Chapter 48

IT TAKES MORE than an hour and one bus transfer to reach Metro Place Mall, and I’m wholly grateful for the bus drivers who smiled and explained how to get here. By the time I step off the bus, my head is already roiling over what I’m going to say when I see Zahira.

Surprise! I’d say, popping out from under the counter, and she’d be like, What the hell are you doing here? Would she be happy to see me? What if she gets mad and immediately sends me back to the hospital? What if this whole time she was secretly glad I’m disappearing from her life forever?

What if she isn’t even here today?

Don’t think about that, Dany. Just keep walking.

I cross the parking lot into the mall. It’s the weekend, and the place is echoing with shoppers and music and screaming babies. When was the last time I went to a mall during normal hours? When was the last time I browsed the stores like a regular person?

I can’t even remember. But I’m not here to browse the stores.

After peeking at a map, I find my way to the food court. It’s even more crowded than the rest of the mall, smelling of a thousand different types of food. I see a noodle place and a shawarma place and a juice spot. I spy a pizza shop, and for a second my chest lifts with excitement, but it isn’t the only pizza place here. I see at least three more, and when I glance across the food court at the arcade, I realize all three are in perfect view of it.

I walk up to each store, scanning the workers and peeking into the kitchens to find Zahira, but she isn’t here. She isn’t in any of them.

I stumble back to the middle of the cafeteria, my head spinning. She has to be here. She has to. I turn in a circle, hoping to see a spot of pink, her mess of wavy hair. My eyes go back to the pizza stores, hoping she’ll suddenly appear, but she isn’t here. She isn’t here, and I’ve made a huge mistake, and—

“Dany?”

I spin around. It takes a second to see her because she looks so different. Her hair is gathered in a tight bun, and she’s wearing a collared shirt in the colours of the pizza store. She takes half a step towards me, eyebrows raised in surprise, and I’m already running across the cafeteria and throwing my arms around her.

“Dany,” she says, still stunned, but she laughs and sinks to her knees to hug me. She’s holding a lunch bag. She was just on her break, and I was panicking over nothing. “Dany, what…what are you doing here?” Then she pulls back, her expression concerned. “Where’s Lilian? Did something happen?”

“No.” I don’t know when I started crying, just that suddenly my eyes are blurry and my voice is all wobbly. “Everything’s fine. I just—” I pour back into her arms, squeezing her tight. “I had to see you. I couldn’t just leave.”

Zahira pats my back as I cry. “Does Lilian know you’re here?”

I shake my head, still holding her tight.

“How did you even get here?”

“I took the bus,” I say. “I used my special coins.”

I can hear Zahira’s frown when she says, “Special coins?”

I nod. Watching the ticket machines swallow the loonies and quarters, I felt a horrible pain in my chest, but it was worth it, because it’s this. This is the reason I can’t just leave. We went through all that together, and we don’t even know each other. She doesn’t know I like basketball. She doesn’t know I collect special coins. I don’t know her favourite colour. I don’t even know her last name.

“Dany,” Zahira starts.

“We could go.” The words blurt out, and then I can’t stop talking. “We could go. Right now. We could get on your truck and just drive away. We don’t have to tell anyone where we’re going. Just the two of us. We could just…” A sob catches my voice. “We could just go. We could stay together.”

“Dany.” She pulls away. “What are you talking about? I can’t just leave.”

“Yes, you can. You hate this job. You’re miserable. We could escape.”

She laughs, but there are tears in her eyes. “Thanks for thinking of me. But I’m okay here. Really. I’m getting back on my feet. I’ll figure out a new future. And you.” She gives me a little shake. “You have to go with Lilian. Remember? You promised me.” Her face dips into mock seriousness. “Unless you were lying.”

I don’t know if I want to sob or laugh, and somehow end up doing both at the same time. “I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t promise. You said Got it? and I didn’t say anything.”

She draws back, a smile crooking her lips. “It was implied.”

I laugh and sob again, covering my face.

“Dany, hey. Come on.” She pats my shoulder. “Really. What’s wrong?”

I say, “Do you think we’re friends?”

“Of course we are.”

I can imagine her big eyebrows coming down as she says this, squishing into her eyes. I lower my hands and watch her, tears streaking both our faces. She means it. She really means it.

“I like basketball,” I say. “I collect special coins. My favourite colour is green.” I wipe my eyes. “What about you?”

“Me?”

I wipe my eyes again. “Friends have to know these things.”

She drops her shoulders in a sigh, her lips twisting into a smile. “I play field hockey. I collect things that look like Poquito. And my favourite colour is…” She looks to the side for a moment, thinking. “Purple.”

I frown even as I laugh. “Not pink?”

She shrugs. “I like them an equal amount.”

“No, you have to have a favourite.”

