Page 28 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“Like for work.”
“Ya know,” he says, and he’s definitely smiling now. “I can see that. She’d probably be pretty good at it too. Maybe I should use her.”
“I am. Sort of,” I admit for the first time. “That’s the favor. And I panicked when I realized she was gonna tell you about it. But nowI’mtelling you about it, so basically, I was an asshole for nothing.”
At this point I have no pride left to tarnish, so I come clean about all of it.
Ro’s so quiet after I finish that I have to check to make sure the call didn’t drop.
Finally, he lets out a laugh so big and sudden that I’m as shocked to hear it as I am relieved. And now I’m smiling too.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ve gotta know how this one ends.”
8
Before this morning, I’d neverconceptualized how big a number thirty-six is. Making a thirty-six-minute drive, paying a thirty-six-dollar tab, eating thirty-six sour gummies till your tongue goes raw—none of it’s storyworthy.
However, answering thirty-six questions, like what I’d regret most should I suddenly drop dead tomorrow, is enough to put me off the grand slam breakfast I’d demanded from Zola in exchange for completing her questionnaire. And from the smirk on her face, she knew I was getting the shit end of this deal.
I push the barstool back from the kitchen island, staring into the pendants overhead like the cheat codes to this thing might be inscribed on their domed metal canopies.
“So, what do you think?” Zola asks from the far side of the counter. “Good, right?”
But not even the smell of bacon wafting from Zo’s skillet can improve my mood.
I pluck a pancake from the cooling rack, folding it like a taco, before ripping into it with bared teeth. “I’m in hell.”
Zola’s hand finds her hip and her robe falls open slightly, exposing the tiniest sliver of a growing belly peeking out from the T-shirt that fit differently just a few weeks ago. She’sbecome a human mile marker for a future I’m not exactly racing toward.
“It’s not that bad,” she says, reaching out for the papers I’d sooner chew up and swallow than have her read.
“Well, it’s not great either,” I say, without loosening my death grip on the questionnaire. My eyes dart toward the living room as I map out an escape route.
Zola follows my gaze, before narrowing her eyes at me. “You know I have to read it.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “But, like,…right in front of me?”
I thought contemplating a footrace through Mom’s house was childish enough, but Zola does me one better. Launching a silver dollar pancake at me like we’re in a high school cafeteria, mid food fight.
My hands instinctively rise to shield my face, which means, of course, that I’m no longer gripping the papers. Two sets of frantic eyes land on the questionnaire, now abandoned on the counter, but only one of us was prepared for this.
Zola snatches the pages away a half second before my own hands pathetically slam down on the empty counter.
“Nice,” I say, like she should be ashamed of her guerrilla tactics. Like I didn’t just put everything I had into trying to beat her at the same game.
Zola settles onto the neighboring barstool and I drown my nerves in bacon grease and maple syrup. I wouldn’t admit to stress eating, but the speed at which I’ve just mauled my short stack suggests I’m notnotstress eating.
Zola’s quiet as she reviews my work. It’s like being called out in a lecture hall by that professor who holds an inexplicable vendetta against you. The one who’s refused to properly pronounce your name all semester, no matter how many times you correct them. The one for whom you seriously consider changing it to “Kay-uh.”
I’m refilling my coffee mug again, watching Zola over the bitter dregs of grounds sloshing out of the French press, when she finally speaks.
“Hmm.”
That’s it?!
“What?” I ask, as she studies me—mouth: pursed; face: stank.
She fans the pages out before me, like the issue is glaring enough to catch at a glance.
