She frowned sadly. “Why?”
“I shared a kiss with Devil. On the bus.”
She sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “Upper doesn’t know that; Uppercannotknow that. He and Devil just started acting like friends again.”
“I know, but it wasn’t anything serious; he was just trying to help me. Elio found out, and he thought I was messing with him this whole time.”
She sighed. “Did you explain?”
“I tried to. He didn’t wanna hear…” I stopped and shook my head. “I’ll fix it though. I need to know how to tell Devil before I fix it. I don’t want anything to come back and bite me in the ass.”
“Yeah, that’s true. He should know. If you plan to take things seriously with Elio, then… you have to. No secrets. Secrets ruin relationships.”
I nodded. “He might get mad. Like, really pissed because he told me to stay away from Elio, and I did the opposite.”
“Devil’s gone for Upper, Zahra. He might not care.”
“But he—”
She held my hand in hers. “Why are you acting like a fucking chicken? The Zahra I know wouldn’t give two fucks about what Devil would think. He doesn’t own you, and you do not owe him anything. No friendship rule said you couldn’t bone his brother. If you like someone, you should be with them.”
An odd kind of nervousness took over me. It was so out of character, so fucking stupid. “What if I don’t know if I should be with them? Fuck, I sound so pathetic, like a girl who likes a boy. I hate this. I don’t want this.”
She laughed. “It’s normal, Zahra. You’re blooming now.”
I scowled. “Fuck off.”
“Right, right, do you want to be with Elio? You really want to fix it?”
“I think so…”
“Give it to me straight.”
“I do.”
Her hand squeezed mine. “Then put a sock in it. Tell Devil, give him the middle finger if he tries to fault you for liking someone, and then we strategize on how you can get your man.” She poked my rib.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself; Elio isnotmy man.”
“Sorry, just the high from the pep talk,” she said. “But hey, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Yeah…” I nodded. “Yeah… I’m overthinking it.”
“Exactly.” She continued, “I still can’t believe we are having an actual conversation about a guy… We never do this.”
I smiled softly. “Yeah, I’ve never liked a guy before so…”
“Did you call or text him since we left?”
I nodded, reaching for my phone and pulling up my chat box for Elio’s contact. “I texted several times, no response,” I said as Milk took the phone from me, scrolling down, her eyes widening as she kept on scrolling. “He hasn’t blocked me yet, it’s ondelivered, but he never checks it. Do you know what that means?”
“Uh…” She kept on scrolling.
“What is it?”
“First off, why is his contact name saved as… ‘Dad’?”
I smiled. “It’s an inside thing. You wouldn’t get it.”
