"Thank you for getting me," I try to say. My lips are so tired they don't want to move.
"Anytime, Zara. Really. I mean it." He seems to be smelling my hair.
"I know you hate me and everything but we should be friends," I tell him, closing my eyes.
"I don't hate you," he says. "That's not it at all."
"What is it then? Are you a victim of parthenophobia?"
"Parthenophobia?"
"Fear of girls."
"You are so strange." He moves back even closer to me, this wicked glint in his eye like he's trying hard not to snort-laugh at me. His hand presses against the side of my head. Nobody has ever touched me like this before, all gentle and romantic, but strong at the same time. "I'm not afraid of girls."
"Then why haven't you kissed any?"
For a second his eyes Hash. "Maybe the right one hasn't come around yet."
"That is such a line," I say. I watch his lips. For some bizarre reason I say it again. "We should be friends."
"Yeah, we should," he agrees and something warm seeps over me, making me nestle even closer.
"I mean, I'm not going to be like one of those annoying women in movies who falls in love with the guy who rescues her, because I don't think you even rescued me, okay?"
"Rescued you?"
My stomach cramps. "Whatever."
He starts laughing. I tap him on the thigh. "Stop it."
"I can't."
His whole body just bounces up and down and he looks little and younger and cute. Once when my dad and I were watching this silly NASCAR movie my dad transformed like that. It was like he was a little boy all of a sudden and everything he was worried about-like bills, and me, and human rights relief-was all gone, lost in a fart joke.
Nick takes in a deep breath, so deep I move with it too, since I'm leaning on him. When he exhales he says, softly, almost so low that I can't hear it, "I don't want to hurt you, Zara. I don't want anything to hurt you."
I smile.
"Good. But I'm not a damsel and there is no distress."
Then I fall asleep, which was ridiculously bad timing of course, because the conversation is just getting interesting.
I wake up the next morning in my own bed. Not the couch, but my bed. Which means?
I've dreamt everything!
Right?
Wrong.
My hand reaches up to touch the wound on my cheek. It's bandaged with gauze and tape. There are marks on my hand from when I broke my fall. They aren't too deep but they're funny looking. Sitting up is not easy. All my bones creak and pop like I've run a marathon. My abs hurt. I pull myself out of bed and pad over to the mirror. The white bandage almost blends in with my pale face, but not quite. Betty must have bandaged it last night, but I can't really remember that. I can't remember Nick leaving. Color spreads across my face as I think about him Oh God, I asked him to be my friend. You don't ask people to be your friend.
Catagelophobia is the fear of being ridiculed. I think this is a very normal phobia. It is a phobia I should actively cultivate.
"Needy. Needy and pathetic," I say to my ugly mirror reflection.
My ugly mirror reflection mouths the same words.
I yank my fingers through my hair and give up.
Catagelophobia.
Why do I care? There is absolutely no reason to care about Nick. He is just a cute boy who almost ran me over in his beautiful MINI. Sure, he smells good-like comfort and warmth and safety, but he isn't safe. I know that. I know that absolutely. Plus, why would he like me anyway? The girl in my mirror is too pale, too plain, and has a big bandage on her head. I am not exactly supermodel material, or even Megan material.
I start yanking at my hair, trying not to look at myself, trying not to care.
Grandma Betty's hand on my shoulder makes me jump. "Zara?"
Turning around, I lean against the dresser. I'm afraid to meet her eyes.
She lets her fingers drift to my hair. "You need to put some conditioner on it to get these tangles out."
"I know."
Outside a dog barks.
"Damn dogs," she mutters, looking away and then back at me. "That Nick is a nice boy."
I eye her. "He doesn't like me."
"Really? Are you trying to convince yourself or me? Because I found him with his hand pressing a bandage to your head while you were passed out drooling on the couch."
"I was drooling?"
She laughs. "Not too much."
I hide my head in my hands. The air in the room is stale and smells like crusted-up blood and doubt.
Betty pulls my hands away. Her face is smiling. "He likes you, Zara. He took care of you. That's what men do when they take a shine to you."
"He obviously has some rescue-the-damsel-in-distress gene, which is totally inappropriate because I am hardly a damsel in distress," I say, a little too bitterly. Even I can hear it.
"Hardly. You're too busy trying to rescue people you don't know." She points at my pile of Amnesty International papers.
"Like that's a bad thing?"
"It's a good thing, Zara. It's just. Well… we all need a little bit of rescuing from time to time. It doesn't make us weak."
"He doesn'tlike me like me."
"You know, there's nothing wrong with admitting he likes you. There's nothing wrong with feeling good things, Zara. Your dad doesn't want any of us to stop living."
My bedcovers are all tangled up on the mattress. None of them are in the right place. I try to straighten them. My pile of books and Amnesty International human rights reports topple against my foot. The book with my dad's name in it awaits.
"This place is such a mess," I mumble, trying to stack the reports up again. "I'm sorry I'm so messy. I bet my mom wasn't messy when you guys took her in."
"She wasn't messy, but she never put the cap back on the toothpaste."
"She still doesn't!" I shake the human rights report at Betty for emphasis. There are so many numbers in those reports, and each number represents someone's pain, someone's story. My stomach crumples and I put the book gently on the pile. Then I pick up the book from the library. "Dad took this book out. His name is in the back."
She takes the book and stares at it. After what seems like forever, she says in a quiet voice, "Do not fear. Here there be tygers."
"Do you think he wrote that?" I touch her arm. She suddenly seems frail.
"Looks like his handwriting."
"What do you think it means?"
"It was a Ray Bradbury story." I must give her a look because she adds, "He was a science fiction writer. One of the best."
"Oh, I'm not really up on my science fiction."
"Hmm." Betty becomes serious, shuts the book, and hands it back to me. I hold it against my chest for a second, even though it sounds super corny. The book feels kind of special. Like it's a message left from my dad to me.
Betty eyes me. "You went outside, alone, last night."
I place the book on top of the pile of human rights' reports. "I know, I-" "Zara?" Betty's voice turns into a warning. I haven't responded as quickly as I should have.
"I'm sorry," I rush out. "I told Nick and Issie what I was doing. Well, I left them text messages so they couldn't talk me out of it. And I… I just wanted some answers."
"And you thought you'd go looking for answers in the dark?" She picks up a pillow.
I haul in a massive breath. "Look. I was trying to find someone."
"Someone?"
'"That man on the side of the road. We saw him when you brought me home from the airport." I keep smoothing the already pretty smooth sheets. They feel cool against my hands, soft and stable.