“Oh. Well... okay. I’ll pay you, obviously,” I add.
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, I will. Just let me know how much I owe you.”
He takes another bite of his sandwich. “It’s no big deal. It’s going to take, like, ten minutes, and there’s an alternator in the back from Dave’s old Corolla.”
I know I should argue more, but then I think of my bank balance and decide to bite my tongue.
“Thanks,” I say awkwardly.
“No worries.”
A silence falls. I don’t know why, but I feel sort of disappointed. Which is stupid because what did I expect? The slightly interesting fact that John does Wordle doesn’t change the millions ofuninteresting things about him. Just because we have this one tiny thing in common doesn’t mean we could ever be friends.
I sit down with a sigh and pull the lid off my yogurt. Out of the corner of my eye, I see John glance up from his phone.
“Did you do Wordle today?” he asks.
My spoon of yogurt freezes halfway to my mouth.
Did he just initiate a conversation?
I force myself to act casual, swallowing my bite of yogurt and reaching for a napkin with deliberate ease. This sort of feels like when someone’s standoffish cat suddenly hops onto your lap. If you pay them any attention, they’re going to give you a withering look and leap away.
“Not yet,” I say. “I was going to do it now.”
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll do it too.”
I take out my phone and open Wordle. “Don’t tell me any hints,” I say quickly. “That’s cheating.”
He nods, chewing a bite of sandwich. He swipes Wordle open on his phone and then frowns at it, a pensive little crease appearing between his brows. Which is... kind of cute. Objectively speaking, I mean.
I shake my head and turn my attention to my phone. I start with a banker word, OUIJA. When I was first doing Wordle, I read online about good words to start with, and I use this one occasionally. It’s nice because it knocks out a bunch of vowels right from the start.
Like today—the O, U,andA are right. They’re all in the wrong place, but that’s still better than nothing.
O, U, A.
A, O, U.
I bite my lip, running through all the unused letters.
ABOUT!
I type it in eagerly, sneaking a little glance at John as I do. He’s still chewing thoughtfully. There’s a smudge of black grease on his cheek.
Hmm. ABOUT is wrong, but the B is yellow. I bite my lip.
B, O, U, A.
B, A, O, U.
Something lights up in the back of my brain. There’s a word that I know... it’s hovering at the edges of my mind... it’s got something to do with—with crocodiles, I think, and swamps...
BAYOU.
It hits me in a sudden flash of inspiration. I type it in, and voilà! Three hundred and four days! I do a little dance in my chair.
