Chapter 8
Before this morning, I’d never conceptualized 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’s become 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 not not stress 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.
“I mean, you definitely completed someone’s questionnaire.”
She stands, dumping my coffee-colored sludge into the sink before filling the kettle with fresh water and scooping grounds into the press. I scan the pages, attempting to see it through Zola’s eyes, but I don’t get it.
She swipes the papers from my hands, and this time, to my horror, she clears her throat to read it aloud.
“I wish I had someone with whom I could share…” she begins. “And you—my sister, Kaia Harper—wrote: my hopes and dreams for the future.”
“And…?”
“And, no the fuck you don’t. Who is this person?” she asks, turning the pages over in her hands.
“What did you want me to put? Someone with whom I could share my dry humor, dark love of crime TV, and an extra-large pizza so I don’t have to cook?”
She shrugs. “I mean…”
The fact that I actually tried and still managed to fail is more proof I didn’t need that this plan has been trash from go.
“I thought you’d be happy. I gave you what you wanted.”
“What I wanted?” Zola asks.
“Your exact words were: shiny, happy success story.” My tone is more bitter than coffee ground sludge.
The kettle’s whistle cuts through our debate like a referee calling halftime. But when Zola joins me again at the island, I know there will be no breaks given.
“So, in order to find you a match, you assumed I’d want you to pretend to be a different person?”
It feels like a trick question.
“Kai,” she starts again. “When did you get like this?”
The thing about the telepathic bond of sisters is that you don’t get to decide how or when they use it. Zola’s face tells me she can more than sense my internal debate—she can actually hear it.
“Say it,” she tells me.
But I’m so used to choking the words down that it’s nearly impossible to let them past the vise I secured years ago.
“What’s going on?” Zola asks, her prodding gentle. The light touch is my undoing.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit.
“Answer questions honestly?” she asks, holding up the questionnaire. “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious.”
“If someone could leave you,” I say, meaning every word of this, “what hope is there for the rest of us?
“And then there’s Mom,” I continue, but Zola stops me. Physically raising her hand before I can say more.
“Will you quit with this? This isn’t about me and Mom.
It’s about you. You’re young and hot and so smart it’s fucking annoying.
But for some reason you’ve preemptively become this embittered old lady who avoids anything meaningful or real.
I don’t want that for you. You deserve to be screwed over by guys in your own unique way.
To learn to hate them slowly. Over many, many years. Like the rest of us.”
“Is that the new company motto?” I ask. “Because if so, it’s fire.”
Zola slaps my arm on her way back to the stove. “This isn’t about turning you into someone you think they want—fuck that. These guys are gonna be lucky to get to know you. But it’s gotta be you. And this,” she says, chucking my questionnaire into the recycling bin, “ain’t it.”
—
What I’m not going to do is fill out a whole new questionnaire with Zola watching over my shoulder. Which is why I’m now driving around aimlessly with a fresh set of the same thirty-six questions screaming for attention from their spot in the center console.
At least, I’d thought I’d been driving aimlessly. It’s not until I’m parked outside the tow yard, wondering if Ro works on Thursdays, that I realize my subconscious had very specific plans of its own.
Talking to him the other day had been easier than I’d expected it to be. Even for just those few minutes, it was such a relief to find a person out here who didn’t feel like part of my past. Who wasn’t trying to remind me of who I’d been at eighteen.
But now that I’m here, I’m not convinced that’s a good enough reason to show up at a stranger’s job unannounced. Sure, Ro had begged to see the questionnaire, but I highly doubt he expected me to hand deliver it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forgotten about it completely.
Before anyone can prove I’ve temporarily lost my mind, I scan the lot and slide my sunglasses up my nose.
Because apparently that makes me invisible.
I turn the steering wheel toward the exit, fully aware that my behavior is bordering on creepy now.
And by “bordering” I mean that if the roles were reversed, I’d already have Ro’s name and detailed description on an offender registry or two.
I can almost taste my freedom, but there goes the universe again. Thinking she’s so damn funny.
Ro steps out of the open garage doors, yanking a towel from his back pocket. He balls it up to fire off at someone or something inside, and his head tilts up toward the sky. Mouth breaking wide into a laugh. Even at this distance, I can feel the honeyed warmth of it.
He smiles, like nothing in the world matters more than this moment, and I forget I’m supposed to be escaping. Besides, on the mortification spectrum, being caught mid-getaway has to be worse than an awkward hello, right? RIGHT?
I don’t have time to reach a verdict before our eyes lock across the parking lot. Ro’s thick eyebrows crinkle in confusion as I step out of the car—and very briefly consider slashing my own tire to have a legitimate excuse for being here.
But as quickly as his confusion comes, it’s replaced by another one of his smiles. This one reaches both corners of his eyes and I can’t help but smile back.
Ro’s long legs and heavy boots close the distance between us. “Aye! What up, E?”
“E?”
“Yeah. Like your battery.”
“Very funny,” I say, rolling my eyes in mock annoyance. “I hope it’s not weird I just showed up like this, I know you’re busy—”
“Nah, it’s dead today. Pops is in there with way too much time on his hands.
Tryin’ to school me on his old man jams, but he can’t tell me nothing I don’t already know.
” Ro raises his voice to a yell at the end, though I doubt his dad can hear the challenge from this distance.
“I could actually use some backup,” he says, holding an arm out for me to lead the way back to the garage.
“Maybe he’ll stop cheating if we’ve got a witness. ”
I don’t know what kind of reception I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.
I’m still trying to conjure up a lie for when his dad inevitably asks why I’m here, when a Ro look-alike emerges from behind the hood of a black BMW. I freeze at the threshold like a vampire awaiting a formal invitation.
“Yo, Pops,” Ro says, walking past me. “This is Kaia. Her car was here over the weekend.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Kaia,” his dad says, assessing me. “Car still giving you trouble? Son, go ahead and pull her paperwork for me.”