Page 63 of So This Is Love

“Aht, keep your excuses,” Zara interrupts. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“We’re just friends,” I argue.

“Girl, just because you’re being delusional doesn’t mean that I’m going to be. That man would gladly knock those cobwebs off for you the second you ask.”

I gasp and toss my napkin at her and then we both fall into a fit of giggles.

After we collect ourselves, Zara turns serious again.

“No but seriously, why are you so afraid of going there with him?”

I should’ve known that Zara wouldn’t hold back from asking me the hard things, but still my breath catches in my throat at the question. The question that I haven’t let myself think about because it has felt too raw to face those emotions head on instead of avoiding them, like I have since Bryce told me that he was interested in me.

I let out a deep breath. “Does it feel like it's moving too fast to you?”

“Fast? You’ve had that man in the friend zone for forever. It’s not been fast.”

“No, not like that,” I say. “I mean fast since I ended things with Devin.”

Zara smacks her teeth. “Girl, you could have gone out with another guy the next day after you found out his triflin’ ass was cheating on you and you wouldn’t have heard a peep from me. There’s no timeline for what’s ‘right’. But only you can really answer whether or not it’s too soon, because it’s your life not mine.”

“I know I know,” I say. “But after Devin I feel like I can’t trust myself anymore. He had a whole baby and I didn’t know.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Leave out the part where your gut was right. You knew he wasn’t being truthful to you, but he gaslit you into believing that you were the one in the wrong, when in reality it was all him. Do not let that toxic boy get in the way of you finding your person.”

Zara reaches out and holds my hand. “You didn’t know it was a baby, but you knew it was something so you can’t deny your intuition.”

“It’s just so damn easy with Bryce and I feel like I’m missing something. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and it hasn’t.”

“Stop holding your breath for something that may never come when you could be out enjoying your life. Life is too damn short to not take the risk sometimes.”

“You’re right,” I reply. “Though that same logic could’ve been applied for that time I wanted bangs, but you drew the line at that.”

One night after my breakup, I had been crying on the couch with a bowl of ice cream. I was so tired of being sad and decided that I wanted a change and to do something impulsive. Bangs seemed like an excellent choice. I was convinced that bangs would fix my problems and make me feel better. I asked Zara to cut them for me and she flat out refused. She said that she loved me too much to give me ‘breakup bangs’.

Zara was adamant that it was a bad choice. I eventually was able to get her to compromise to cutting them for me if I still wanted them in a week’s time.

Within a week I had pulled myself together, and even though I was still sad, I wasn’t the sad girl crying on the couch desperately seeking some form of control in her life.

“Hell yeah!” Zara says. “You never once said that you wanted bangs before that night. You were doing the bare minimum to survive at that time. There was no chance you were going to put in the effort to style them and be happy with them. After thenewness wore off you would’ve been crying to me about how much you hated them.”

“You’re right I definitely would have,” I say, laughing.

“Yo Zara, you have a client,” someone calls out.

Zara looks down at her watch. “He must be early. You know as soon as the weather gets a little warm, everybody needs a fresh cut.”

We stand and gather the trash from our food, tossing it all into the trash can by the fridge. We walk together to the door of the break room and Zara stops in her tracks at the threshold and frowns.

A man is standing at her station talking on the phone. His back is to us but I can see his face in the mirror at Zara’s station. He’s tall, at least 6’6” and his skin a deep mahogany hue.

Zara’s body language tells me that she’s familiar with him, but he wasn’t who she was expecting to see. He sees Zara and I in the reflection in the mirror and locks eyes with her. They stare each other down all while he continues his conversation on the phone.

“Who’s that,” I whisper.

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