It’s too late. I take tentative steps toward them. Mo notices my artificial smile, the glazed look in my eyes, but she mistakes it for illness.
“Zad, you don’t look so good. Do you want us to drive you home?”
“No, I can drive myself,” I say. “Thanks, though.”
I start to walk away from them.
“You look like you’re a second from passing out,” Jason says, catching up with me.
“And you just got out of a coma,” Amber says.
She’s looking at me with pity, but I’m hearing her tell Mo in the bathroom just now how hard things have been for her and Jason.
“I’m okay,” I assure them.
A voice in my head is telling me to stop acting. For the first time in your life, stop acting, Zadie.
But I don’t listen to it.
We’re in public.
Mom is actually going to get away with the mess she made.
She actually found a way to clean it up.
Keep a low profile and go.
It’s when Amber catches my elbow and says, “Zad, are you sure you’re okay?” That’s when I lose it.
No, I don’t lose it.
I decide I’m done.
Done working so, so hard to be perfect when everyone else is allowed to be a mess.
Done being so good that I’m never allowed to actually feel anything.
Done watching my three best friends lie through their teeth to my face and still caring the most about what everybody else will think.
Softer eyes and kinder smiles and fewer whispers.
I turn around, reach for the nearest thing around me (an abandoned glass of orange juice), and toss it in Amber’s face.
Amber squeals and jumps backward.
Mo gasps.
Jason freezes. “Why would you…Ambs, are you…” He goes between us like some sort of pendulum. Freak out on girlfriend or check on fellow cheater.
“No, go ahead,” I tell Jason. “Find out if she’s okay.”
He actually follows my direction, turns to Amber. “Are you hurt?”
Hurt.
I threw orange juice at her, not arsenic.
Amber shakes her head bravely then gives me another stunned look.
