Chapter 23

I DIDN’T MEAN to fall asleep in the middle of my favourite movie. But the next thing I know, I’m waking up and it’s 7:43 p.m. and the credits are playing. Zahira and JJ are moving pots and pans around in the kitchen, still singing songs from the movie. I can’t remember the last part I saw before I passed out. Was it when the team lost their first game?

I don’t want to be alone, so I join Zahira and JJ in the kitchen.

“Ah, the sleepy beauty awakes!” JJ says.

“It’s sleeping beauty,” says Zahira, holding a large oven tray.

“Whaaatever.”

The pain in my side is cold and faraway because of the medicine, but I still feel a little weak. Like even without the pain, my body knows I shouldn’t be standing up. I don’t want to go back to the living room though, so I sit on a stepping stool that nobody is using and watch Zahira and JJ do whatever it is they’re doing.

“Are you making dinner?” I ask. I’m not hungry. I just want to know.

“I’m making dinner,” JJ says, firing up the stove. “Zahira is making something for me.”

Zahira rolls her eyes. But it’s a nice roll this time. I’m not sure how that’s possible. “It’s for everyone.”

“No. All of them. For me.”

I watch Zahira roll out a box of pre-made pastry and ask, “What are you making?”

“Baklava.”

I don’t know what that is. But going by the buttery liquid and the bowl of what smells like sugar syrup beside the pan, it has to be good. “What’s that?”

“Dessert. You’re not allergic to anything, are you?”

I shake my head.

“Good.” She rummages in the drawers for a brush. “This is going to be lesser baklava because I don’t have all the ingredients.” She finds a rubbery-looking brush and begins streaking the dry pastry with the buttery liquid. “Like, this isn’t even the right type of pastry.”

Zahira and JJ start a whole debate over whether the pastry type matters. When I hear hinges creak, I peek around the kitchen doorway.

Aaron is casing the joint through the cracked-open bedroom door. When he sees that we’re all busy in the kitchen, he slips out and snatches a mug of coffee off the living room table. Everything about him is sharp, especially since the living room lights are off and the TV is casting this ghastly pale glow on everything. It seems like all his bones are trying to eject from his body.

He sees me spying, and I give him a hard stare.

“D-A-N-I Dani,” Zahira sings, like it’s a commercial jingle, and I turn back to the kitchen. “Did you hear anything we just said?”

“That’s not how you spell my name,” I say.

“What is it, then?”

“D-A-N-Y.”

“Aren’t you missing an N in there?” JJ calls over the whir of the stove hood.

“No,” I say. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“Well, JJ was saying that he has a date tomorrow morning.”

“At the movie theater!” he interjects.

Zahira does that eyeroll again. “He needs the car for it, but because he’s such a good friend, he promised to be back by noon, and we can have the car.”

“Oh,” I say. I try to do the math. We would be in Ornament City just before dinnertime. That’s acceptable.

“I’m sacrificing quality hangout time for you guys, man,” JJ complains, though he doesn’t actually sound upset.

“And I’m making baklava to make up for it, aren’t I?”

They sound like they’ve already had this argument. Well, argument doesn’t seem like the right word. It’s a nice argument, like Zahira’s nice eyeroll.

In the living room, the movie music suddenly ends, and there’s the sound of Aaron flipping through the cable channels.

In a low voice, Zahira says, “Ugh, is that Aaron?”

I glance around the corner even though I already know it is. “Yup.”

“Can you grab something for me?”

I make a face. “What?”

“In the entryway, where we dropped everything—remember that little dog statue I got?”

I squint a little and nod. How could I possibly forget.

“Can you go grab it? I need to show it to JJ.”

I make a sound between a sigh and a groan and slink off the stepping stool, but secretly, I’m celebrating my luck. If I’m the one who goes to get the weird dog statue, then I’ll have the chance to throw away the newspaper wrapped around it before Zahira ever sees it.

The entryway has a direct view of the living room, which I’m 100% sure is the reason Zahira told me to get the statue. She just can’t bear to even be in Aaron’s line of sight. His eyes are glued on the TV screen though, and when I sneak out of the kitchen, he doesn’t seem to notice me.

I kick around the luggage until I find the bag of thrifted goods. I crumple up the newspaper and shove it in my pocket before bringing the statue back to the kitchen.

“Oh my god!” JJ exclaims when he sees it. “It does look just like Poquito!”

“See? I told you,” Zahira says with victory.

I look down at the statue. So this Poquito they speak of is a dog.

And then Zahira’s joy suddenly vanishes, and I realize Aaron is at the doorway. Not entirely, though. Just his head and a bit of his shoulder, like there’s radiation in the kitchen and he’s afraid to fully expose himself to it.

“Zahira,” he says.

Turning away, Zahira resumes her task of smashing a plastic bag of almonds and pistachios with a rolling pin.

“Zahira,” he presses, and I’m surprised he has the balls to speak again. “We need to talk.”

I give him a look that says get lost, but he’s too busy looking at Zahira, who’s trying very hard not to look at him. JJ glances up from the stovetop, his eyes darting between the two of them like it’s a very interesting tennis match.

“Zahira.”

She brings the rolling pin down with such a big BANG! that I have to make sure she didn’t explode the whole bag of nuts. “What?” she says without turning around.

“We have to talk.”

I don’t know what’s giving him so much confidence all of a sudden. Zahira spins around, her eyes nuclear. “Talk about what?”

“Not here,” he whispers, as if then JJ and I wouldn’t be able to hear it. He shifts impatiently. “Come on. Please.”

That seems to finally get Zahira. She growls under her breath but follows Aaron to the living room.

The kitchen feels weirdly empty without her. I don’t know what to do, standing by the door with a ceramic dog statue, so I hover beside JJ and watch him cook up a simple meal of oily-green vegetables and a big steaming pot of rice that smells impossibly good. He heats up another pan and pours in a tub of leftover chicken. It looks like it’s been in the tub for a while, but even that gets my mouth all watering.

When was the last time I had a proper hot meal? All I had today was that cold wrap and orange juice. Yesterday I had fries and Zahira’s hashbrown. The last truly hot meal I ate were those microwaved frozen burgers, and I’m not sure those even count.

The oven makes a beeping sound.

JJ mutters under his breath as he dishes out the food. “Go get Zahira,” he tells me. “She has to put the stuff in the oven.”

Yeah, and she has to actually finish making the stuff first.

I put the ceramic statue on the counter and trudge out of the kitchen. I was expecting Zahira to be in another whisper-fight with Aaron, but they’re both silent in the blue-washed living room, Aaron sitting, Zahira standing, staring shocked at the TV.

Then their eyes slide slowly to me.

The TV volume is on low, still audible, but the news anchor’s garble is static in my ears. I don’t want to see what’s on the screen. Maybe if I don’t see it, then it isn’t there, and this isn’t happening.

But I force my head to turn. I force myself to look at the screen. At the newscast. At the blown-up high school. At the photo of Marisa.

At the photo of me.