Page 63 of Furious

“She just needs time. I need time to make her listen. She’s going somewhere tonight. I left her the bike key, but we can get another Uber, follow her, and I can try again—”

“What did she say?” This time, Jo’s voice is painfully soft, just like Zaynah’s whenever she talks to me about Max. Just like Jolene’s, and like Mr. Keegan, the faculty adviser for the volunteer club. Just like everyone else.

I clutch the can more tightly. “It doesn’t matter. My sister’s stubborn, and she’s probably afraid Mom and Dad won’t let her come back. Maybe … maybe I can stay here for a while, prove I’m not going without her.”

“El, have your parents called you yet?” JoJo asks, still stingingly gentle. “My dad and Grandma left voicemails.”

“I’m sorry I got you in trouble again.”

“No, that’s not the point.” She waves her hands. “We’re in this together, and I’ll stay awhile if you need to stay. But do you really think Max is gonna change her mind?”

“We aren’t giving up on her.”

“I’m not saying that, El.” Jo scuffs her sneaker on the sidewalk. “I was at the Raceway just now, you know, and I was thinking about … about the stuff we have to let go of if we want to move on.”

“I’m not moving on, Jo. She’s my family,” I insist. “She’s having a hard time, and what am I supposed to do? Forget about her? Everyone else thinks so, and now you do, too? You don’t turn your back on family.”

We sit in silence under the burning Virginia sun for a moment that becomes eternity. And when Jo speaks again, it’s no longer soft. It’s the sound of something gone wrong, just before you crash.

“You don’t think I know about family, El?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

JoJo

“You think I don’t know about family, El?”

My question sits between us, filling the space more than our bodies on the tiny stoop outside Max’s house. Anger swells within me, white-hot, with spiky edges. How dare El ask such a question? How many times has she been around my family? How many times have I told her about my family? Wasn’t family one of the things that brought us together in the first place?

El swipes at her eyes clumsily because of the stupid can of beer still clutched between her hands. “That’s not what I meant!” She puts the can down and then picks it up again. “I just mean it’s not the same thing. I know your mom is—” El stumbles over her words, the way everyone does when they don’t want to say the hard, true thing. “I know she’s gone—”

“But she’s never coming back so it doesn’t count?” I interrupt, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

El blows out a breath, putting down the beer can again. “It’s just not the same,” she repeats. “You don’t know, because you don’t know Max and me.”

I sputter at that for a minute, unsure of what to say. Because it sounds a lot like El’s saying I can’t speak on family or grief, which is bullshit. And of course I didn’t know her and Max, but I felt like I knew El. Hadn’t I? We’d spent so much time together this summer. And she had called me her girlfriend when I met Max. And I’d snuck off with her on the back of a stolen motorcycle, all the way to Richmond, shitting, Virginia. And when I hugged her, it felt like home, and I’ve been looking for something that felt like home for months now. And maybe Eliana Blum was that for me in Dell’s Hollow, when nothing was familiar.

I let out a long breath, trying to release my anger. Trying to pull upon all my years of training to grant me the ability to keep emotion at a distance.

I fail miserably and my next words come out through my teeth, snarling like a dog’s been let off its leash. “You’re right. I don’t know Max, and I’m not even sure I know you. I mean, we just met a few weeks ago. It’s not like I’m looking to marry a girl I just met. What I wanted to be was your friend. Or maybe your girlfriend. Or at least that’s what I thought we were doing. You know, on this trip. Or this morning. Or even like fifteen minutes ago, before your precious sister rejected you and you decided to take it all out on me!”

God, this morning in the motel feels like ten years ago. El’s crying now and I just want to reach out and hug her, but when my arm brushes hers, she shoves it off and stands up.

“Just don’t,” El snaps. “I shouldn’t have dragged you here to see my ‘precious sister.’ I should’ve come alone. Maybe it would’ve worked if …” She chokes back a sob, and the noise quells my anger. I wrap my arms around my knees, pulling them close.

“It was good to try and find Max at least. Maybe you can have some closure now?” I offer, feeling bad about my ferocious words and somehow wanting to salvage all this in some way.

“Closure,” El spits out viciously. “Sure, great. That’s fucking fantastic. Having closure is so much better than having a sister.”

“I—”

As much as I want to fix this, I bite off what I was going to say. Part of me knows it’s too late. El and I are now like two race cars locked together around a tight turn, careening toward a wall that we can both see, utterly unable to stop moving forward.

El pops the top of the beer can and dumps the frothy amber liquid on a patch of parched grass. “What do you even care? You’re leaving anyway.”

I stand quickly, as some of the beer El’s pouring out splashes on my shoes. “That’s not fair at all.”

El flings the now empty can toward the door of Max’s apartment building, where it clatters and smashes against the wall. “It’s true. You’re just like Max.”