The Fangirl Project

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Your ticket to the Worlds Beyond fantasy con today . . .

See you there, CERYS!

I skip through the email, looking for the QR code, but not before my eyes widen at the reminder that “weapons, even makeshift and nonthreatening, will not be allowed into the convention center.”

“What am I getting myself into?” I mutter.

A glance around makes me even less sure that I’ve made the right decision to come along: there are streams of people walking past with armfuls of posters ready to get signed, wearing questionable wigs and fake elf ears, in T-shirts that look like less-­cool versions of the Stranger Things Hellfire Club. Some of them are even completely dressed up, like they’re going to a Halloween costume contest. A guy strides by me in brown armor made of papier-­mâché, with antlers the size of my arm sticking out of his head.

I take a deep breath. This is all just a means to an end, I tell myself, and it’s going to be totally worth it. I just have to walk up, scan my ticket, and go find Jake.

I’ve hardly seen my best friend Jake since he moved away at the start of summer and started going to Colleg Carreg for the last two years of school to study A Levels, instead of going to St. David’s sixth form with me in Cardiff. I can just feel him slipping further and further away. Every time we’ve made plans to hang out over the past few weeks, the rest of the old school gang ended up joining us, which would normally be fine, except . . .

Except I haven’t been able to shake the full-­blown crush I developed on Jake months ago, and it’s true what they say: absence really does make the heart grow fonder. And how am I supposed to initiate a romantic move on him if he’s only ever going to see me in that context? I’ll be stuck in the best friend zone for life.

And, like, what’s the alternative? Tell him I have a massive crush on him and I think we’d be great together, risk total rejection, and lose the best person in my life for good because I’ve made it too awkward between us?

Yeah, right.

No, I have to find a better way. I have to show him we’re perfect for each other.

Hence, The Fangirl Project.

Hence, I’m now at some random industrial estate, in front of an old warehouse turned convention hall, surrounded by strangers in cosplay and ready to spend all afternoon pretending I’m totally excited to be here.

There’s a huge banner stretched across the front of the warehouse. welcome, travelers! it declares. to the worlds beyond fantasy con, for fans of of wrath and rune!

Why couldn’t Jake have at least picked something, I don’t know, more mainstream to be a die-hard fanboy over? I probably could’ve gotten on board with Lord of the Rings, I’ve seen the memes about it and even that weird Isengard song video. And I’ve seen all the new Marvel films with Jake, even if I don’t actually know what he’s talking about when he goes on about the different “phases.”

But no, he had to go and pick Of Wrath and Rune to be his favorite thing. A niche, low-­budget TV show with a cult following and eight books—­eight!—­that aren’t even a finished series yet. I have some idea what it’s about, mainly secondhand knowledge from Jake talking nonstop about it when I have managed to see him lately: It’s a high-­fantasy adventure, with fauns, some Robin Hood–­type characters called the Rascals, and an evil wizard or something.

I figure I have enough surface-­level knowledge to not make a complete fool of myself today, and then I’ll try to watch the TV show. It’ll be like homework. All part of my ultimate mission to become Jake’s dream girl and give us something new to bond over so he’ll finally realize it.

Speak of the devil—­my phone buzzes with a text asking if I’m here yet. I wonder if he knows I’m stalling out here, thinking about him? (Although, to be fair, I am usually thinking about him.)

His text only serves to remind me how quiet our message thread has become; when I open it, I can see back to texts I sent four days ago, agreeing to come to the convention. My reply sounds bright and breezy, thankfully—­I’d been internally screaming when he invited me after I mentioned oh-­so-­casually how I was thinking of giving his favorite new series a go, seeing what all the fuss was about. I even swapped my usual Saturday shift at work so I could be here.

As I slowly make my way to the ticket scanners, I scroll a little farther back, seeing too many half-­made plans that fell through. Usually because he was busy with soccer, or his family. But one name in particular keeps glaring up at me from the screen: Max. They made fast friends after Jake moved, and ever since it’s Max this and Max that, and . . .

I can’t help but feel like I’m being replaced. Like Jake’s forgetting about me.

I shove the phone into my pocket, jaw clenched in determination. I have to change that. I have to get things back to how they were. And, if possible, make them better.

All right, I think, striding toward the doors. Showtime!

I’m not really sure what I was expecting from a convention, but I’m immediately overwhelmed. The noise of people chatting and someone speaking over a microphone is amplified by the high, corrugated metal ceilings into a cacophony that makes me feel like I’ve accidentally wandered into a nightclub. It’s way busier than I was expecting, with people clustered in huge groups to get things signed or have their photo taken with someone, and spilling out of a curtained-­off section where I figure there must be a panel going on.

There are loads of stalls selling merch, too. Not just Of Wrath and Rune things, but general fantasy junk. There’s a huge display of crossbows and swords, which I think is pretty rich, given the so-­called rule against having weapons in the convention hall.

This, I decide quickly, is so not my thing. Jake tried to get me to play Dungeons & Dragons with him and his older brother, Thomas, a couple of times, and I just could never get into it. I don’t care about elves and sorcerers and trolls and faeries, and I really don’t want to spend my whole Saturday hanging out with people who do.

It’s not too late to turn around and get the bus home. I could just say I wasn’t feeling well. There’s got to be a better way to get Jake’s attention than all of this, right?

Also, it turns out it’s not everyone in their costumes and fan-­made T-shirts that looks weird in here: It’s me.

In the cute blue sundress and brown sandals I picked out especially to impress Jake, I stick out like a sore thumb.

I’m buffeted across the back of the head and the blow trips me forward. Looking over my shoulder, I see a woman in a giant set of painted cardboard wings, one now slightly askew. She straightens it, not seeming to notice our collision. Her friends are busy laughing about something, and then shout in unison, “For glory and destiny! For wrath! For ruin!”

I fix my ponytail, heart thudding hard.

I don’t know what I was thinking—­I don’t belong here! Everyone can see it, and I bet they’re all thinking it. My throat feels tight and my mouth bone-­dry, a familiar, creeping dread that I’m intruding and not wanted. Except, this time, it’s not people in the schoolyard at break time, or my parents shouting at each other at home, and there’s no Jake to rescue and reassure me. It’s—­

“Cerys! You made it!”

I turn in the direction of my best friend’s voice, immediately breathing a little easier for hearing it, and find Jake striding through a gap in the crowds and right toward me. My heart does a little somersault. I know I only saw him two weeks ago just before school started, but I drink in the sight of him, some paranoid little part of me trying to work out if he’s already turned into someone else.

But he looks just the same as always: short sandy-­blond hair styled in that way that looks effortless but I know takes him a solid twenty minutes every morning; tall, lanky frame and bright blue eyes that crinkle behind his glasses; and that huge, loving smile that makes you feel like the center of the whole universe, it’s so big.

Have I changed? Will he notice all the extra freckles on my skin brought out by a late burst of summer sun, the extra care I put into styling my pale blond hair today? The fact that I’m wearing my good bra (the one that actually gives me some cleavage)?

Jake envelops me in a bear hug, crushing me against him, which, in turn, serves as a crushing reminder that my crush is very much unrequited. This definitely isn’t how you hug a girl you see as a romantic prospect; I’ve seen enough rom-­coms to know. His hand is meant to linger on the small of my back, at least.

He draws away, and I see he’s wearing one of those T-shirts like most everyone else. It’s a deep forest green, with a large circular emblem that looks sort of ancient-­Roman-­inspired, and sharp, blocky text is splashed across it, reading be ye a rascal, roach?