NerdCrush

by Alisha Emrich

Genres: YA Romance; YA Social Themes; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

Ramona Lambert is a typical shy, artistic sixteen-year-old. She has a best friend whom she’s known since they were in diapers, parents who love her, a love for cosplay, and a crush on the cute boy in her class. The only problem? Her best friend moved away, her parents don't quite understand her love of cosplay, and she is pretty sure her crush has no idea she exists. To escape her troubles, Ramona turns to cosplay and her original character, Rel, who gives her the confidence and freedom that she lacks in real life. Embracing this confidence, she decides to strike up an email conversation with her crush, Caleb Wolfe, from her cosplay account in the hopes getting to know him...and maybe win his heart. Then, as Caleb and Ramona are swept up in their emails back and forth to each other, Ramona falls even harder as he opens up about his hopes, insecurities, and his own geeky loves. However, as Caleb starts to grow closer and closer to Rel, he also strikes up a friendship with Ramona, who knows she can't keep the truth about Rel from Caleb but isn't sure she is ready to risk losing him. With an important cosplay convention coming up and the anxiety of her double-life weighing on her, Ramona has to decide if she’ll hide behind her cosplay character forever or take the chance and let Caleb see the real her—because he might actually like her for who she is.

Release date: February 7, 2023

Publisher: Running Press Kids

Print pages: 273

Sample

ONE

PERHAPS IT WAS THE SILVER WIG OR THE BLACK LACE MASK obscuring her face, adding an air of mystery. Or maybe it was her name, Rel, that made him respond. Whatever the case, when Ramona Lambert got home from school on Friday afternoon to see the email icon blinking from her cosplay account, she couldn’t quell the anxiety twisting in her stomach. She took a deep breath. Her trembling, clumsy fingers slid over the keyboard, incorrectly entering the password three times before she eagerly opened her inbox.

One new message. From Caleb Woolf.

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

DATE: Sep 27 at 2:34 PM

SUBJECT: Um… hey

Hey… so I was really surprised to find the drawing and the poem you left in my locker yesterday. The drawing is pretty cool. I’ve never had anyone do that before so I guess I’m flattered? And really curious about who you are. Do you go to Cedar Brook High by any chance? I think your costume is great, btw, because judging by your profile picture, I’m assuming that’s not what you really look like. Well, I can’t think of anything else to say at the moment… but maybe I’ll hear from you again.

-Caleb

P.S. I really liked your poem.

After reading that last line, Ramona fell into a swoon across her messy bed, the words swimming through her mind. I really liked your poem. That was almost the same as saying he liked her. Well, not really, but she’d take it.

With a happy bounce, she got up from her bed and sat at her desk again, planning to reread the email at least five more times when her FaceTime alert chimed. She grabbed her phone, and her best friend, Mandra, filled the screen with her short brown bangs and rectangular fuchsia glasses, a grin stretched across her face. “So, what happened? Tell me you didn’t chicken out,” she said.

Ramona couldn’t conceal her own grin bursting through her pressed lips as she held the phone at a better angle. “I almost did. I got to his locker yesterday and I had the drawing in my hand, and I was thinking, am I really about to do this? But I did. And he responded! I just read it.” She felt a bit breathless and giddy and the words came out in a rush.

“And do you know what he said?”

Ramona quickly recapped, adding extra emphasis on the bit about Caleb liking her drawing and her poem.

Mandra clapped her hands together in excitement. “Have you emailed him back?”

“No, not yet,” Ramona said with a sigh. “I don’t even know what I’ll say—I still can’t even believe I did it. When I left my email address on the bottom of the drawing, I didn’t really think he would write me. And I was freaking out a little, worried that someone might have seen me—”

“—As would I,” Mandra interjected.

Ramona nodded. “But then I was like, you know, it’s time to finally take a chance. And Rel finally gave me the courage to go for it. I should be proud for taking that step, right?”

