Page 17 of Never Never

“I didn’t think it would hurt anybody,” I conclude, shrugging. “So.”

“I don’t think it did hurt anybody,” Wendy puts in, picking up a chip of her own and munching. She cocks her head. “Except for having to pretend to be a boy.” She makes a face.

“Hah,” I say. “Yeah.” I give my head a shake. “Okay, point taken. Sometimes it’s okay to lie. I guess it’s more like, in this case…” I cast around to put the right words together. “You deserved the truth,” I finish.

Wendy chews, thinking. “I deserved the truth,” she repeats.

“You did,” I confirm. “And I think…” Even knowing that explanations are pointless, I rush on anyway. “I think that I thought I was protecting you, but really, I was just protecting myself. Like I didn’t want to have to deal with the reality of seeing you go through it.”

It’s a truth I’m piecing together as I’m saying it out loud. But it seems right. Is right.

Wendy considers. “How do you even know the difference? Between when it’s okay to lie and not?”

“I…” I shake my head. “I honestly don’t know,” I answer. “I guess that’s just part of growing up. Figuring that difference out.”

We pick our way through the rest of the food in relative silence, save crunching. I remember to check my phone and see a new text from Zuzu: everything ok?????? that I answer with a stealth selfie of me, Wendy, and the spoils of our DoorDash order, which Zuzu in turn responds to with a cry-laughing and praying-hands emoji. Finally, when Wendy seems to have had enough, she flops onto her stomach so she’s practically nose-to-snout with Nana and starts stroking the dog’s narrow head.

“What’s gonna happen now?” she says softly.

God, I don’t know. I flop onto the pillows and throw an arm over my eyes. “No idea,” I say. I still haven’t seen Pan, obviously, and I’m not sure I really want to. Not yet. Because I know as soon as I see him, he’ll be sulky and mad, mad at me, when nothing that happened—happened to him, anyway, to his shop and to his stupid petty crime lord reputation—is my fault. “What do you want to happen?”

“Can I stay here?” Her voice is so small. And yet it smashes into my heart like a sledgehammer.

“Of course,” I say. “Of course you can stay, Wendy. Where else would you go?”

The question hangs for a moment before I realize she already went somewhere. And I realize I have no idea why.

Sure, the dog track’s where Nana…came from, I guess. As Kit pointed out. At the time, in my panic, I guess I didn’t really stop to think through the logic of it all; I was just so glad to have any idea of where to go for her that I didn’t look twice. And it ended up being the right call, so all’s well that ends well.

Still…

What kind of ten-year-old runs away to a casino racetrack?

What could that place possibly mean to her?

My stomach turns, a cold feeling that threatens to overwhelm me, that I can’t indulge. So I don’t.

“Okay, so that’s settled. You’re staying,” I say. “Right?”

Wendy still looks uncertain. “What about the boys?”

The boys. I’ve never thought of them that way, but it’s kind of…charming, I guess. Now that they’re distinct from me, in that way. They’re the boys, and I’m—we’re—the girls.

To Wendy, I just give a big, exaggerated groan. “What about them?” I retort. “They can deal. Or they can fight me. And they probably won’t hit a girl.”

Wendy giggles.

“Besides,” I add. “They like you too.”

And they do. I know they do. Even Pan, who really only cares about himself—dickbag—likes her sidekick energy. Christ, Blue of all people threw hands for her, for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

Although…

My eyes flutter shut. Mind flashes to his room, his bed.

Then open again.

There’s a lot about him I don’t understand, I guess.