Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,119
“Okay,” I agree.
“Can we sit?” Blair walks to the front of the balcony, and sets up two chairs behind the rail.
She’s not done?
I sit next to her, looking out at the blue screen hanging over the sea of groaning, straining zombies below.
Blair takes a deep breath. “I’ve . . . I guess I’ve been jealous for a long time.”
I want to say Aha! Or Eureka! Or something that a scientist might say. I also want to argue, because what? Why?
What I say is “Me too.”
Blair looks at me. She tucks long, honey-brown hair behind one ear.
“Really?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Of you, or parts of you. Things that I’m not.”
“Yeah.” Blair smiles a little, and then she’s turning on the seat, twisting sideways so our knees nearly touch. “And I don’t like the way that makes me feel.”
I nod. “Me either.”
“I don’t know why it started, or how,” she says, words rushing out. “But it did and it’s been there for so long. And then I was just reacting to it . . . and then Scott. I’m so sorry, June.”
Scott. A jerk. A charming guy. Dead now, and does any of this matter next to that?
I try not to flinch but it’s there, it must be, because Blair looks distressed, almost like she wants to pat at me or hug me.
“I wish I could take it back,” she says, her voice urgent. “But I did it. I knew how you felt about him, but I wanted . . . I wanted to take him. I liked him, but I also wanted to take him from you. I didn’t really think when it started, we started flirting online, and I haven’t had that many boyfriends—”
“Gee, I wonder what that’s like.” It comes out harsher than I mean it, but it’s there, the truth.
We are the same in so many ways.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was a knee-jerk.”
Blair sighs. “It’s a fair point.”
There’s a moment of not-silence, but not talking, as we sit and try to process what we want to say, what our emotions are doing.
The moans of the zombies stretch up to us, life-and-death context.
“Listen,” I say, turning to Blair, meeting her eyes for the first time. “I want to be friends again. But I want to feel safe with you.”
Blair is nodding rapidly, her eyebrows up in a yes! expression.
“I understand,” she says. “I don’t know how I can fix it. Except to tell you the truth, and to keep saying it.”
She takes a deep breath.
“I have to find a new way. Because I can’t just feel better about myself when I can do better than you.” She looks down. “And I don’t know why we should feel—why I should feel . . . competitive. Like there’s only so much to go around, attention, or whatever.”
“Control,” I whisper.
Blair glances at me.
“I do it, too,” I continue. “I don’t like it, but I feel . . . like I have to compete with you. Like we have to struggle for . . . control. Which is ludicrous. It doesn’t even make sense!”
“Right?!” Blair grabs my wrist, squeezing it in agreement. “What even is that?”
We meet each other’s eyes, shaking our heads in mutual dismay and confusion.
“Is it the patriarchy?” I ask.
“I mean, I would like to blame the patriarchy?” she answers.
“Let’s blame the patriarchy,” I suggest, and then we’re laughing, small little huffs at the ridiculousness of the place, the patriarchy, the zombies below us, but also laughs of relief.
It feels like we’ve climbed over something, this huge obstacle, together.
Blair lets go of my wrist to hold up her hand, making a promise. “June, I swear to you. I swear, when we get out of here, I’m going to be a better friend to you, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”