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Then I won’t have to worry about Andromeda hating me.
“Shame the faeries forgot to add a little therapist office. Maybe you can lie on the map table in the pirate ship and I can ask questions from the captain desk?” Snatching a lemon cookie for the road, Zahra pops out the open wall of the drive-through and takes my hand. “That is an excellent idea. Come on. I’ll move the sextant.”
“I just don’t understand how this is possible.”
“Faeries are real, and they like you more than me. What’s there to understand?”
My heart twists. “Zahr.”
“What? It’s true.”
“Are you okay?”
“Okay is bad language according to faeries.”
Monster-Pollux told me that just last night. Had I heard it before then?
Or is my reality mixing with my dreams and creating a fantasy chaos I’ll never escape?
Zahra continues, “I am not well, if you’re curious about that. But of course I’m not. I hear voices and dress up to play video games on camera three times a week. My mental health is abysmal. Nothing has changed in the last forty-eight hours. Apart from the fact I now have a playground slide that fits my—” She swears. “So, honestly, things are looking up. I am thriving.” She bites into the lemon cookie and stares at me. “How ’bout you? You well?”
Well on my way to a breakdown, sure.
I massage my temple as a headache throbs up the back of my neck. “Faeries can’t be real.”
“Why not?”
“Because magic doesn’t make any sense. There are rules and laws of nature.”
“You know how people threw a fit over pasteurized milk, because it was new and scary? And how we add annatto to cheddar in order to keep it a consistent shade of yellow? Change, new ideas, differences, it’s all unnerving, especially to people who plaster smiles on their faces and who train themselves to constantly walk delicate lines in order to keep the peace and be liked.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You deal with the entitled parents of kids who can afford a cute little private school with a cap of eight-to-one student-teacher ratios, not me. I’m just the lovable guard dog who assures said entitled parents that their kids won’t grow up to be utter—” She swears. “—to people who look different. You know. Like Jesus wants. I’m here to take bullets and guilt parents with fragile religious beliefs who somehow think the whole love one another thing means shame the ones who don’t have your same convictions into heaven because that’s how it—” She swears. “—works.” Her voice rises. “That’s my job.”
I wince. “Zahra…”
“What?” she states.
I don’t know what to say.
Turning away, she takes a breath and angles her face upward. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you. It’s not your fault. I’m used to neglect. Why should it be any different with the fae?”
Closing my eyes, I swallow a lump forming in my throat. “Maybe…they aren’t really allowed to talk to humans.”
A bitter laugh bursts from her. “Right. That’s why Meda talks to us all the time.”
“I mean, maybe the other faeries in Prince Cael’s domain aren’t allowed to interact with humans. Maybe they’re charged with responsible interaction, which may mostly mean not interacting with anyone they’re not familiar with. What if Meda and her father are allowed because they’ve already gone through whatever legal processes let them live in the human world to begin with? Also, how can we forget, there’s some kind of evil faerie prince drama happening right now. Pollux and Meda seem closer to the faerie prince than most in an entire kingdom logically would be. Maybe they know more about the situation, but everyone else has been warned against interacting with unfamiliar people until things are sorted.”
Zahra’s eyes roll as she glares at me. “Oh look who’s suddenly a believer.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to find reasons for this, for your thing, for everything. Okay?” And now my voice is pitching. And I want to cry. And maybe scream.
Without warning, Zahra stuffs the rest of her cookie in her mouth, marches up to me, grabs me, and crushes me in a bear hug.
I don’t know how long it lasts—just two women standing under a playground set in front of a mock Taco Bell drive-through window, hugging and trying not to cry—but when Zahra sniffles and pulls away, I feel marginally better.
“Science,” she says. “Hugs are science.”
