Page 70 of Furious

Zaynah: I gotta go

EL: Can we talk later?

Zaynah: OK

Maybe I should’ve been braver and called her, but I know when Zaynah needs time, and it felt right to wait. Now I’m doubting myself (what’s new?) but the plan remains the plan. I knew we were both opening today, so I biked to work half an hour early to meet her in the parking lot, when she inevitably arrives early, already dressed for her shift. Zaynah’s always had it together like that.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, her dad drops her off in the family pickup. I’m partially hidden by the shrubby dogwoods that border the lot, and she freezes when she comes around them and sees me sitting on the curb in front of the bike rack. She’s never looked so intimidating, all five feet of her in her bright red work polo shirt and watermelon-striped hijab, eyes wide as she blinks down at me. I hug my knees to my chest, feeling a little sick, fighting to keep my breakfast hashbrowns down; we’ve never gone so long without seeing each other, not even during the Cineplex Incident.

And this one’s all on me. I let my best friend become a stranger.

“Hi,” I croak out. “Hey. I—how are you?” Smooth as deep-fried butter.

But at least Zaynah unfreezes. With a sigh, she gives up the high ground to sit on the curb beside me. Or rather, on top of her messenger bag to protect her khakis from the crumbled asphalt and ragweed pollen I’m surely sitting in. “Are you back?”

“At Putt by the Pond? Yeah. Maryanne let me start my shifts up again.”

“I wondered if she would.”

I pick anxiously at my shoelaces. “Me too. I’ve been pretty bad at a lot of things this summer. I wasn’t a good best friend.”

Zaynah doesn’t disagree—how could she, when it’s the truth—and has never been one to lie to make things easier. “I figured you had a lot going on. I didn’t know, because you didn’t tell me about any of it.”

“Yeah.” I can’t disagree, either.

“Like, you met JoJo, and then you were always together, even during volunteer club meetings. And I was happy for you! I know you’ve been sad over Max, and I was glad you had somebody like that, who’s into what you’re into.”

“Lesbianism?”

“I meant racing.” Zaynah smiles just a little. “But that, too.”

“If it makes you feel better, it turns out I wasn’t a good girlfriend, either.”

This is the wrong joke to make, and after softening slightly, she stiffens again beside me. “Why would that make me feel better?”

“I—I just meant, it wasn’t you. I messed up. I got that postcard from Max and got it into my head that if I found her, and got her to come home, I could put everything back the way it was before. And I think … Maybe a little part of me already knew that wasn’t possible. And if I went to you about it, I probably would’ve had to face that, because you knew it, too.”

Slowly, Zaynah nods. “So you went to JoJo instead.”

“She didn’t know my sister. She just believed me.”

“But you liked her, too. It wasn’t just about Max.”

“No. She probably thinks it was, because I fucked up.” I wipe away the sweat from the back of my neck as the sun beats down on us. “But uh, we don’t have to talk about JoJo.”

“El, I want you to talk to me. I want to know what’s going on with you. That’s what this,” she waves wildly between us, “is all about. And I feel like I’ve been chasing you for months to try and find out.”

So I talk to Zaynah.

In the time remaining before our shift, I tell her about all of it. How JoJo and I tracked down Max’s terrible friends together to find her address in Richmond. How we kissed in my sister’s attic bedroom over Mario Kart, and it felt like the best and bravest I had ever been. How my parents were waiting for me after the race. How I stole a whole-ass sport bike and drove me and JoJo to Richmond (I fade to black through some of the trip up, in sharing mode but not oversharing) only to have Max send me away again. How my mom finally told me the truth about my sister leaving. And how Jo is strong, and funny, and fearless, and special, and she made me feel like maybe I could be, too, but then I messed it all up by unloading on her outside of a shitty apartment complex. “So,” I finish up. “How was your summer?”

She laughs, one of the sounds I know and like best in the world. “Well, we got a new rescue goat. Tater Tot. She has three legs and hangs out in Pickles’s stall.”

“Tater Tot the goat!” I squeal. “Maybe I can bike to the farm to meet her.”

Zaynah turns to look up at the Rockhopper behind me. “These are your wheels now?”

“Probably until I die.”