Page 85 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“If I wanted a reaction, I’d tell you guys I had sex with Ro two weeks ago.”
“WHAT?” they both shout in unison.
“See?”
“Talk about burying the lead,” Zola says, smiling. “Though professionally speaking, I can’t condone it. As your sister, though…”
Zola pops her shoulders in approval.
Mom holds her hands out to reclaim the floor. “Okay, wewillbe revisiting that, but let’s try to stay focused for a minute. Kai, you can’t really be ready to write off every guy because there’s a possibility they’ll let you down at some point in the future.”
She joins me on the couch and I laugh when she looks down at the lumpy cushion like it’s stabbed her.
She ignores me. “Relationships aren’t that simple. Life’s never that simple. It’s messy and awful and it gets really ugly sometimes—”
Zola’s face twists into a knot. “What side of this are you arguing?”
“And,” Mom says, to hush me and Zola. “It’s impossible to protect yourself from it. Honey, you’re gonna make yourself miserable trying.”
“Seriously,” Zola deadpans. “Mom. What are you doing?”
“There’s no point in lying to you girls. You’re gonna get hurt.”
“Shocker,” I say out the side of my mouth.
Mom rolls her eyes. “But if your only focus is how or when something will end, or all the things that might go wrong, you’re gonna miss out on the good stuff. And there’s so muchgoodstuff.” She enunciates the word so I can’t miss it. “Even when things end in that bone-deep hurt that makes you so sick to your stomach, you can’t stand up straight—”
I don’t have to ask what comes to mind for her when she says it. It was only ever really my dad.
“Eventhat’stemporary. There will always come a time when you stand back up and walk again. And when you do, what you take with you is everything else. All the things you learned. Stupid inside jokes that still make you smile. The long nights with sick babies, where neither of you wanted to be anywhere else in the world.” Her voice cracks on the word. “Him holding you girls in that goddamn recliner.”
I rest my hand on Mom’s. She turns hers over in mine. And squeezes.
“That’s not the consolation prize,” she whispers. “That’s all of it. That’s life.”
The room is a mess of unshed tears, and when Mom clears her throat, I’m prepared for her next life lesson to send them spilling over.
“So…” she begins. “You fucked Ro?”
Zola and I turn to each other and scream. The tension in the room splintering to give way to laughter, as Zo and I shout, “LANGUAGE!”
And it’s that same laughter that brings a new wash of tears, because my little family is as whole right now as it’s ever been.
—
I survive the Ro interrogation that follows, and once she’s convinced she’s bled me dry of intel, Mom leaves to make a call.
“So, what are you gonna do?” Zo asks. Her eyelids are heavy after our eventful day.
“Who knows,” I say, standing to adjust the pillow she’s struggling to reposition. “Maybe nothing. Don’t even worry about Ro right now. You need to rest.”
“It’s my job to worry about it,” she says, a lazy smile at her lips. “We signed a contract, remember?”
I’d been hoping that somewhere between the bonfire and the baby, Zola would’ve been the one to forget, but I don’t tell her that. “You want me to stay while you sleep?”
“No,” she says, through a yawn. “Mom said she would.”
I’m collecting my things to leave, when I see the awaiting messages from Ro. Zola will want to know if he’s found the clipboard, but I think better of checking now. XO by Zo can wait a day.
