Chapter Twenty-Eight

A month after my rock-bottom return to Dell's Hollow, I sit down at my desk with a blank postcard. I picked it up at Fresh Fare, our local grocery store, and the only place I've been allowed besides the house to help Dad with the shopping, at least until my first shift back at Putt by the Pond later today. Fresh Fare's got a limited selection, admittedly. This one has a kind of sloppy photo collage of eastern gray squirrels—our state mammal—but whatever. The picture isn't the point.

I could probably fill a hundred postcards with everything I wish I'd said to Max in Richmond. That she's not the person I thought she was, not the hero I wanted her to be. That I wish she'd told me what was going on and how complicated things were between her and my parents. That she'd been wrong, and mean, and selfish. That I'd been wrong, and mean, and selfish. That I wish I could be the me again who'd believed Max was perfect. That she didn't need to be perfect to be my big sister. That I was mad at her. That I hoped she'd come back. That I hoped she'd stay gone until she found what she needed. That I was, seriously, so fucking mad at her.

But in the end, it takes me an hour of staring listlessly at my corkboard of accomplishments to write two sentences:

I love you. Your sister forever, El.

I fill out the address of her sketchy split-level and, after pausing to grab the meager collection of postcards from Max I've kept in my desk cubby, I sneak downstairs as quietly as I can so as not to wake my parents. In the kitchen junk drawer, I find the booklet of stamps, as well as the keys to the padlock on the backyard shed. Peeling off a stamp and pocketing the keys, I slip out of the house.

I stick the squirrel postcard in our mailbox and raise the flag just as the sun is rising bright and orange over the poplar trees in our front yard, promising another hot and soupy August day. Then I walk around through the side yard to reach the shed. Inside, I pat my old Husqvarna on my way to the bags and boxes of Max's forgotten things stashed in the corner. I grab the nearest one—the box of her motocross trophies—and tuck the six postcards sent from her travels through Pigeon Forge to Boston inside, retaping the flaps after them.

Back in the house, I climb the spiral staircase up to the attic, keeping my footsteps soft. I haven't been up here since my talk with Mom, and I don't linger now. I only stay long enough to peel the poster of Letty Ortiz off the wall: The one my big sister hung up years ago because I wasn't ready to do it myself.

I carry it back down the staircase with me, cradling the paper gone a little brittle with time and temperature fluctuations. After I shift my own various medals and certificates around on my corkboard to make space, tossing out the sillier ones (perfect attendance awards are crap, anyhow), there's just enough room to keep Letty down here with me.

If Max comes back, I think she'll be proud, but I'll have to be enough for me in the meantime.

As I pedal up to Putt by the Pond later that morning, I regret every ill thought I ever had about the Oatmobile. Yeah, it has a top speed of 30 mph when driving uphill, and yes, it has about the same turning radius as the Titanic. But I never arrived for work plastered in sweat at 8:30 a.m., and with a few fresh mosquito bites from biking around the pond.

Coasting into the metal rack in the parking lot, I fumble with the chain lock I probably don't need. Since my old Husqvarna isn't road legal, and since there isn't a bicycle shop in town, I had to turn to the July edition of the Dell's Hollow Daily to find the one bike for sale within walking distance of my house. Someone four streets over was selling a twenty-year-old Specialized Rockhopper for a hundred. Needs a little cleaning and tune-up, the ad said, and it wasn't lying. I've actually grown fond of my little red road-capable mountain bike in the weeks it took me to fix it up with Dad in the backyard shed.

But wow, do I miss the Oatmobile's AC. And the convenient cup holders for iced coffee. And its windshield.

I guess I can't complain when I'm surprised to be here at all. The night I got back from Richmond, I figured I wouldn't see the outside world beyond my driveway until school starts again. But my parents kept to Mom's word; if my manager would let me come back after my immediate grounding was over, and if I could get myself there without the van, I'd be allowed to finish out the summer.

Volunteer club is another story.

I haven't seen Zaynah since the heist, and we haven't really spoken since Richmond, though we did exchange a few texts just after. I pull out my phone to read through them for the hundredth time:

EL:I'm sorry

Zaynah:OK

EL:I know you're mad

Zaynah:Are you?

EL:No!

EL:It was good that you told my parents

Zaynah:Glad you're OK

Zaynah:I gotta go

EL:Can we talk later?

