I throw my hands and feet out in a star jump. “WE ARE GONNA PULL A FULL-ON MISCHIEVOUS PARENT TRAP! THIS IS EVERYTHING.”

29. Angst and Saying Yes

SIRI

September 3, Thursday Morning

Colorado

I said yes.

Yes, to meeting my dad. Yes, to bonding with my sister. To California alone. To more time away from Mom. Yes, to more adventure.

I’m really excited about saying yes. It’s been a while. Donya would approve … I think?

“We should cut your hair now!” Jamie cheers from where she’s dancing in the grass twenty feet away. She comes bounding back in my direction.

My muscles tense. “Right now?”

Jamie dashes over to her pack. “It’ll be way less of a mess to chop it out here.” She emerges with a pair of scissors and stalks behind me to the back of the bench.

My heart thumps uncomfortably as I rotate to face her. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

She smiles, holding the scissors aloft. “Do I really look like someone who hasn’t cut their own hair before?”

I grimace up at the orange mound on her head.

She lowers the scissors. “Are we doing this, or are we not doing this?” she asks quietly.

I nod more to myself than to her. Yes. I’m saying yes. “Okay, we’re doing this.”

I’m shaking slightly as I rotate back around. Jamie removes my hair tie and starts unwinding my braid.

“I’m going to need to be distracted,” I tell her.

She snorts. “Sure thing, go ahead and ask me one of the many questions you have about my mysterious life.”

I rub at my forearms, trying to concentrate on anything but the feel of Jamie gathering my hair into a ponytail at the nape of my neck. She tilts my head forward.

“What’s going on with you and Zarar?” I blurt. “I’ve seen you two around all week. Are you finally doing a relationship?”

“Ah, Zarar! He’s hot, right?” I can feel her working the scissors over the ponytail. I have a lot of hair; it’s not going to be a quick snip. She’s going to have to saw through that thing.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Just keep talking.”

“Zarar and I are a snow-globe relationship—my favorite kind.” I can hear the smile in Jamie’s voice—and the scissors hacking into my hair.

“What the intercourse is a snow-globe relationship?”

“It’s the temporary, lovely kind with no complications that lasts a couple of days, or a week, tops, where two people with chemistry have a damn nice time together, and then part ways.

“When it’s over you get to keep that moment in time, that sliver of new relationship glory, in a snow globe in your brain. It’s rose-tinted and happy, basically flawless.