Page 67 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
“Will you?” I demand, and she turns back to me. I feel Miller watching me, know without looking that he’s holding his breath. “Why didn’t you reply to that letter?”
She’s silent, like I’ve stunned her. Like it never occurred to her that she’d need to answer for any of it. She lifts her briefcase off the floor and sets it on the table, smoothing one hand over its pristine leather face.
“I didn’t know what to say.” Our eyes meet. “Anything I could have said would have confused you.”
Confused, I think. There are so many worse things for a child to be.
“You were with your father.” My mother stands, and I know we’re being dismissed. “I thought it was for the best.”
She holds her hand out, gesturing us toward the door. Deciding when we’re through, just like she always has.
The voice that speaks is hardly my own, somehow both furious and frail.
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe it was.”
37
Everyone watches Miller and me walk out of the XLR8 office like we’re children being sent to time-out. Somewhere inside, a very small voice reminds me that this app is still half-mine. That I don’t have to take what my mother says lying down. But the voice is quiet, and quieter still with every step we take toward the lobby. I am so tired. I can’t find the fire inside me to fight this. I’ve spent years putting distance between my life and my mother’s, only to have her crash-land in the middle of something that already felt impossible before she got here.
Felix is waiting for us by the elevators, rubbing his thumb into the center of his palm.
“Hey,” he says, when Miller hits the button for the parking garage. “Look, I—”
He breaks off, and we both stare at him. Waiting. This person who dressed us up and coached us through and stood by us during every part of the last four months. Who hugged me close against him at Vera’s funeral. Who nudged me, knowing, intothat ambulance in New York. Who I thought was our friend.
Felix reaches for me, and I can tell it’s a reflex—he doesn’t know what to say, so he’s going to hug me instead. But I feel like ice, spring-thinned and clear. If anyone touches me, I won’t survive it.
“Don’t,” I tell him, and his arms stop in midair. Just as he drops them to his sides, the elevator doors slide open.
“You could’ve told us,” Miller says. I follow him into the elevator and Felix watches, miserably, as the doors start to close. “We deserved that much.”
“I couldn’t,” Felix says. His voice is soft and desperate, and he glances over one shoulder toward everyone waiting inside. “Guys, I—”
But then the doors close, and he’s gone. Miller looks at me, reaching out with his good arm, and I take a step backward. Press myself into the corner of the elevator.
“Please,” I say, so quietly. I can’t bring myself to look at him. Guilt is eating me alive, swallowing me up by the mouthful. I’ve stolen something enormous from him, and he isn’t even angry. I’ve made something reckless, and I’ve given so much of it to a woman I hate that I can’t even end it. “Don’t.”
“Ro.” His voice is gentle, and he takes a step closer to me. “Hey, come here.”
But I just shake my head, staring at the floor until the elevator finally stops. I don’t deserve this—I don’t deserve Miller, trying to comfort me after a mess I made all on my own. A mess he would’ve been unscathed by if it weren’t for me.
When we get to the wagon, I twist the keys in the ignition and Miller reaches over to shut it off. I stare at the steering wheel forthree full breaths before finally looking over at him. His eyes are dark in the cave of the garage, a slice of light from the tracks above us cutting through the window and across his cheek.
“Please,” he says. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I swallow. “I’m a terrible person.”
He’s so surprised, it takes him two tries to form the wordwhat. He leans closer, twisting in the seat to make room for his cast. “Ro, what happened in there was so messed up, I—you deserve to be upset.I’mupset.” He breaks off, searching my eyes. “But you’re not a bad person. Why would you say that?”
“Because I made all this happen.” I spread my hands in the space between us. “And I wanted it so bad. And now I can’t even make it stop.”
“Hey.” He catches one of my hands, holding it in his own. “MASH is something you made, but it’s not who you are.”
We look at each other, quiet. My ribs feel like they’re curling in, pressing on my lungs.
“Who am I, then?” I whisper. My life now is unrecognizable compared to the way it used to be—to the girl I was before all this. “If not Ro from MASH?”
“You’re my favorite person,” Miller says. It’s like a fishhook right behind my heart. “Remember when you asked me, in the hospital, what I’d still let you have?”
