working in tandem, or simply never communicated to each other how they’re both trying to help, but I don’t worry about it too much. Itdoeshelp put me at ease a bit about uni, and it’s nice to spend some time with them both.

I get invited to Daphne’s house to hang out with some of the girls after school one day, and I feel firmly, solidly, One Of The Group. Now that I don’t feel I have to work so hard to keep up or make sure they reallydolike me, I enjoy their company even more. I don’t even mind mentioning Jake more openly around Evie, who promises not to tell anybody from our old school but tells me, ‘I always thought you two had kind of a thing going on. I’msohere for it; you’d be such an adorable couple.’

They’re fun and cool and so easy to be around, and I’m so busy basking in it that the cinema trip with the group from my old school comes and goes without me even noticing. It does make me realize maybe I don’treallymiss them very much, though; and that, by comparison to the girls at college, my school friendships were very surface-level, especially because they were mostly facilitated by Jake. I was never as excited to see them as I am Daphne and the girls, have neverconnected with them in the same way. My feelings have a lot more to do with losing Jake than it doesthem, and I’m surprised by the sense of absolute relief in accepting that we’ve grown apart … and that’s okay.

It’s okay because, like Mum said, sometimes it happens. It’s okay because I still have Jake. But mostly, it’s okay because I have the girls.

And it feelsniceto have proper friends of my own.

Still, I don’t mention Comic Con and the couple’s costume to Daphne or Nikita or anybody, not sure how to bring it up and aware how pathetic it sounds. Finding a costume isn’t half as difficult as I thought it might be – this time of year there are plenty of cheap black cloaks and sword belts and wigs available online, and when Mum or Dad ask about the parcels I’ve been ordering, I can pass it off as a Halloween costume without too much further enquiry.

Plus, thanks to some assistance from @runicrascal, a little further research of my own and a few pointers from fellow Discord fangirl @silversmithhh, I learn that one of Lady di Silver’s more notable outfits in the show is a green embroidered dress which she apparently wears to a ball. There’s some truly gorgeous fanart, and incredible videos from women who have recreated the look for themselves on a sewing machine which I can’t help but be impressed by. The style is very medieval,but I think a plain green dress would do the job just as well, and that won’t feel as weird to wear out in public as afullcostume.

Plus, it’s a lot cheaper to find a dupe online than something more show-accurate, and I’m not made of money. Theliteralprice of doing this in the name of romance would be a bit steep otherwise.

The Friday night before Comic Con, I lay my outfit on my bed. A brown wig styled into a braided updo that I spent hours wrestling into place with hairpins trying to make perfect, the green dress which really looks like more of a tiered midi than something medieval, but is at least the right shade of emerald, along with the sword belt (with a cardboard hilt I crafted and covered in bronze and silver paint) and my Amazon-purchased cloak.

It’s a solid costume.Cosplay. Especially for a first attempt, done on a budget and a bit of a time-crunch. It’ll look brilliant next to Jake’s costume, I’m sure of it, and the green dress won’t even be too weird to wear on the train into town.

But when Saturday morning arrives, I stand shaking in my room with the cloak bunched in my hands, not sure why I feel so sick with nerves. I imagine walking into a hall full of peoplenotin costume; this isn’t anOWAR-specific event like the last one, after all, so what if I look completely out of place and nobody recognizes who I’m supposed to be? Or the OWAR fans (cough,Max, cough) ridicule me for grossly misunderstanding, for being such a fake fan?

And what if Jake doesn’t even go through withhiscosplay? If it’s just me and Max, two weirdos together, everybody pointing and laughing and whispering behind their hands? What if I see someone I know? Anissa might be there and tell someone at school about it, or maybe a photo of me dressed up could end up online …

I can’t do it. I can get into this convoluted show with its tangled plotline, I can read the fanfiction for the romantic storyline, I can even put up with a third-wheel every time I hang out with Jake, but Ican’t do this.

I shove the cloak, the sword belt, dress and wig into the bottom of my wardrobe next to a half-done watercolour painting of Lady di Silver’s tower and a shoebox of painting supplies, and throw on a pair of jeans instead. I leave the ‘BE YE A RASCAL, ROACH?’ T-shirt Jake got me in the drawer, ignoring it in favour of a woolly jumper. It’s too cold for a T-shirt, anyway. He’ll understand. I’ll just say that the dress didn’t fit, or the cloak didn’t arrive in time, or something.

He’ll understand.

I just can’t do it. I can’t be that person.

Look at Anissa. Look at Max – I don’t know if he even has friends outside of Jake andmaybethe football boys, at a push. Look atJake, withdrawing from all his old friends from school, and even from me.

When I get to the concert hall in the middle of town, I’m relieved to see that most people walking in are dressed more casually – jeans and hoodies, similar to my own outfit. At least I won’t be as out of place as I was the last time.

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