Mandra nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, definitely. That took major guts and you should definitely be proud of yourself. Though, to be fair, Caleb will probably spend the rest of the weekend wondering who the mysterious person is who left him the anguished love letter…” She gave Ramona an all too familiar look, a mischievous grin playing about her lips.

Ramona sensed that Mandra was preparing for a monologue as her friend clasped her hands together, and Ramona pressed her fist against her lips to suppress her laughter, waiting.

Mandra sighed, and in an affected tone, continued, “He’ll read the anonymous missive, never knowing, never suspecting it was you who wrote it. You, Ramona Elizabeth Lambert, the quiet girl who sits two seats behind him in European History. If he found out, he might think it’s tragically romantic… or creepy and a little stalkerish.”

“Not helping with that last bit.”

Mandra laughed. “No, I’m just messing with you. You should be happy that you finally took the leap and told him how you feel. Well, kinda, because he still technically doesn’t know it’s you, but it’s a step in the right direction!”

Ramona covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God, why did I do it?”

“Come on, don’t second-guess yourself. I wouldn’t stress about it. It’s done now.”

Ramona groaned in response. “I guess you’re right.” Still, she felt a sense of hopeful anticipation that maybe, just maybe, the email from Caleb was only the beginning.

There was a quiet knock at her door, and her mom poked her head in. She looked like an older, cooler, version of Ramona. Her black, tightly coiled hair was pulled back in a high bun, and she looked classy yet comfortable in a pullover, blazer, and skinny jeans. Her cat-eye glasses dangled from a colorful beaded chain around her neck. She totally had the whole “professor” vibe going on, which was appropriate as she taught literature at the Cedar Brook Community College. Her mother usually checked in on her before leaving to teach evening classes. “Hey, you. Hey, Mandra,” she called toward Ramona’s phone.

“Hi, Mrs. Lambert!” Mandra said, waving.

Ramona’s mom turned to her with a look that she’d seen all too often, and she sensed that her mom was getting ready to ask her a question that she already knew the answer to.

“There’s a football game tonight. Aren’t you going?”

Ramona pushed away from her desk, making a face. “Not likely. You know I don’t really do football, Mom.”

“You used to go to the games last year.”

“Only because it was mandatory.” Really, the only reason was because before she had been in marching band with her older sister, Noelle. But Noelle graduated last year, so she saw no reason to continue subjecting herself to such torture. “I quit marching band, remember?”

Her mother sighed as she entered the room. “Well still, it wouldn’t kill you to be more social, Ramona.”

“Actually, it would.”

Seeing that the conversation was going nowhere, her mother changed topics. “Well, how was your day today?”

Ramona kept her face neutral while answering this question. “It was a day. Uneventful. The usual.”

Over the phone, Mandra snorted.

“I heard it was dress-up day,” her mother pressed. “Did you p

articipate?”

“Nah.”

“Why not?” her mother asked with a frown. “You could have dressed up as your little maid girl.”

Ramona pinched the bridge of her nose to stem her annoyance. “She’s not a maid. She’s an aristocrat descended from a long line of magicians.” God. While her parents vaguely knew of her hobby, they, like anyone else who wasn’t familiar with the concept of cosplay, didn’t really see the point. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a little irritated that her mother couldn’t be bothered to remember even the smallest detail about her character.

“Well, she looks like a maid,” her mother said. “But in any case, I’m sure you would have had fun.”

That’s doubtful. Ramona made a noncommittal noise in response and rolled her eyes at her phone before setting it face up on her desk.

“Okay, well I’m about to head out. You can order a pizza or something for dinner. Your father should be home around eight. Love you.”

“Love you too, bye.” Ramona waited until her mother closed the door before picking her phone up again.

Mandra giggled. “Well, that was uncomfortable to witness.”

Ramona rolled her eyes again. “I mean, I’ve only been dressing up as Rel since I was fourteen. You’d think she’d at least remember who my character is.” She didn’t know why this annoyed her so much, but it did.

Mandra only shrugged, and Ramona felt a little stung at her friend’s lack of outrage on her behalf.

