his gaze shifts off into the distance and he sighs. There’s that hurt again. So I head toward him, feeling like I’m walking to my doom with each step.
“Rico,” he says once I get to him.
“Zan.”
And at first that’s all. Once inside the Jeep and on the move, we take the shortest route to my apartment complex (aka the way the bus doesn’t go): past the local tennis club, golf course, and the subdivisions of big houses most of my classmates live in. The only sound is some rap song about staying “fly till I die” playing softly in the background.
It’s actually kinda nice—
But then we pass the Walgreens that denotes entry into the cheap pocket of town. Once we turn onto the poorly lit street that leads to my complex, he turns the music off.
Oh boy…
“So?” he says.
Of course I know what he’s asking without asking, but screw him for refusing to just ask. “So what?”
“Family emergency?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation, Zan.” I cross my arms.
“That’s fair,” he replies. “But I’d appreciate it if you gave me one.”
His eyes are muted in the light from the dim streetlamps outside, but they’re still so intense. Jessica’s words run laps in my head: I haven’t seen Zanny this alive in the eight years I’ve known him.
It’s like…confounding. Never in a hundred and six million years would I have expected to exchange a single word with Zan Macklin, let alone be sitting in the passenger seat of his Tonka truck with him *politely* requesting intel on my personal life.
But still. I hate how entitled he seems to feel to the information.
How entitled he seems to feel to everything.
To me.
He didn’t ask if he could pick me up from work. He didn’t ask me to get in his car. And he hasn’t actually asked me to tell him why I really canceled. Not in a full sentence. With the word please tossed in there somewhere.
“You’re really used to getting what you want, huh?” I say.
“What?”
“You don’t really ask for things.”
“What do you mean?”
“You like…demand them. The only reason I’m sitting next to you right now is because you basically willed it so by creating an expectation I didn’t feel comfortable defying. Which I have a hunch is kind of a pattern for you.”
“What are you talking about, Danger?”
I shake my head. “Even the fact that you insist on continuing to mispronounce my last name. You just do whatever the hell you want, and people go with it. Zan-the-Man Macklin, king of the world.”
He just stares.
“And it’s not that I don’t appreciate the ride….Actually, no. What am I even saying? I was totally fine without the ride. I’ve been fine without rides since I started this job. So why am I suddenly taking them? You say ‘See you at ten’ and post up outside my ‘place of employment,’ as you say, and I come out and just hop right in? What even is that?”
“I’m not understanding—”
“Of course you aren’t, Zan. Why would you? I’m sure your whole life, you’ve never had to ask for anything. You say jump, people ask how high. Myself included.”
He doesn’t respond.
“My mom is sick.”
Again, nothing.
“She can’t work right now, so I have to work double my normal hours to make up the slack.”
“The slack?”
“The income slack, Macklin.” God. I figured he’d be a little out of touch, but this is…disheartening. “If I don’t pick it up, there won’t be enough money to cover bills this month.”
He’s back to not responding. Which I expected this time.
Soon we’re turning into the neighborhood, and then he’s pulling into the space next to Mama’s truck. He sets the brake on the Jeep. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing.” It’s knee-jerk, but the moment it’s out of my mouth, I realize it’s true.
“Come on, Rico. I know there’s something I can do.”
“There really isn’t.”
“Nothing at all?”
I can feel the rage rising from my gut, but I honestly don’t know exactly who/what I’m mad at. At Mama for being sick? At myself for telling the richest boy in school my poor-kid sob story? At Zan for not being able to identify? At life for being so unfair?
“I don’t need your charity,” I say. “I take the bus to and from work every day. Even this ride was unnecessary.”
And there’s that bewildered look again. “I don’t get it—”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Zan.”
He shakes his head. “Can you just explain how me wanting to help is a bad thing?”
“I didn’t ask