Page 57 of Do You Ship It

‘Maybe! I’ll see.’

‘And you could bring some of the girls from St David’s, if you wanted? The more the merrier! It’ll be a lot of Colleg Carreg lads anyway … And I mean, I already know Evie a bit, so that wouldn’t be weird, would it?’

Immediately, I’m torn. I’d love for the girls to meet Jake and really get the measure of us together, tell me if they think wedohave chemistry or if it’s all in my head, and I think it’d earn me some brownie points as a friend to be inviting them to a party, which definitely can’t hurt.

But if they meet Jake, they’ll meet Max, and Max is …

Well, he wears his fandom on his sleeve.

Or around his neck …literally. Even under his football jersey, he’s wearing that rope-chain necklace he wears with his Moonwalker cosplay. With Max, there’d be no escaping the boys’ love forOf Wrath and Rune– or mine.

And I’m just still not ready for that to be a firm, cemented part of my personality. The girls were kind of judgemental about Comic Con – would they cut me out altogether if they found out I was one of the nerds who had a fun time there? And didn’t just go for a guy’s sake?

Jake smiles at me, expectant,waiting, and I glancepast him to Max, who’s watching me closely like I’m bound to say the wrong thing, and –

Then it hits me.

‘You know what?’ I tell Jake smoothly. ‘I knowexactlywho to invite.’

CHAPTER 20

On Monday lunchtime, I find Anissa in our art classroom.

She’s wearing earphones, but her eyes flicker towards the door when I come in, and she brightens, smiling as she takes one out. ‘Hi.’

‘Hey.’ I head straight for her, my pre-planned speech forgotten when I notice what she’s working on. It’s a charcoal scene of a stormy coastline, and even though it’s not quite finished yet, it’svisceral. The rage of howling winds and lashing rain is so strong that it hits me like a punch in the gut.

‘Whoa. That’s … That’s …’

Anissa waits for my verdict, and a trickle of shame slides down my spine, making me squirm.

Art is a way for me to express my emotions, sometimes; an outlet, a way to help me process something I can’t quite put into words even to myselfyet. Seeing the emotion Anissa’s poured into her drawing – and how pleasantly surprised she looked to see me just now …

I feel bad. I feel so, so terrible.

‘That’s really good,’ I manage at last, and she beams. Her smile makes herglow, like Jake’s does, but this time instead of making me want to smile back, I just want the ground to swallow me whole.

I don’t think I’ve ever been mean to Anissa. We’ve never talked enough for that, and certainly never spent enough time together for me to have actively shunned her or anything.

But I also realize in this moment that I’ve never beenniceto her, either, and I’ve been as judgemental towards her over the years as Max has been to me since I first met him. We talk daily in Discord since I introduced her to it, and I enjoy those conversations; but I know that I haven’t been a good friend to her.

That’s also when I realize: Anissaismy friend.

Maybe she might have been all along, if I had ever given her a chance. Jake would’ve gotten on with her really well if they’d ever hung out at school, especially with their shared love for OWAR.

I think about how alone she always is – how lonely that must be. I wonder ifanybody’sever given her much of a chance.

Maybe I’d know these things, if I were a better friend.

Anissa doesn’t seem to be aware that I’m wildly psychoanalysing her, or feeling like a totally wretched excuse for a person, because she’s already leapt out of her chair to pull a canvas from the back of the room that she plops down on a table nearby before adding her sketchbook beside it.

‘I’m doing a storm series, for my nature-inspired pieces. So this one –’ she jerks her head behind her at the charcoal piece, already busy flipping through her sketchbook for the right pages – ‘is your miserable, moody, English countryside weather. And then this one’s obviously more tropical storm – I need to touch it up, I know, everything’s a bit half-finished right now … And then I thought I’d do more of a woodland theme one …’

The canvas painting is the total opposite of her angry charcoal: richly-coloured palm trees bending in the wind, the waves of the sea crashing into each other almost playfully, a messy sandcastle with a red bucket half-buried beside it. The woodland one is all vibrant wildflowers, petals heavy with raindrops, and evokes something calmer and gentler.

The guilt that’s taken root in my gut eases a little, realizing that notallher work is as angry and sadas the one in progress on the easel, and for a few minutes we lose ourselves talking about her plans for the different pieces and the feedback we’ve both had from our teacher so far, and the conversation flows as quickly and easily as it does in Discord, our voices overlapping occasionally like we can’t get the words out fast enough.

It’s such a contrast from her usual reserved self. Almost the whole of lunch break passes with neither of us making any progress on our art coursework, and instead talking non-stop.

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