Page 83 of How to Lose at Love

She sent him the manuscript a minute later. If there was one person whose opinion she trusted, it was him. He was the most honest person she knew, andafter knowing him for more than two years, she suspected he actually had her best interests in mind. Maybe. If that was possible for a human being. She was still figuring that out.

The next morning, at about 4 a.m., her phone began to buzz. At first, she ignored it, pushing it farther away on her nightstand. The voice of her Yebo app cut through the buzzing to say, “Zelu, this might be important.”

She grabbed the phone. “What the FUCK!” she hissed, her mouth feeling slow and gummy. “What what what?!” She blinked, staring at the name on the screen. It was Msizi. Clearly he was ignoring the time difference again. And a video call at that? Seriously? She answered it.

“Good morning,” she said, pushing herself up and holding the phone above her. “You know it’s super early, right? Did I mention I want to delete your creepy app?!”

He was grinning. She squinted at the bright colors on the screen. He was standing outside in the sunshine. On the beach. He’d been swimming.Pretty, she thought, despite her annoyance.

“Zeluuuuuuu,” he shouted. He exclaimed something in Zulu or maybe Xhosa, since there were clicks in it and he spoke both languages. “Hey, turn your light on. I only see black.”

“I’m sleeping and I look like shit.”

“Come on, I need to see your face!”

She groaned and then said, “Lights!” When the voice-activated light came on, she shut her eyes to let them adjust. She slowly opened them, and he was waiting.

“Zelu!” he shouted. “Don’t delete my app. You know you love it.”

She only grunted, imagining deleting it anyway.

“I read it!” he said.

“What?”

“Your book!”

She blinked. Now she was awake.

“What? The whole thing?”

“The. Whole. Thing.”

She paused, staring hard at his face on the screen now. Trying to read his grin, his aura. Steeling herself. She felt ill. It was too early for this. She whimpered. She wasn’t ready. “Oh my God.”

The weird shit she’d spent more than two years writing, that had started after that night with Msizi, now existed in someone else’s head! She hung up the phone and threw it down on her bed. “Ah, shit!” she hissed, pushing herself upright. She reached for her chair. Her phone was ringing again. “Shit!” she said again. She answered it.

“What the hell!?” he asked. But he was laughing. She could see the waves rolling in and out behind him. She could hear them, too. Zelu had never been to Durban, but she’d heard the waters there were warm. She focused on that.Warm. Like the body of a calm, kind beast.Her heart was slamming in her chest.

“Zelu, you’ve written somethingincredible.”

She stared at his face. She knew him well now. Since that first time he’d left Durban, he’d spent two weeks in the United States with Jackie and Amarachi, and come twice to Chicago specifically to visit her. They’d also talked every month or so since his return to South Africa. It wasn’t often, but when they did talk, it was for hours. She could read him. But her brain refused to process what he was saying. “You read all five-hundred-some pages in one night?” she asked.

“Yep. It wasthat good. I came out here for a swim because I haven’t slept a wink and I needed to process what I’d just read. I don’t read that kind of shit. I didn’t know you even wrote that kind of shit.”

“I don’t. I don’t evenlikescience fiction, not most of it. Why write aboutthe future when the future is now?” She took a deep breath, frowning. “You really... what’d you like about it?”

“Thedrama,” he said. “I couldn’t put it down! It was about fuckingrobots, some had crazy bodies, some didn’t have bodies at all, others were falling apart! It was ridiculous! Yet I couldn’t put it down. It was like you’d worked something on me. You wove in this Africanness to them, too. That irrational tribal sensibility, it was all so familiar to me. I can’t really explain.”

Warmth. She felt it in her chest. Warmth.

“It stays with me,” he said, touching his chest. He paused. “It’s not like your other novel at all.”

She nodded. She’d given it to him to read, and he’d never finished it. He’d even called it “rubbish,” and they hadn’t spoken for a week because of it. When they’d finally talked again, he’d explained that he couldn’t be anything but honest with her. What was the point, otherwise? “I’m not a writer or an artist, but I like stuff,” he’d said back then. “I don’t like this. If you’ve got something better in you, cool. But if you don’t, just stop.” Then he’d laughed at his own words, and she’d told him off and hung up on him. He’d been the one to call her back, and she’d missed him so much, she’d picked up the phone despite her desire to stay bitter.

“You really liked it?”

“Lovedit,” he said without hesitation. “Might be the best book I’ve ever read.”