Page 69 of Furious

With that thought, I pull up movie one, The Fast and the Furious, and hit Play, happy to lose myself and my broken heart in heists, one-liners, and Letty Ortiz stomping around gleefully in motorcycle boots.

As it turns out, life without El Blum in it is both easier and harder than I could’ve ever expected. I spend the weeks after we got home working in Grandma Jolene’s garage, helping Dad around the house, and avoiding the places where the volunteer club would be. Oh, and also Putt by the Pond. I keep as far away from there as possible. I don’t hear from El—not a text, phone call, DM, or anything—which hurts more than I’d like to admit, but it also helps me realize how truly over we are. More than once I start to text her, but then I stop, not sure what to say.

Dad is true to his word. He signs my form and we send it in. I’m still waiting to hear back, and one week stretches into the next with no word from the F1 Academy.

Grandma Jolene gets home, and she doesn’t even ask me about El or the Hornet or our road trip to Richmond. She just hugs me and says, “Life is weird, JoJo, but you’ll get through it. Keep yourself in the moment and also keep your eyes ahead at all times.”

I’m not quite sure how to do that, but I’m trying. If I’d been a hermit at the beginning of the summer, it’s nothing compared to my life after El Blum smashed into it.

Which is fine with me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

El

A month after my rock-bottom return to Dell’s Hollow, I sit down at my desk with a blank postcard. I picked it up at Fresh Fare, our local grocery store, and the only place I’ve been allowed besides the house to help Dad with the shopping, at least until my first shift back at Putt by the Pond later today. Fresh Fare’s got a limited selection, admittedly. This one has a kind of sloppy photo collage of eastern gray squirrels—our state mammal—but whatever. The picture isn’t the point.

I could probably fill a hundred postcards with everything I wish I’d said to Max in Richmond. That she’s not the person I thought she was, not the hero I wanted her to be. That I wish she’d told me what was going on and how complicated things were between her and my parents. That she’d been wrong, and mean, and selfish. That I’d been wrong, and mean, and selfish. That I wish I could be the me again who’d believed Max was perfect. That she didn’t need to be perfect to be my big sister. That I was mad at her. That I hoped she’d come back. That I hoped she’d stay gone until she found what she needed. That I was, seriously, so fucking mad at her.

But in the end, it takes me an hour of staring listlessly at my corkboard of accomplishments to write two sentences:

I love you. Your sister forever, El.

I fill out the address of her sketchy split-level and, after pausing to grab the meager collection of postcards from Max I’ve kept in my desk cubby, I sneak downstairs as quietly as I can so as not to wake my parents. In the kitchen junk drawer, I find the booklet of stamps, as well as the keys to the padlock on the backyard shed. Peeling off a stamp and pocketing the keys, I slip out of the house.

I stick the squirrel postcard in our mailbox and raise the flag just as the sun is rising bright and orange over the poplar trees in our front yard, promising another hot and soupy August day. Then I walk around through the side yard to reach the shed. Inside, I pat my old Husqvarna on my way to the bags and boxes of Max’s forgotten things stashed in the corner. I grab the nearest one—the box of her motocross trophies—and tuck the six postcards sent from her travels through Pigeon Forge to Boston inside, retaping the flaps after them.

Back in the house, I climb the spiral staircase up to the attic, keeping my footsteps soft. I haven’t been up here since my talk with Mom, and I don’t linger now. I only stay long enough to peel the poster of Letty Ortiz off the wall: The one my big sister hung up years ago because I wasn’t ready to do it myself.

I carry it back down the staircase with me, cradling the paper gone a little brittle with time and temperature fluctuations. After I shift my own various medals and certificates around on my corkboard to make space, tossing out the sillier ones (perfect attendance awards are crap, anyhow), there’s just enough room to keep Letty down here with me.

If Max comes back, I think she’ll be proud, but I’ll have to be enough for me in the meantime.

As I pedal up to Putt by the Pond later that morning, I regret every ill thought I ever had about the Oatmobile. Yeah, it has a top speed of 30 mph when driving uphill, and yes, it has about the same turning radius as the Titanic. But I never arrived for work plastered in sweat at 8:30 a.m., and with a few fresh mosquito bites from biking around the pond.

Coasting into the metal rack in the parking lot, I fumble with the chain lock I probably don’t need. Since my old Husqvarna isn’t road legal, and since there isn’t a bicycle shop in town, I had to turn to the July edition of the Dell’s Hollow Daily to find the one bike for sale within walking distance of my house. Someone four streets over was selling a twenty-year-old Specialized Rockhopper for a hundred. Needs a little cleaning and tune-up, the ad said, and it wasn’t lying. I’ve actually grown fond of my little red road-capable mountain bike in the weeks it took me to fix it up with Dad in the backyard shed.

But wow, do I miss the Oatmobile’s AC. And the convenient cup holders for iced coffee. And its windshield.

I guess I can’t complain when I’m surprised to be here at all. The night I got back from Richmond, I figured I wouldn’t see the outside world beyond my driveway until school starts again. But my parents kept to Mom’s word; if my manager would let me come back after my immediate grounding was over, and if I could get myself there without the van, I’d be allowed to finish out the summer.

Volunteer club is another story.

I haven’t seen Zaynah since the heist, and we haven’t really spoken since Richmond, though we did exchange a few texts just after. I pull out my phone to read through them for the hundredth time:

EL: I’m sorry

Zaynah: OK

EL: I know you’re mad

Zaynah: Are you?

EL: No!

EL: It was good that you told my parents

Zaynah: Glad you’re OK