Page 51 of Here for a Good Time
Shit, I didn’t think he’d hear me. “Nothing!” I insist from the security of my bush. Great, now I’m too riled up to pee. I take deep breaths, willing my body to relax and… unclench.
“What’s going on?” Zwe’s voice comes again.
My lower body does an unintentional Kegel, and I groan with frustration. “If I promise to tell you afterward, will you shut upright now? I can’t argue with youanduse the bathroom at the same time!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
I do my business, get dressed again, step out from behind the bush, and offer Zwe my hand sanitizer. “Thanks,” he mumbles when I squeeze a dollop into his palm. I pivot away from him, but his ridiculously long legs allow him to block my path in a matter of one step. “You promised. Now, what’s wrong?”
“You’re not taking my side,” I say, cognizant that I sound like a kid who’s mad that their best friend has a new friend. A new friend who doesn’t like me.
Zwe’s face creases. “Taking your side on… what?”
“Earlier, when I was explaining everything that I’d worked out overnight. And also on whether we should try to escape or free everybody.”
His head tilts, like he’s leaning forward to make sure he’s heard me correctly. “You mean when you… compared our lives to a novel?Then?”
I could strangle him. “You took her side!”
“Whose? Leila’s?” he asks at the same time that I blurt out, “Leila’s!”
“I didn’t—” he begins, stunned.
I’m one of those people who inadvertently cry when they’re angry. “You know I was making sense but instead you took her side and dismissed me.” I try to keep my voice stable even if my sight is already blurring over.
“Poe!” Zwe laughs out my name. “I can’t side with her over you, because we’re all on the same side! Look—” I watch his nostrils flareas he takes a deep breath. Unlike me, Zwe knows how to stop his emotions before he erupts. No stinging eyes and hot cheeks for him. “I’m sorry it sounded like I was dismissing your earlier point. Youweremaking sense. But Leila was also making sense when she insisted that our priority should be getting off of this island first. I know you’re worried that they might get angry and hurt the others if they catch us leaving, but they’lldefinitelybe angry and are even more likely to hurt them if they catch us trying to free them. Your plan was the result of a vague book plot that you drafted overnight, it wasn’t even a plan!”
“That’s not fair! I thought mine through a hell of a lot longer than Leila did.”
“But the supply boat is coming for sure. What do we have to free everyone with, apart from two small emergency knives?” The center of his words is soft, but the edges are hard and determined. “I’m not taking Leila’s side, but she knows this place the best. She knows what she’s talking about better than any of us.Yourplan has too many variables. Remember what I told you about that security course I took? You’re not supposed to try to be the hero.”
I can feel myself reverting back to being a toddler, with not enough words to encapsulate my anger. “You’re not even giving it a chance!”
“Because this isn’t a book! We don’t get to play out several scenarios until we find one that works. If we screw up, you get hurt!”
I scoff. “What does that mean? ThatI’mthe most useless one soI’mthe one who’s going to get captured while the rest of you escape?”
Zwe stills, looks at me with an inscrutable expression. “No, Poe,” he finally says on a dark chuckle, as though I missed the joke. “What that means is that while I care about Leila and Antonio,I… I don’t know what I’d do ifyougot hurt and I couldn’t protect you.”
“Oh,” I say, startled into silence.
“I weighed the situations, and at least if we fail with the boat, we can make a run for the woods again and try to still hide. If they catch us at the reception area, then we’re cornered,” he sighs. “Once we’re talking to the police, Ipromise,we’ll sit down together and run them through everything you said.”
He holds out a fist, and reluctantly, I bump it.
Reset.
I’m still annoyed, but I don’t want to be fighting with Zwe right now.
“Shall we go back to your girlfriend?” I ask.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Yet,” I mean to say, but my intonation makes it sound more like “Yet?”
Zwe simply smiles and shakes his head.
