Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,118

case. “Defibrillator. What Annie said. If we could only shock them all. I was thinking, I don’t know . . . if we could somehow get on that stage and electrocute them.”

“One at a time?” Annie asks, her eyebrows coming together in a frown.

“No, all together,” I say.

“The defib’s not that strong,” Annie says.

“I know, I was thinking, the lights. Or the speakers. They must have those really fat plugs. Draws a huge voltage.”

The others just look at me, and I feel silly.

“I know it won’t work,” I say hastily. “I mean, if there was one of those fire hoses in here, maybe we could soak them all from up here, then do it.”

“The water would conduct the electricity,” Simon says, nodding.

“But there’s not a hose up here,” I say.

Siggy points up.

“We have those,” she says.

As one, our row tips our heads back.

34

This is the worst idea in the history of ideas,” I say. “It started as mine, so I get to say that.”

I’m wrapping electrical tape around the handle of the hex key, winding it around and around a wooden mop handle and the hex key, an infinity, figure-eight loop-de-loop.

“Well, I’d rather die with a bad idea and moving than no idea and standing still,” Annie says.

“That’s the spirit!” I say, giving her a little hug.

Simon jogs back to where I stand. He’s been running back and forth at the edge of the balcony, waving his arms and shouting.

“It’s going to work, June,” he says. “But I still think you should let me be the one to climb down.”

“Why, because you’re a guy?” I shake my head. “Besides, I need you up here if anything, you know . . . goes wrong. You’ll have another shot at it.”

I hand the mop to Blair.

“Wait till I go before you start.”

“Do you have a minute?” Blair asks, tipping her head to the side, indicating that she’d like privacy.

I follow her a few steps away from the others.

I know what this is going to be. A Blair version of an apology. Words that feel regretful, but which don’t take ownership, don’t take the sting away, and filled with these voice-trailing-off gaps that take the place of actually saying I’m sorry, which she has never been, will never be, able to do.

But I owe it to her, and to the entire history of our friendship, to hear her out.

And I’m ready to accept her for who she is, and that includes her flawed apology.

“I just want to say I’m truly sorry,” Blair says.

My heart stops, and then it speeds up, and I feel blood rush to my cheeks and ears in shock.

She said it. She actually said it.

And she’s still talking.

“—for everything. I don’t really know why I do the things I do, sometimes. And it’s not like he was that great.”

I feel my lip push out in a wasn’t he? expression as my heart rate calms back down.

Call it the zombie apocalypse, but I decide that I really don’t care why anymore.

“It’s okay, Blair,” I say. “Thank you for saying that. It’s okay.”

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Or something like that I saw on a mug sometime. But pithy as it sounds, it must be true, because the minute I say it, I actually do feel better. Not because it doesn’t still hurt about Scott, not because suddenly all is well, or that I somehow magically can trust her again, but maybe just simply because I don’t feel poisoned by my anger. I’m just letting it pass through me, and letting it go.

I’m not going to nurse it anymore. Not going to fan its flames, or push out with that feeling of being wronged.

And suddenly I feel bigger. Stronger.

“Thanks for letting me off the hook, but I have to say it.” Blair’s hand opens and bobs at me, pleading.