Zaynah:OK

Maybe I should've been braver and called her, but I know when Zaynah needs time, and it felt right to wait. Now I'm doubting myself (what's new?) but the plan remains the plan. I knew we were both opening today, so I biked to work half an hour early to meet her in the parking lot, when she inevitably arrives early, already dressed for her shift. Zaynah's always had it together like that.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, her dad drops her off in the family pickup. I'm partially hidden by the shrubby dogwoods that border the lot, and she freezes when she comes around them and sees me sitting on the curb in front of the bike rack. She's never looked so intimidating, all five feet of her in her bright red work polo shirt and watermelon-striped hijab, eyes wide as she blinks down at me. I hug my knees to my chest, feeling a little sick, fighting to keep my breakfast hashbrowns down; we've never gone so long without seeing each other, not even during the Cineplex Incident.

And this one's all on me. I let my best friend become a stranger.

"Hi," I croak out. "Hey. I—how are you?" Smooth as deep-fried butter.

But at least Zaynah unfreezes. With a sigh, she gives up the high ground to sit on the curb beside me. Or rather, on top of her messenger bag to protect her khakis from the crumbled asphalt and ragweed pollen I'm surely sitting in. "Are you back?"

"At Putt by the Pond? Yeah. Maryanne let me start my shifts up again."

"I wondered if she would."

I pick anxiously at my shoelaces. "Me too. I've been pretty bad at a lot of things this summer. I wasn't a good best friend."

Zaynah doesn't disagree—how could she, when it's the truth—and has never been one to lie to make things easier. "I figured you had a lot going on. I didn't know, because you didn't tell me about any of it."

"Yeah." I can't disagree, either.

"Like, you met JoJo, and then you were always together, even during volunteer club meetings. And I was happy for you! I know you've been sad over Max, and I was glad you had somebody like that, who's into what you're into."

"Lesbianism?"

"I meant racing." Zaynah smiles just a little. "But that, too."

"If it makes you feel better, it turns out I wasn't a good girlfriend, either."

This is the wrong joke to make, and after softening slightly, she stiffens again beside me. "Why would that make me feel better?"

"I—I just meant, it wasn't you. I messed up. I got that postcard from Max and got it into my head that if I found her, and got her to come home, I could put everything back the way it was before. And I think … Maybe a little part of me already knew that wasn't possible. And if I went to you about it, I probably would've had to face that, because you knew it, too."

Slowly, Zaynah nods. "So you went to JoJo instead."

"She didn't know my sister. She just believed me."

"But you liked her, too. It wasn't just about Max."

"No. She probably thinks it was, because I fucked up." I wipe away the sweat from the back of my neck as the sun beats down on us. "But uh, we don't have to talk about JoJo."

"El, I want you to talk to me. I want to know what's going on with you. That's what this," she waves wildly between us, "is all about. And I feel like I've been chasing you for months to try and find out."

So I talk to Zaynah.

In the time remaining before our shift, I tell her about all of it. How JoJo and I tracked down Max's terrible friends together to find her address in Richmond. How we kissed in my sister's attic bedroom over Mario Kart, and it felt like the best and bravest I had ever been. How my parents were waiting for me after the race. How I stole a whole-ass sport bike and drove me and JoJo to Richmond (I fade to black through some of the trip up, in sharing mode but not oversharing) only to have Max send me away again. How my mom finally told me the truth about my sister leaving. And how Jo is strong, and funny, and fearless, and special, and she made me feel like maybe I could be, too, but then I messed it all up by unloading on her outside of a shitty apartment complex. "So," I finish up. "How was your summer?"

She laughs, one of the sounds I know and like best in the world. "Well, we got a new rescue goat. Tater Tot. She has three legs and hangs out in Pickles's stall."

"Tater Tot the goat!" I squeal. "Maybe I can bike to the farm to meet her."

Zaynah turns to look up at the Rockhopper behind me. "These are your wheels now?"

"Probably until I die."

Unbelievably, she scoots in to knock her head softly against mine. "You're a Bike Girl? anyway."

I lean into Zaynah. Everything is not instantly put right, but we're family. As long as we're both willing, we'll find a way to work it out.

If biking to work at 9:00 a.m. was unpleasant, it's nothing compared to biking home in the early afternoon through the clinging late July heat. I'm half-standing on the Rockhopper, pedaling hard to get up Magnolia Street, the steepest hill in Dell's Hollow, I swear, and right on my route, when I hear the rumble of a V-8 slowing behind me, then beside me. Electric blue paint ablaze in the high sun, and a beautiful girl in a bright green jumpsuit leaning out the driver's window.

"Need a ride?" JoJo asks.

Because I know her, I can see that her grin (which I would've called cocky if we'd just met) is glass-fragile, like my heart when I look at her. It would be safer to shake my head and keep us both from shattering.

But I think JoJo Emerson-Boyd is worth being brave.