Another text comes: He’s grounded. What do you need him for?
I’m in a situation and could use a ride late tonight, I write. Long story.
Oh. There’s nothing again, and then three dots. He’s grounded from his car.
Thanks anyway. I pocket my phone so I won’t be tempted to scroll back through our old conversations. I did that enough right after stuff blew up, and it never once made me feel better.
My phone pings. What kind of situation? Everything okay?
I blink at my screen. Yeah. It’s more for someone else. Chewbarka counts as a someone else. Dogs are people too.
Well. Maybe you could tell me the long story sometime.
I hold my breath for a moment, then smile. I’d like to apologize. For real this time, the right way. In person. If you’re willing to hear it.
My palm gets so sweaty while I wait that the phone slips out of my hand. I pick it up to find he’s replied: Maybe Sunday we could hang out.
A bubble of hope rises up. Thank you. I look at shivering, limping Chewbarka. “I’ll figure this out for you. I will.” I pick her up and stuff her under my hoodie with her fuzzy head sticking out the neck. Her fur tickles my nose as I walk, but who cares? She gets to live!
My stomach growls at the smell of the pizza. The hunger feels weirdly good. I can’t remember the last time I was truly hungry.
It occurs to me as I pace and think that I’ve been sort of a jerk to Ash. Maybe more than sort of. I’ve probably made her—him—think I’m mad, when he was just trying to help. When he came out to me because he thought I deserved the truth.
That was probably so hard to do. Because . . . he likes me. Like a lot, regardless of whether he’s a boy or a girl, and wow, have I been an idiot to not fully see it till just now.
I don’t know what to think about that. But when I hug Chewbarka inside my hoodie, I remember last night when I decided it didn’t really matter. That the connection is the important part, not the specifics.
I’ll have to freak out about that later. Right now, I have to figure out how to get to Greenboro. I sit on the curb behind the nail salon and open my messages. I realize I never replied to Ash’s What do you mean? after I said there might still be a chance. I’m so sorry I made stuff weird, I write. I ask if she knows someone with a car who’d be willing to drive a dog across town tonight to save her life.
No answer comes. I maybe made stuff worse with my rushed apology and sudden request for a favor. Maybe Ash is angry at me, or hates me for how I responded when he came out.
I really could have handled it better.
I get up and walk again, avoiding Papa John’s. I’m so hungry my bones feel hollow. My phone pings at the back of the gas station: I texted my mom. She says she can help us.
I laugh in double relief. They can help, and . . . us. Ash said us! He doesn’t hate me.
Thank you, I write. Thank you thank you! Thank your mom for me!!!
Ash sends a happy-face emoji. She’s at book club but she said she’ll leave a few minutes early. It’s gonna take her a while to get home tho cause book club is by where we used to live.
No prob, I write, even though it is sort of a prob. I’m really cold and Chewbarka is too.
Where should we pick you up? Guessing you’re not at home?
Papa John’s, I write. Let me know when you’re on your way.
Will do. I gotta hurry up and do my homework, oops music distraction. See you in like . . . hopefully less than two hours.
Oh man. How we’ll make it that long without freezing, I have no idea. I guess I have to trust that time will keep moving. That it won’t stop and leave me stranded in this in-between place, stuck between relief for Chewbarka and dread about facing Mom, between liking Ash and being kinda freaked out. Between holding Chewbarka close and giving her up for good.
That’s going to be so hard. Even though I know it’s for the best. I love this doofy little floof, in equal measure with my sadness at the thought of losing her. The sadness is how I know I love her so much.
I need a distraction that doesn’t involve freaking out about however Ash convinced his mom to help. It’s more than a small favor to drive out to Greenboro and back in the middle of a freezing night. Especially if she already had to drive far to wherever book club is.
I sit behind the Papa John’s, download Instagram, and log in. There’s a slew of comments and likes on my old stuff. At the top of the list is a new follow from someone I don’t know. I tap to see their story.
It’s Ash. Wearing a bright purple hoodie, nails painted pink and blue, playing a song on a keyboard and singing. My phone’s tinny speaker doesn’t do it justice, and it’s only a fifteen-second clip. But I watch it three times. Then I tap his profile photo.
Photos of him—or her, that’s definitely a her in some of the pics—fill my screen. She’s dressed in all different outfits in the photos, stuff I’ve never seen her in. Boy-her—or boy-him, I don’t know how to think of this so I’ll just think of Ash as they until they tell me otherwise—boy-Ash has some killer fashion sense too. There are pics in what looks like a dressing room with the tag #IfOnlyIWasRich. They’re dressed in a slim jacket and skinny jeans with fancy Italian-looking shoes, or in a punked-out leather jacket with blue jeans and zebra-striped
