Chapter 31
I’d given Ro access to my softest spots, trusting him not to poke too hard, but it feels like he’d been collecting my faults like ammunition. And last night, he unloaded on me.
I’d thought he might be able to know me without holding it against me. I’d let myself want that. But when I wake the next morning, eyes swollen and head throbbing with the emotional hangover of our purge, I’m so angry with myself for wanting anything at all.
—
“And then you just left?” Zo says, once she’s home and settled with her new favorite accessory—that fucking bell.
I hadn’t planned to tell her and Mom about my fight with Ro so soon, but when Zola walked in, still wearing her hospital socks and bracelet, everything that happened yesterday washed over me. I opened my mouth to say hello, but a scream sob escaped in its place.
Her first bed rest demand is that I let her dissect every detail, since I, as she puts it, am “not to be trusted.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, handing Zola a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s before sinking into the recliner with my own. “Should I have stayed for round two?”
Mom kisses the top of my head as she joins us in the living room. A night spent at the hospital on a leather-clad pile of rocks has accentuated the bags under her eyes and every usually subtle line on her face. She’s exhausted, as further evidenced by the second or third cup of coffee she carries.
All this time you had me convinced your dad was the bad guy. Ro’s words continue to hit their mark, as Mom lifts Zola’s leg with her free hand, nestling into her spot at the foot of the couch like she’s done since we were kids. Because she’s been right here with us every day.
Dad’s the one who left, and everything left broken in this house is nothing more than a ripple of his selfishness. He is the bad guy, and Ro’s anger doesn’t change what I know is real.
“Kai, he said he wanted you to choose him. He wasn’t trying to go another round. He was trying to get you to hear him.”
“Well, I definitely did,” I say, losing my appetite as I recall the rise and fall of Ro’s every inflection last night.
I’d dissected each word he launched at me and held my breath through every pause.
I was up all night, reading between every line, desperate to find comfort in the things he left unsaid—in the parking lot, but also on his questionnaire.
Those words, upstairs now. Stuffed into the corner of my nightstand and branded into my flesh, my mind, my heart.
But I still haven’t been able to admit that part to Zola.
“No,” she says, and I wish I was more surprised that she’s not on my side.
“Some of the words might’ve gotten in, but you didn’t hear him.
When I collapsed on the beach, it was Ro who picked me up,” she reminds me, as if I could forget.
Her voice is rising now. “But no matter how many times he shows up, I don’t think you see him.
And no matter how loud he got last night, no, I don’t think you heard him either. ”
“Y’all good?” Mom asks, before either Zola or I can keep this thing going.
“ ’Cause what we’re not gonna do is anything else that puts my grandbaby at risk.
” She says this in a tone made infinitely more effective by that look she’s giving us.
“Zola, you need to calm down. And Kai…” She searches for a directive but comes up short.
Something tells me it’s not for lack of options, but an inability to choose just one. “Hand me the damn remote.”
—
By Zo’s second week of bed rest, I’m daydreaming about all the places I could shove her bell, while she peppers me with demands for everything I should be doing for XO by Zo while she’s immobilized.
“How many times do we need to go through this?” I raise my fingers to count off my running checklist. “Address books are updated, the mailings you drafted are out, new client profiles are already in the system, images from the bonfire are doing numbers on social, engagement and followers are up tenfold, and the click-through rates on your newsletters are surprisingly impressive. I thought we’d all collectively agreed to send those things to spam. ”
Zola almost narrows her eyes at me when I say the last part but thinks better of it. Likely when she remembers that I am now her legs, her right hand, and a pretty hefty chunk of that baby brain she’s working with. She needs me.
I’m still waiting for a thank you when Liv breezes through the front door I hadn’t realized was unlocked.
“Hi, Harpers,” she announces, like the breath of fresh air that she is.
“Oh, thank god,” I say, collapsing back onto the couch. “Someone else for Zola to talk to.”
“Hey,” Zola says, tossing a pillow I catch easily.
But I don’t smile or backtrack when I say, “Zo.” Because she knows it’s true.
“Happy to buffer,” Liv says, handing Zola a box of the good macarons from the city.
“Liv, you’re an angel,” Zola says, already opening her dainty box. “Unlike your friend over here, who can’t even make it through a ten-minute status update without throwing a tantrum.”
I raise my hand in protest. “A status update is something a boss can demand from their employee. Maybe it’s time for you to get one of those.”
