Chapter 19
Zola watches me get unready as I tell her about the date-shaped thing she sent me on tonight. It’s more of an oral recipe guide than a date recap. James’s lobster ravioli deserves a little commotion.
“So, you ended the date,” she says, once I’ve finished. “But you were honest and actually nice, and you still got dinner out of it. It all sounds very grown-up of you.” She takes a belabored seat at the window bench. “Minus hiding in the bathroom, I’m calling it progress.”
The smirk she wears is meant to look playful, but her eyes betray her. She’s tired. And not just because she waited up for me again. For the first time since I walked in tonight, I realize how uncharacteristically quiet Zola’s been. Even through my recap.
She drops her head to the glass at her back and her eyes close for a beat longer than a blink.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, finally.
“Just ironic that I’m the one doling out advice right now,” she barely whispers.
No words follow the heavy sigh that escapes her lips.
The silence between us remains—untouched and suffocating—but it isn’t mine to fill.
“Look at me,” she says, her hands framing her belly. “How did I let this become my life? How did I play house with Jason for so long without noticing I was the only one playing?”
“No,” I say, rushing to defend her from herself. “None of us saw that coming. He was covert until he wasn’t, and you were—”
Zola’s already shaking her head as she cuts me off.
“Things had been off for years. But I held on to us till there was nothing left. I was so scared to end up alone that I became the person I grew up resenting. And I didn’t even notice.
” She doesn’t flinch as she says it, but I do.
“I didn’t notice until it destroyed us.”
Without permission, my eyes shift from my sister to the sky at her back.
The light of the moon is as spectacular as it is unrelenting.
I want to move Zola out from under its spotlight—tell her she doesn’t have to perform this monologue.
I want to suggest we do literally anything else in the world, but she wants to say it. I know she does. So, I listen.
“I haven’t wanted to look at my stuff,” she continues. “My part in all of it. That’s probably why I jumped at this.” She gestures toward me, before her hands fall to her lap, balling into fists as she pushes on.
When she meets my eyes again, she lets her tears fall freely. Finally.
“I’m so mad,” she says, gasping through a sob that seems to catch her off guard.
As if she’s surprised by the strength of her own emotions.
“All the time. And I don’t even know who to be mad at.
I think about what I’m bringing this kid into, and I wanna scream.
And I don’t even know what I want from Jason anymore,” she says, answering the question I hadn’t yet asked.
“I don’t think I want him at all, but the idea of my son growing up without one decent male figure in his life is almost enough for me to beg Jason to come back.
Almost enough to make me beg Dad to—god, I don’t even know!
Fuck, I’m still doing it. Still running so scared, like there’s somewhere left for me to go. ”
Zola’s admission stuns me into silence. If she’s waiting for a response, we’re going to be here awhile. Here, in this same bedroom we’ve always known, looking out this same window, at those same stars—but we were never these people. At least I didn’t think we were.
“I want this baby, you know I do…”
“You don’t have to say that, Zo. I know.”
Zola’s face is hidden behind her hands now, but as she continues, I think I may be seeing my big sister for the first time.
“I might not be the person who should be telling you what to do, but let me show you what not to do and who not to become. I don’t want you to be scared anymore, Kai. I don’t want you to end up like me. I mean, it’s a slightly better alternative to ending up like Mom, but still.”
Her smile is barely there at all before she wipes it away along with her tears. She’s trying so hard to be okay, but I’m just glad she’s also finally admitting she’s not.
“I just want you to be braver than me,” she continues.
“You always have been, but it’s so easy to lose that and not even know when it happened.
You have to fight to hold on to those parts of yourself.
And fight for what you want, even if you don’t think it’s the thing you’re supposed to want.
Whether it’s teaching or dating or anything else.
It doesn’t even have to make sense. Just do whatever feels right to you for as long as it feels right.
Trust me, you’ll regret it more one day if you don’t. ”
Zola looks so sad when she finishes that it’s physically impossible for me not to go to her. And we stay that way—backlit by the moon and silenced by finally hearing the quiet part said out loud.