“Fine. Purple.” She grins. “But pink is a close second.”

We laugh, and she pulls me into a hug. I bury myself in it. This might be our last hug forever.

“I’ll be okay,” she says. “And you’ll be okay. We’ll promise each other, alright?”

I nod against her shoulder. “I promise.”

“I promise.”

We let go of each other, both of us wiping at our tears. And then we’re laughing, and I don’t know why.

Zahira sighs with a small, sad smile and says, “You have a way to contact Lilian? Tell her where to pick you up?”

“Yeah,” I say. I pull out the emergency phone from the side pocket, but my fingers hover over the numbers. I look up at Zahira and say, “I’ll miss you. And I’m sorry. About everything.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I forgave you a long time ago.” She musses up my hair, and I giggle. God, when was the last time I giggled? “But thank you. And I’ll miss you, too. Hey.” She leans forward, like she has a secret to tell me. “After you call Lilian, she won’t get here for, like, an hour. In the meantime, we could get pizza, and then we could…”

She jabs a thumb at the arcade, and I light up, nodding.

We do exactly that. I call Lilian, apologize for running away, explaining where to find me. Zahira treats me to a vegetable goat cheese pizza, which she swears is the best out of all of them. My mouth still salty from the pizza sauce, Zahira takes me through the arcade, scouting out all the machines we can cheat at. Skee-Ball. The coin pusher. Pinball. All the strange games that depend on luck more than skill to win the prizes inside, like positioning a scissor at the exact right place to cut a wire or making blocks of light stack up to reach the top of the screen. Some of them I can spark the prizes straight off their pegs, and some of them take me a while to get the hang of, but soon we’re bundling prizes and long trails of tickets in our arms, reveling in our victory.

“Wait,” I say when we pass the basketball game.

Zahira pulls back, a little out of breath from laughing. “This one?”

“We can race,” I say, already slotting tokens in. “No cheating this time.”

The feel of the basketball is familiar in my hands, and the temptation to spark the ball in the right path is just at the tips of my fingers, but I hold my sparks back. I let the balls fly in their own path. Only a few make it in, and I lose to Zahira big time, but I don’t care because I’m laughing so hard my cheeks hurt, and I’ve never felt so happy.

Finally, we come to the claw machines. Zahira points to a doll that looks just like Poquito. She tries it once without my help, just to prove how rigged it is, and the moment nobody is looking, I spark the doll into the chute. Zahira squeals in delight, squeezing the doll to her chest.

We go through the machines one by one, collecting a prize from each, until Zahira’s arms are too full for anything more. At the last machine, a white rabbit doll sits in the far corner, its red eyes twinkling.

“One more,” I say, a little lightheaded from using my sparks. One last one.

The rabbit falls through the chute, and when I pull it out to show Zahira, she’s looking out of the arcade. I turn to follow her gaze.

Lilian and Harty are standing near the cafeteria, scanning the mall with worried expressions. Lilian spots me and hurries over.

“Dany.” She falls to her knees and smothers me in a quick hug. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.” She looks at Zahira and smiles, giving her a small nod. “We have to go now. Thank you, for watching over Dany.” To me, she says, “Alright. Say your goodbyes. We have a plane to catch.”

Slowly, I turn back to Zahira. There really is no more room in her arms, but I hold the rabbit towards her. “You can have this, too.”

She blinks in surprise. “You don’t want any of them?”

I stare down at the rabbit. “I don’t know.”

“You can keep that one. And…” She shifts the dolls around until she manages to pick one out. “Here. You can have Poquito, too.”

“Really?”

“Really.” After a moment of consideration, she shifts the dolls around again to reach into her pocket. She flicks out her pink, heart-shaped sunglasses and settles it on top of my head. “There. Those look way better on you.”

I smile, and my eyes are blurring again. “Thank you.” I hug her one last time, through the lumpy heap of dolls. Thank you for everything.

“Have you ever had french fries with ice cream?” I ask.

“I have not,” she says.

“It’s good. I thought…if we had more time, we could have had some together. But maybe, if we pick a time, we can both eat it, and we can pretend we’re eating it together.”

“Good idea,” she says. I can’t see her face, but I can tell she’s crying, just like me. “How about next Wednesday?”

“Next Wednesday,” I agree. “For lunch.” I pull away and hook a pinky finger around hers. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Sniffling back my tears, I smile. Lilian leads me away, and I give Zahira one last wave goodbye.

On the car, driving away from the mall, for the first time, I feel hopeful. I still have a hard time imagining a future, but for now, I can look forward to next Wednesday. It’s a small start, but it’s something, and one day, I’ll be ready.

I hold Poquito and the rabbit tight. In the back of my mind, I name it Baklava.

I promised Zahira, but now, I promise myself, too.

I’ll be okay.

-THE END-