Every Reason We Shouldn't by Sara Fujimura

Author:Sara Fujimura
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

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Egg is waiting for me at Ice Dreams after school. The pink rubber gloves he’s sporting with his black warm-up suit makes me chuckle.

“Where’s Mack?” I miss my usual derby girl intro. I pull my Ice Dreams jacket off its peg out of habit and then hang it back up. I’m not cleaning skates or filling Barbie’s empty head with Tootsie Rolls today. I’m working.

“Fiona had a fever this morning, so I told Mack to stay home with her.” Egg digs into the bucket of sudsy water in front of him and pulls out a part for some machine in the snack area. “God knows I didn’t have anything else better to do while I was waiting on you.”

“Sorry my education is so inconvenient for you.”

“A necessary evil.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“She went home after her last private lesson this morning. I told Midori I’d give you a ride home since I have Mack’s car.” Egg dries off the piece and holds it up to the light to make sure that it’s clean. “Go change while I put the soda machine back together. What? In between classes, I work at the campus pizza shop. Got my food handlers’ card and everything. Gotta have a plan B if I don’t get this skating job, because I’m not going back to college in the spring.”

I give him a look. “Whoa.”

“Which is why I am staying with Mack and not at my parents’ house. They will not be on board with this. I might as well pull the plug on this failed experiment before Tech kicks me out. I don’t have the grades to keep my pity scholarship anyway.” Egg screws the machine back together with unnecessary force. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to go to college and get a degree. Eventually. But I want to do it on my terms. Not somebody else’s. I need to start looking out for number one for a change.”

Erika’s question from lunch haunts me.

“Do you ever regret having all of your eggs in one basket?”

Egg scrubs another piece of the soda machine for so long, I start to think that he didn’t hear me.

Finally, he looks up at me and says in all seriousness, “I don’t know yet. It depends on how this audition goes. Working at a pizza shop in Phoenix for minimum wage isn’t exactly a sexy plan B.”

“No pressure or anything.”

“Sorry. This is my problem, not yours.” Egg strips off his gloves. He pulls a computer bag out from underneath the counter. Egg digs around and then places a large pile of twenties on the counter.

“Motivation, not pressure.” Egg slides the bills toward me. “Now you can take Jonah to the movies next weekend and buy him some popcorn. Maybe even candy. Be a normal teenager, since I never got to be one.”

I laugh. It’s the three-quarters mark of the short track season. The likelihood of Jonah being able to go to the movies next weekend with me is about as likely as him eating candy.

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