“Anyway,” Ramona said. “I don’t even remember what I was saying before.”

Mandra shrugged again. “Neither do I, but I’ve got trig homework waiting for me.”

Ramona smiled. “Trig homework on a Friday night? You nerd. Are you sure you’re not just trying to get off the phone so you can go on a hot date?”

“Yeah, I wish. Unfortunately, the only action I’ll be getting tonight is with this boring-ass textbook. I’ve got a major test on Monday, and if I want to go to this concert with Brie and Corrie tomorrow night, I need to get some studying in.”

Ramona tried to ignore the slight twinge of something (not jealously, but something) she felt at the mention of Brie and Corrie. This was the first time she had ever brought them up. She knew she shouldn’t feel weird that Mandra wanted to study rather than talk. Priorities, right? Ramona had to admit though, it was hard sometimes to deal with the fact that her best friend lived a whole two states away and she could only see Mandra through the phone or computer. She guessed she couldn’t blame Mandra for wanting to hang out with her other, more tangible friends. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a little weird that Mandra had never mentioned the

se friends before now.

Lost in her thoughts, she came back to the present when she noticed Mandra waving her hand across the screen. “Hellooo? You zoning out on me?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Ramona said, forcing a laugh.

Mandra raised an eyebrow. “Okayyyy. Well, let me know how everything turns out with Caleb. Later.”

Ramona waved her off. “Doubt there’ll be anything to tell, but yeah. Later.”

She ended the call and then leaned back in her chair. After a moment, she went back to her computer and read over Caleb’s email until she had pretty much memorized every word, amazed that her crush had even responded to her, an anonymous someone who left a note in his locker. It made her think of the time she’d spent painstakingly drawing a portrait of him from memory, and finding the words for the poem for him. She thought about how nervous she was as she approached his locker, how it had taken everything in her not to turn and bolt back down the hallway. And how in that instant, as she stood there, a million different possibilities had flashed before her—and as she slid the paper inside, how she decided that she was willing to risk all the disastrous ones if it meant a chance at getting the one she wanted.

She smiled to herself, mulling over how she would respond to Caleb’s email while contemplating what to do with the rest of her evening. She almost wished she had to go to work so she would have something to do.

Wishing to work on a Friday night, that’s not pathetic at all.

She weighed her options. She could do her homework. Definite nope. She could order a pizza and see what was on Netflix. Definite possibility. Or… Her gaze drifted to the hand-drawn illustrations that covered her bedroom walls. Or she could lose herself in Rel’s world for a while.

It was an easy choice.

TWO

WHEN RAMONA WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, HER MIND immediately went to Caleb’s email. Her heart jumped, and a warm tingly feeling spread through her. She got up from her bed, hurried over to her computer, and clicked open her email. For a moment, she thought maybe it had all been a dream and he hadn’t responded at all, but seeing his name in her inbox made her smile with relief and filled her with a giddy rush. One small step.

She’d wanted so badly to reply last night, to send him something. She went back and forth, debating whether to click Compose Message, but just hovering over the icon had made her stomach do somersaults. What would she even say? Certainly not the first thing that had popped into her mind—I’m so glad you responded because I have a huge crush on you. Every time she had a flash of inspiration, she shot it down. She didn’t want to risk sounding stupid. Rel had helped her pique his interest, and she didn’t want to mess things up by being hasty.

Anyway, the fact that he responded was enough for now.

She rose from the desk and stretched, glad that she didn’t have to deal with customers, uncomfortable eye contact, or burnt toast today. Her parents allowed her to work most weekends and a few days after school at Tomlin’s Diner, and when she was off, she wasn’t sure if she should look forward to what her parents might have in store for her. It most likely involved cleaning. She knew she might as well resign herself to it, though, because complaining would get her nowhere.

On the bright side, Noelle was coming home from college today for the weekend. Ramona would be the first to admit that despite not being the best of friends, she felt kind of adrift without Noelle here. They’d always gotten along fine, and Ramona knew that her sister was someone she could confide in about most things, but they hadn’t really had a chance to talk since Noelle left for Georgia Southern in August. Ramona was looking forward to their first mini-reunion as much as her parents were.

