Page 11 of You Say It First

Colby made an I don’t know noise, but then instead of arguing he seemed to think for a moment. “Makes sense, I guess,” he finally said.

“I can help you register now if you want,” she offered brightly, sensing an opening. “I meant it the other night; it only takes, like, two seconds.”

“Oh no.” Colby laughed a little, deep and rumbling. “That’s okay.”

Meg frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m all set. I meant what I said the other night, too, you know? I think the whole thing is bullshit.”

She sat down hard on the edge of the mattress. “The whole thing, like democracy?”

“I mean, not democracy,” Colby clarified. “But the way it works in America, yeah, totally. It has nothing to do with actual people or, like, their actual concerns.”

“Says who?”

“Says anyone who’s paid attention at any point in the last fifty years,” Colby shot back. “It’s a power grab, that’s all. Look, I’m not trying to shit on your job—”

“Aren’t you?” Meg asked with a brittle-sounding giggle. God, he was infuriating. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t already hung up.

“No!” Colby insisted. “If you like it, if you feel like you’re making a difference, then more power to you. I just personally think you’re wasting your time.”

Meg opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I mean, wow,” was all she could say. She knew she cared way more about politics than most people, with her job at WeCount and how the bumper of her car was covered in campaign stickers and her dutiful monthly donations to She Should Run, but she’d never encountered anybody—especially not anybody her own age—who just flat-out didn’t think it was worth it. “That’s really cynical.”

“Yeah, well.” She could practically hear the shrug in his voice. “I’m cynical.”

“Clearly.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, the silence stretching out across the miles and miles between them and the inherent weirdness of this conversation hitting her all at once. She was just about to make an excuse and say goodbye when Colby spoke. “Why did you have a bad day?” he asked.

“Huh?” Meg sat up straighter on the mattress, surprised.

“You said you had a bad day the other day, right? I’m asking why.”

“I mean, do you care?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

Well. She hesitated, trying to decide both how to answer that question and why she felt compelled to in the first place. After all, it wasn’t like one specific thing had happened; it was more like the last few weeks had been a creeping accumulation of not-great stuff, the way that dust gathered slowly on the blades of her ceiling fan until all of a sudden she looked up and noticed they were covered with a thick layer of fur. Still, she wasn’t about to tell this stranger about the wine bottles clanking in the recycling bin, or her Dad and Lisa going to Palm Springs, or—good Lord—about Mason breaking up with her.

“Just dumb college admissions stuff,” she admitted finally, because that seemed like the least personal option. The kind of thing you could tell a stranger on the phone, if you were the type to talk to total strangers on the phone, which apparently she was now. “Which I know you probably think is, like, not a real problem.”

Colby snorted. “Why, because my ma has the black lung from mining coal and the roof of my barn is caving in?”

“No!” Meg said immediately. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked, exactly imitating the tone she’d used earlier.

Meg winced. “No!” she insisted. He didn’t sound particularly put out, which didn’t change how mortified she was. “I just—I mean—”

“Can I ask you a question?” Colby broke in. “Why do you keep doing that? Trying to act like something isn’t what it is, I mean.”

“What?” She bristled. “I don’t. I’m not.”

“You kind of are, though,” he said. “Like, even at the beginning of this conversation, when I said I was calling to apologize for being an asshole, you were like, No, no, you weren’t. But it’s okay. I was an asshole. I don’t like being an asshole in general, which is why I called you back.”

Meg thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I was being nice, I guess. I didn’t want to have a fight.”

“Nice is overrated.”

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