She sounds like somebody’s mother right now, and I don’t like it.
“What’d y’all do on your date yesterday?”
“I set up a rooftop painting date. We painted each other’s portraits. I painted a pretty good one, and it made her cry. And I kissed her.”
“What?” she says. “You got a kiss? Oh, you’re in, big bro. Now you’ve got to do this right. What are you going to do now?”
“We’re still warming up. There’s nothing hot, nothing serious happening. I’m just warming up.”
“For what?” she asks. “What are you warming up for? When you warm up for basketball, you go play. What’s your play? You know you hurt her, and now she’s letting you back in. What are you going to do?”
I stare out the window. We’re still sitting in the school parking lot, kids flooding out of the building.
“Hello? Are you trying to be with her or just around her? Because those are not the same thing.”
“I’m just trying to take it slow,” I tell her. “If I move too fast, I’ll mess this up.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding, “but slow does not mean unclear.”
I sit with that, leaning back in my seat, really thinking about it. Because I haven’t figured out what I want or where we’re going. I did just want to be around her.
But for what?
Again, this girl is right.
I’ve been careful with Lily. Dancing around it. Being soft and gentle and... not clear.
I turn to Zea. “I want her back. Like, for real.”
“Then you gotta act like it.”
“What’s it going to take to get her back?” she continues. “Because you’ve been stalking her, right? You’ve been helpful, but I think you gotta take it a step further.”
I frown, listening.
“You didn’t listen to her before, right? Something like that is what broke y’all up? So maybe you didn’t choose her. You choseyourself. You chose your friends. You chose your party. You gotta choose her.”
I stare at my sister, all sixteen years of her wisdom hitting me at once.
“How do you know all this?”
She shrugs. “I’m a girl. We’re smarter. More mature.”
I shake my head.
“That’s not the point,” she says. “What are you going to do?”
Zea steps out of the car and closes the door. I watch her walk in, a bounce in her step. She gives me so much trouble, but she also puts a smile on my face. I love that I can do for her what no one did for me, or cared to do.
I love that I can see her like that and give her what she needs.
I sit in the car in the quiet, watching women come and go from the salon. I know I’ve got a lot of time before I have to pick her up. I don’t have anywhere to go, so I pick up my phone and start scrolling.
My algorithm is out of control. A whole lot of everything, and it’s almost overwhelming.
I open up my DMs, full of messages, then take a deep breath and close them. Because I know what I’m doing.
I’m avoiding.