Coming down the hallway, she cupped a huge yawn and entered the kitchen. Her mom sat perched on a stool at the kitchen island, a stack of papers and a red pen in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, while her father tended to the stove. Ramona smelled the sweet scent of his famous blueberry pancakes and waffles and the sizzling sausage. “Morning Mona-bear,” he said, dropping a kiss on top of her head. “’Fro is in full effect this morning, huh?”

Ramona’s hand immediately went up to her head. She hadn’t felt like twisting her hair the night before, and it was no doubt

sticking up around her head like a fluffy black cloud. “Morning, Dad.”

“Morning, honey,” her mother said, looking up from one of the pages she was reading over. “How’d you sleep?”

Ramona yawned again. “Alright, I guess.”

Her mother was still eyeing her… or rather her hair. “I hope you’re planning to do something with that today.”

Ramona’s hand went to her head again. Her mom was forever commenting on her wild, unruly Afro. She had pleaded with Ramona many times to get box braids or faux locs, but Ramona liked her hair the way it was—free and untamed. Even though she knew her mother didn’t mean any harm, she had a way of saying things that rubbed Ramona the wrong way, particularly first thing in the morning.

Her father flipped a pancake. “Oh, leave her alone, Patricia.”

“When’s Noelle getting here?” Ramona asked, trying to change the subject as she slid onto a stool across from her mother.

Her father glanced at the clock on the microwave. “She should be arriving a little after eleven. Shame she’s gonna miss all this good food, though. We figured we’d all head into Savannah and spend the day downtown, maybe do some mini golf, get some food. I heard they have a few awesome Vietnamese places,” he added with a wink. Ramona and her father shared a love of Vietnamese food. “I could definitely go for some lemongrass chicken.”

Ramona reached for a glass and the carafe of orange juice that was sitting in the center of the island. “Sounds good.” On the one hand, she figured spending a day doing something fun with her family wasn’t all that bad—it definitely beat cleaning. And it was a plus that no one would be asking awkward questions about her cosplay or (in her mother’s case) being critical about other aspects of her appearance, behavior, or any of the other things about Ramona she didn’t understand. Plus, she was really looking forward to catching up with her sister and getting her take on college life. Ramona supposed she was busy, being a freshman with massive loads of homework and all, but she also wondered what it was like for Noelle to finally be on her own in a strange new place. It was something she was looking forward to more than she wanted to admit.

“How long’s Noelle staying?” she asked. “And can we go to that tea shop on Broughton Street? I think Noelle would like some of the stuff in there.”

“I know,” her mother said. “It always smells so good, and they have so many different teas. I can never decide what to get. As far as we know, she’ll be here through Sunday afternoon. That will give her enough time to get back for her Monday classes.” She sipped her coffee and passed Ramona a plate. “I do hope she’s taking care of herself.”

“I’m sure she is,” Ramona’s father said as he scooped eggs from a pan and onto a platter. He placed it in the middle of the island, along with the salt and pepper shakers.

“Have you started giving any thought to where you might apply?” her mom asked, spooning some eggs on her plate. “You know it’s never too early to start planning, and then you have your SATs to prepare for as well.”

Ramona groaned quietly. This wasn’t the kind of conversation she felt like having with her parents before she’d even had breakfast. “I have a few places in mind,” she said, before cramming a forkful of eggs into her mouth in the double hope that her answer would placate her mother and that her full mouth would make her mother drop the subject.

“And how about a major? Have you given any consideration to what you might want to study?” Her mom continued, undeterred by the eggs. “Mrs. Anderson tells me how well you’re doing in Honors English. Perhaps you might consider that as a major.”

Ramona grimaced into her juice glass and considered what her mom said. Just because she got good grades in English didn’t mean it was something she wanted to study. She knew better than to mention what she really wanted to pursue. So, she settled for a vague maybe, before turning her attention to her breakfast, hoping her father would turn the conversation another way.

