Page 94 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
But it’s still not enough to keep me from incessantly checking my phone to see if I’ve missed anything from Ro.
“Okay,” Zola says, turning off the TV mid-dismemberment scene. “If you check your phone one more time, I’m gonna scream. And I’m not entirely sure that’s great for the baby.”
“Well, why are you watching me and not this cinematic masterpiece?” I try to deflect, and when that doesn’t work, I lie. “I haven’t even been checking it that much.”
I look to Liv for backup, but she’s suddenly engrossed in the blank TV screen on the wall. Her forced silence is all the agreement Zola needs to continue.
“Why don’t you just call him?”
“Zo, I’m saying this calmly for the baby. But you are officially fired from being my matchmaker.” I say it with a smile, so I’m pretty sure it’s allowed. “It’s time to give up on your Ro fantasies. He already said everything he wanted to say to me.”
Of course this is the moment Liv chooses to find her voice again. “And what about you? Anything you wanna say to him?”
Judas.
I close my eyes in exasperation. “I’ve been busy,” I say, as if I didn’t just spend the last couple hours watching shit TV. “Zola’s ice cream bowl doesn’t refill itself.”
Zola gasps in offense. “Don’t put this on me. You’re free to make a call or take a drive any time you want. I have delivery apps, and look—I even have Liv to keep me company now.”
“He doesn’t wanna talk to me,” I say, standing to collect dishes that have been piling up for days, yet now seem to demand urgent tidying. “And he’s got enough going on with the garage, and his dad—”
Zola’s meddling radar fires. “Wait, what’s happening with his dad?”
I tell them about Mr. Jackson’s dementia and seeing him lose himself that morning at brunch.
I expect the conversation to stay on this more serious track, at least briefly, so I’m caught off guard when Zola says, “Are you kidding me?”
I look to Liv, who’s waiting for Zola to continue, same as I am. And continue, she does.
“At this point, it doesn’t even matter if you’re into him or not. Now you’re just being kind of a shit friend.”
“Zo, we’re not even speaking right now. You want me to show up at his doorstep and demand he cry on my shoulder?”
I leave out the fact that Ro recently did, in fact, cry on my shoulder.
“Yes,” Zola says, without missing a beat. “It’s really not that complicated, as much as I know you love making things as difficult as possible. You show up for people who have shown up for you. It’s just what you do.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off.
“You’re over here acting like it’s still a choice whether or notto let him in, but he’s already in. And he needs you. Now. Not when you’re finished pretending he’s just some nothing guy you kinda know.”
“He doesn’t need me,” I say in a rush. “He needs someone who isn’t adding their own shit to his plate. He needs someone solid, and I don’t even know if I’ll be here in a month or two. I don’t know anything.”
“Who does?” Zo says at a volume that can’t be good for her blood pressure. “Nobody has their shit figured out. But if you’re this committed to watching life go by until it magically starts making sense, maybe you’re right to stay out of Ro’s way.”
I drag my hands over my face, hoping the sheer force of the movement will scrape off a few layers of my guilt. “Zola, you have to stop. My life isn’t yours to fix.”
“Well, who the fuck else is gonna do it?”
I look to Liv again, not so much for support this time, but to gauge her silent reaction to the argument unfolding before her. She’s looking right at me, brow furrowed in pity. She agrees with Zola.
I’m drowning in everyone’s disappointment in me. I’m drowning in my disappointment in myself. I have to get out of here.
But when I stand, Liv’s voice is still so full of love that it stops me in my tracks. “Kai, walking out isn’t gonna fix this.”
“There’s no point,” Zola says, her voice ice by comparison. “Let her go. She’s just like our dad.”
—