Liv laughs. “Oh my god, can you imagine if the two of you went into business together? You’d take over the world. Or at least the Tri-State.”
Zola’s eyes ignite as the seed of Liv’s idea takes root. I won’t admit it without a negotiated title, but I wouldn’t mind padding my résumé by helping Zo out for a few more months.
My phone pings from its spot on the coffee table, and with Zola otherwise entertained for once, I can actually check it.
Thursday, 3:17pm
Ash: When can I take you out again?
“Ro?” Liv guesses, because she’s the last of us left with any hope for that reunion.
It’s been thirteen days and I still have exactly zero missed texts from Ro. Not that I’m counting.
I shake my head, returning my phone to the table. Face down. “Asher.”
Zola adjusts herself, and I already know she’s about to start with me, so I cut her off at the pass. “You think I could get like two hours off? No nurse duty, no Ro talk. Just silence?”
Liv braces herself, but Zola doesn’t say another word about it. I’m counting it as a win.
—
An hour later, we’re playing Netflix roulette.
Shuffling through categories with our eyes closed, letting the chips fall where they may.
On Zola’s turn, we get stuck with a low-budget horror movie that looks more like an art school project than a feature film.
The writing’s horrendous, the special effects are laughable, and for some reason every character ends up shirtless in the woods at one point or another.
But everyone knows, the only thing better than a scary movie is a bad scary movie.
We throw popcorn at the screen every time someone falls over a strategically placed twig or untied shoelace. We boo at the couples illogically making out when they should be trying not to die. And we pretend not to jump every time a chain saw tears through the paper-thin walls.
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 not to 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.”
—
She said it to hurt me and it worked. Zola’s words echo in my head as I drive aimlessly until I’m parked at the beach, trying to remember how I got here.
Not even the expanse of endless glittering ocean can lift my spirits today.
I curl my toes into the sand, warm from the afternoon sun even as it sets, and think back on the past few months.
Or years, really. All the times I’ve left the room, deaded a conversation, ended the thing before it even became a thing.
I’m not our dad, I assure myself, behind closed eyelids, breathing in the salt-soaked air. Zola’s not right about me. But maybe she’s not exactly wrong either.
All this time, I’d wanted to protect myself, because if I don’t, who will? But somewhere along the way, I forgot about the people on the other side of the shield I was hiding behind. I never stopped to consider who’d been protecting them from me.
—
Mom’s car has joined Liv’s in the driveway by the time I finally return home. Zola will most definitely be asleep now, but I stopped to pick up her favorite burgers just the same.
Inside, three bodies litter the living room in various states of consciousness.
Liv’s knocked all the way out on the floor in a makeshift bed of throw pillows and blankets.
Mom’s asleep in the recliner, but still tosses and turns.
Restless. Zola, I realize, is the only one who’s actually awake.
Though she doesn’t look particularly happy to be.
I kneel at her side to extend my greasy bacon and BBQ-sauce-slathered olive branch, but before I can offer it, she groans.
“Hey,” I say on a whisper. “You okay?”
She pushes out a heavy rush of air but doesn’t respond for a few beats. When she looks at me, I see the hint of perspiration beading on her upper lip. She nods, taking deep meditative inhales to catch her breath. I’ve attended enough birthing classes to recognize them.
“How far apart?” I ask, trading the burgers out for my phone to time her contractions.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t want to wake anyone in case it’s false labor again.”
“How long ago do you think they started?”
But before she can respond, another contraction hits, and this time she moans loudly enough that Mom stirs in her chair. Her eyes flutter open, taking only a moment to focus before she too assesses what’s happening.
Mom doesn’t even try to whisper as she hops up out of her chair. “Is it time?”
Zola’s smile is tinged in uncertainty. “Maybe?”
By now, Liv is up, too, her eyes wide as saucers as she watches Mom and me help Zola up. She battles through her next contraction with a grimace and blows out a breath so forcefully, I’m shocked it doesn’t knock the whole house down.
Liv covers her smile, which is fine, because I’m ignoring her completely as I time how quickly Zola’s contractions are hitting. When Mom rushes ahead of us to grab her keys, Zola leans her body into mine and we hobble toward the garage.
Before the door shuts behind us, I call out to Liv that I’ll text her from the hospital, to which she responds with her usual POP! POP! “We’re having a baby!”