“You mom’s right, you know,” he said, taking a seat at the end of the island as he put down another platter laden with s

ausages. “It’s good that your teacher sees promise in your abilities. It’s never too early to start honing those toward a possible career path. And there’s lots you can do with an English degree—just look at your mom,” he said, beaming at her.

Et tu, Brute? It took every ounce of control not to roll her eyes. Instead, she simply nodded and added a waffle and few sausages to her plate. In all honesty, being like her mother was the last thing she wanted. Not that she wasn’t proud of her mom for all that she’d accomplished, but the idea of going back to school only to end up in school for a career was not appealing to her at all. No, what she wanted to do was more along the lines of drawing and illustration. She could totally see herself becoming an animator or perhaps even a costume designer, since she already had some skill at creating her own costumes and props for cosplay. However, she knew better than to say all this because they would never go for it. Her parents had told her more than once that they expected her to study something practical, something that would lead to a stable career.

“How’s Noelle liking school anyway?” she asked in a desperate last effort to turn the topic away from her. “I’ve been so busy with stuff that I haven’t talked to her in ages.”

“She’s liking it well enough. She’s probably been pretty busy, pledging for the sorority on top of all her classes.” Her mother was positively beaming as she added, “Noelle’s going to become a Delta!”

Ramona felt her mouth go slack. “A sorority?” Since when was Noelle—studious band geek Noelle—into sororities?

Her mother smiled. “I know, isn’t it great? I’m sure she’ll be telling you all about it when she gets here. You two have a lot to catch up on.”

I’ll say.

Ramona finished the rest of her breakfast in silence while her parents carried on the conversation, reminiscing about their own college days and the respective Greek houses they had pledged (her mother was a Zeta, her dad a Kappa).

I guess it runs in the family, she mused. Or at least part of the family, because Ramona had no desire to join a sorority. The thought of being put on display for others to judge if you were good enough to join their club made her cringe. Cosplay on the other hand—that was a club she was proud to be a part of. She got to meet a lot of awesome and creative people and geek out over anime and TV shows and books. What she loved most of all was becoming someone else and inhabiting fictional worlds.

“You might consider pledging when you get to college,” Ramona’s mother said, breaking into her thoughts. “It’s a great way to meet new people and make lifelong connections.”

“I doubt it,” Ramona said, popping one last bite of sausage in her mouth and pushing her plate away. “And besides, I already do m

eet new people in my cosplay groups.”

Her parents exchanged a look. “Well, it’s a great way to meet people in person,” her mother added. As if online friends didn’t count. Suddenly, Ramona wanted to tell them about the cosplay convention she planned to attend in a few weeks. She wanted to tell them about the new additions she had made to her costume, the people who commented on her photos on social media, the ones who would ask to take pictures with her. The first time she went to a cosplay convention, she’d been floored by the number of people who loved her costume, despite it being an original character she created herself. She wanted to show her parents how awesome it was to be seen for her creativity and to share that creativity with others who loved the same things. She wanted them to understand why it was important to her.

Instead, she remained silent, and her mother didn’t press the issue. Ramona finished the rest of her juice and, thankfully, didn’t have to answer any more questions as her parents finally decided to drop the topic and discuss where they would go for the day.

As soon as she could, she excused herself from the table and escaped to her room where she could have some time alone to think. Noelle pledging a sorority was mind-boggling. Up until this moment, Ramona had no idea she was even interested in them. Sure, Noelle was well liked and much more outgoing that Ramona, and in band she had her own group of friends—friends she allowed Ramona to tag along with occasionally. In the stands at the football games, Ramona and Noelle sat with the rest of the

flute section, and Noelle always said how vapid the cheerleaders seemed and how their clique was like being in a sorority. So, it was confusing to her that Noelle suddenly wanted to join one now.

First Mandra, now Noelle.

Everyone seemed to be changing. The best Ramona could hope for was that it wouldn’t change things between them.