The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

hide—no private school, no popularity, no trust fund. It’s just you and your most base emotion. Fear is where the truth lies.”

I thought about my own fears—how my skin vibrated whenever I was panicked, like a monster was trying to get out. I didn’t let myself dwell on the thought.

But Freddie’s ideas were big, and they filled up the small alleyway.

“You’re really passionate about this stuff,” I said. I could tell that if Freddie’s cheeks weren’t covered in white, they’d be blooming pink, as though he thought he’d said too much.

“I’m just trying to say that fear is kind of this important thing in our lives,” Freddie said. “It’ll always be there. And if you let it, fear will hold you back.”

I thought of the ways my own fear could take over sometimes and leave me paralyzed, how anxiety crawled out of my mind and became something physical, ruling my body and pulling all the strings.

“With the Mary Shelley Club, we’re taking the fear back,” Freddie said. “Once you take control of it, it gives you back your power. You can let go. It’s freedom.”

“Seems reckless.”

Freddie tilted his face back. “Freedom?”

“Letting go.” I had a flash of Lux in the art closet, the scissors in my hand. I was afraid of that part of myself. And I could feel that fear coursing through me, trying to take control, trying to talk me out of doing this Fear Test. But if Freddie was right, then maybe what we did tonight really would give me some power back.

“What if I suck at improv and things go haywire?” I asked. “Is there, like, a safe word to stop the Fear Test?”

Freddie thought for a moment. “Sure, we can have a safe word. Pick one.”

“Armadillo,” I blurted. It was the first thing that came to mind, and it made a smile crawl onto Freddie’s face.

“Okay, I like that. If anything goes wrong—if you feel uncomfortable at any point and want to bail, just say ‘armadillo.’ This doesn’t have to be scary.” He paused, then shook his head, laughing. “I mean, yes, making it scary is kind of the objective, but it isn’t supposed to be scary for us. For us it’s gonna be fun.”

“That a promise?”

“Absolutely,” Freddie said. It was his smile—like a little kid’s—that convinced me. He was about to play his favorite game, and he had a new friend to share it with. I smiled back, feeling the excitement rising in my own chest.

“Okay, I’m done.” I stepped back to examine my creation. “Have you considered that you might be too dedicated to this club?”

“Dedication is the only way to win, Rachel.” Freddie put the blue, frizzy wig on his head and smiled, his mouth a garish red. “As reigning champion, I should know.”

 16

TREVOR DRIGGS

WHEN TREVOR DRIGGS answered the door, he found the third nobody of the night standing on the other side. A short girl with short hair, looking way too angry to be at a party.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Felicity Chu.”

“Do I know you, Felicity Chu?”

The girl brushed her fingers over her little bangs and peered past his shoulder, into the party. There was a boy trying to do a handstand on a coffee table. But a girl jabbed him in the gut and he crumpled into a drunken heap.

“We go to school together,” Felicity said. “I’m in three of your classes.”

Trevor was still drawing a blank.

“I let you cheat off my physics test last week.”

Nope. Still couldn’t place her. And anyway, he’d cheated off a lot of people last week. Trevor didn’t want to be an asshole, but … “You sure you’re at the right house?”

A hand snaked onto Trevor’s shoulder and squeezed. Trevor turned to find Bram standing there, drink in hand and with a smile that said he was three-quarters of the way to lit.

“Let her in, man,” Bram said. “The more the merrier, right?”

Trevor didn’t know who this happy-go-lucky Bram was or what he’d done with the real Bram, who would never let some rando in. But as he paused, the short girl, whose name Trevor had already forgotten, slipped by him and immediately disappeared into the crowd.

“Dude, we just letting anybody in tonight?”

Bram just shrugged and steered Trevor away from the door, his touch sure enough to lead anyone to a chiller plane of existence.

“Do you want to spend the whole night playing bodyguard?” Bram asked. “Or do you want to finally make a move on Lucia?”

Trevor followed Bram’s eyes to Lucia Trujillo, who sat at the edge of the couch talking to Lux and Juliet. He’d been crushing on Lucia like crazy since school started again, when she’d come back from a summer in South America all different. She was tanner, for one thing, and she’d dyed her hair to look like honey, which suited her real nice. And her body. Her body … Basically, the girl had come back grown.

He’d never really considered her an option before but tonight, he was going to let her know. She was def on the menu and he was starving.

“And all you have to do,” Bram said, shoving his drink into Trevor’s hand, “is relax. Talk to her. Be the Man.”

Trevor had meant to take a sip, but that wasn’t enough for a Man so he gulped down the whole thing. Vodka, straight. He winced as the alcohol shredded his esophagus. “I’m the Man.”

The guys went to join the girls on the couch, their empty seats awaiting their return. No one was dumb enough to take them.

Trevor liked that. He also liked that when he and Bram sat down, the girls’ attentions swung back to them. Lux slid onto Bram’s lap and Lucia got up from the armrest to sit next to Trevor. She sat so close now that her thigh touched his thigh and there was nothing but two thin pieces of denim between them. Trevor liked that, too.

“Hi,” she said.

Usually when a pretty girl was talking to him, Trevor’s responses came in