But I force it back down.

I gulp hard.

I swallow.

“My arms are different sizes.” I extend both. “See, look. Weird, right?”

Q studies me. “I don’t know why I take you seriously.”

Because maybe Ms. B’s right.

Maybe I only want to tell Q the truth because I feel guilty for being so crappy.

I want to make up for lost time. For being a terrible human to my best friend.

Prove I’m a good person, a better person than I would appear to be, because look, here I am doing something brave, taking a chance, keeping it real, doing the thing.

But maybe I don’t get to throw up on the side of this road and feel better, lighter.

Maybe keeping this trash inside is the price for my mistakes.

37

It’s funny how much of ourselves we never see.

Our most honest mirror, a friend.

A sister.

Whit raps on my mostly open door, a long pillow under her arm, her favorite blanket—Mom’s favorite—draped across her shoulders like a cape.

“Sleepover?”

I drag in the rocking chair we put together for the nursery.

She settles into it, rocking slightly.

“You okay?”

“I could use another pillow,” she says.

She leans forward and I reposition the pillow until she’s most comfortable.

And then I tell Whit about our surprise reconciliation.

How I want to be a better friend to Q than I was before.

“Except how can I be better if I’m keeping such a huge secret? He has a right to know the truth, right?”

Whit shrugs. “It’s all in our motives, man. You gotta ask yourself, why do I want to tell him? Because you’re anxious to show you’re new and improved, or because it’s truly the right thing?”

36

In the middle of the night, I say: “Would you want to know?”

And Whit says, “Would I want to know what?”

But she knows what I mean.

So I don’t rephrase; I let the question hang.

Let it breathe.

“Would you?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her without hesitation.

“No,” she answers back. “But I think you’re asking the wrong question.”

“What’s the right one?”

“Should you know?”

Day 3

Approx. 21—25 Q Days Left

35

Whit throws on my lights and shout-sings at the top of her lungs: “Carpet Denim!”

And I have insta-feelings.

Had I heard her right?

I shake my head, trying to clear space for her words to land. “We haven’t done one since . . . can we even . . .” I think of the thing she said last night. “Should we?”

“I think they’d want us to. Truthfully, I think they’ve been waiting for us to. Like, all this time, us purposely avoiding Carpet Denim, we’ve been disappointing them.”

“So, just you and me?”

“Umm, ouch! You saying I’m not enough for you?”