“That’s fair,” he replies. “But I’d appreciate it if you gave me one.”
His eyes are muted in the light from the dim streetlamps outside, but they’re still so intense. Jessica’s words run laps in my head: I haven’t seen Zanny this alive in the eight years I’ve known him.
It’s like…confounding. Never in a hundred and six million years would I have expected to exchange a single word with Zan Macklin, let alone be sitting in the passenger seat of his Tonka truck with him *politely* requesting intel on my personal life.
But still. I hate how entitled he seems to feel to the information.
How entitled he seems to feel to everything.
To me.
He didn’t ask if he could pick me up from work. He didn’t ask me to get in his car. And he hasn’t actually asked me to tell him why I really canceled. Not in a full sentence. With the word please tossed in there somewhere.
“You’re really used to getting what you want, huh?” I say.
“What?”
“You don’t really ask for things.”
“What do you mean?”
“You like…demand them. The only reason I’m sitting next to you right now is because you basically willed it so by creating an expectation I didn’t feel comfortable defying. Which I have a hunch is kind of a pattern for you.”
“What are you talking about, Danger?”
I shake my head. “Even the fact that you insist on continuing to mispronounce my last name. You just do whatever the hell you want, and people go with it. Zan-the-Man Macklin, king of the world.”
He just stares.
“And it’s not that I don’t appreciate the ride….Actually, no. What am I even saying? I was totally fine without the ride. I’ve been fine without rides since I started this job. So why am I suddenly taking them? You say ‘See you at ten’ and post up outside my ‘place of employment,’ as you say, and I come out and just hop right in? What even is that?”
“I’m not understanding—”
“Of course you aren’t, Zan. Why would you? I’m sure your whole life, you’ve never had to ask for anything. You say jump, people ask how high. Myself included.”
He doesn’t respond.
“My mom is sick.”
Again, nothing.
“She can’t work right now, so I have to work double my normal hours to make up the slack.”
“The slack?”
“The income slack, Macklin.” God. I figured he’d be a little out of touch, but this is…disheartening. “If I don’t pick it up, there won’t be enough money to cover bills this month.”
He’s back to not responding. Which I expected this time.
Soon we’re turning into the neighborhood, and then he’s pulling into the space next to Mama’s truck. He sets the brake on the Jeep. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing.” It’s knee-jerk, but the moment it’s out of my mouth, I realize it’s true.
“Come on, Rico. I know there’s something I can do.”
“There really isn’t.”
“Nothing at all?”
I can feel the rage rising from my gut, but I honestly don’t know exactly who/what I’m mad at. At Mama for being sick? At myself for telling the richest boy in school my poor-kid sob story? At Zan for not being able to identify? At life for being so unfair?
“I don’t need your charity,” I say. “I take the bus to and from work every day. Even this ride was unnecessary.”
And there’s that bewildered look again. “I don’t get it—”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Zan.”
He shakes his head. “Can you just explain how me wanting to help is a bad thing?”
“I didn’t ask for your help!”
“But you did,” he says. “If I remember correctly, you dragged me out of the cafeteria to ask for my help.”
“This isn’t the same!” Almost crying now.
“Why isn’t it? Aren’t friends supposed to help each other?”
“Oh, are we friends now?”
His face scrunches up so tight, it looks like a giant brown creepy-crawly is perched over the bridge of his nose. “Really? Are we friends? What the hell do you call it?”
“I don’t need your money, Macklin.”
“Who said anything about money?”
UGH! “What other kind of ‘help’ could you possibly mean?”
“How ’bout rides? Food while you’re at work? Someone to hang with Jax so you can rest while your mom recovers?”
I don’t say anything. Can’t. Because at the end of the day, everything he mentioned falls under the category of Stuff People Pay For.
“So?” he says.
Again with that! “So what, Zan?”
He sighs again. Looks at me.
I wish he wouldn’t. It makes me feel too many conflicting things. Especially with that crazy-ass cologne wafting over me.
“I’m sorry if I offended you, Rico,” he says. “That wasn’t my intention.”
I hate him so much for apologizing. “Good intentions don’t lessen negative impact, Alexander.”
I reach for the door handle and shove the creaky thing open before he can see how wet my eyeballs are.
“By the way, we’re going to Birmingham after school on Friday,” he says once I’ve got my legs hanging out the door.
And here we go again! “Did you hear a single word I just said?!”
“Huh?”
I shake my head and take a deep breath. Guess I gotta pretend I’m talking to Jax….“We’re not going to Birmingham on Friday, Zan. For one: I have to work—”
“I made arrangeme—”
“Don’t cut me off. It’s rude.”
He looks like I smacked him. Good.
“For two: even if I didn’t have to work, I’d say no.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t ask me.” I hop down.
“Wait!”
I turn to face him and cross my arms. More as a feeble attempt to protect myself from the You can’t talk to me that way, riffraff statement I’m expecting to fly from his mouth than to look tough, but whatever.