Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(41)

alone together




We drive back. I gaze out at the illuminated triangle formed by the lines of the road stretching ahead of us in the dark, mirroring our own forms as we lean against each other to meet in the center of the car as I hold the wheel steady.

Something official has happened to me and Brit. We said three words few ever say to each other. It’s hard for me to pin down exactly what the precious words signify. They are a pact, a declaration. Also a kind of relinquishing. Saying I love you is the cry of the helpless. All you can do is confess it and hope it shows you mercy.

IloveyouBritIloveyouBrit

“Get closer,” I say, so she snuggles in harder. It’s not safe driving this way—I can’t see my mirrors, I’ve got only one hand on the wheel—but I don’t care because all I have to do is keep the car straight, and that seems easy enough.

When we get to Brit’s house, she whispers in through the open car window: “I love you. I love saying I love you. It’s like I learned a new word today.”

I lean over. She leans in, cantilevering her body on the sill, and gives me a single kiss like a drinking bird toy. I watch her climb her staircase. When she gets to her red door, my phone buzzes again. Stupid calendar alerts. I pull it out to Snooze—until I notice the screen.

“Everything okay?” calls Brit from above. She can see my face glowing in the car.

“Just spam,” I say.

Brit blows me a kiss and vanishes into her house. I check my screen again.

Hey, I’m still here in the warehouse district . . . Need a lift if you’re around Bad night

Too much fucking drama

Hello?

It’s Joy. Why is Joy still at the warehouse district? Where’s Wu? Why does she need a ride?

On my way, I say.

I slam the car into Drive and whip it around.



* * *



? ? ?

When I get there, Joy’s sitting on an ice-cream sandwich bench, smoking a cigarette. Like a real-life, burning-tobacco, smoke-in-the-lungs cigarette. I march up to her and flick it out of her mouth and into a puddle.

“What the fuck are you doing smoking?”

“Now I have to go bum another one,” she says.

Behind us is a floodlit alley crawling with hipsters packing away giant ice-cream cones and waffles the size of mattresses. At least Joy wasn’t sitting totally alone in the dark.

“Come on,” I say. “It’s super late. We gotta go home before people start to worry.”

Joy just grabs my hand, forcing me to sit next to her, and digs for her phone. She raises it for a couple selfie.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Just act happy and shit.”

The best I can manage is a dour smile, which Joy makes up for with an expert head tilt, peace sign, and duckling pout. Then she texts it away—to her mom.

“Mom will see it, then your mom will see it, they’ll squeal like piggies, and now we have a few more hours to burn,” says Joy, flinging her phone back into her purse with weary disgust.

I’m still stunned from her little pose for the camera just now. She just went from misery to ecstasy and back in seconds.

“You have serious mental problems,” I say.

“No, you do,” says Joy.

“Good comeback.”

Joy smacks her lips with distaste. “Do you have any mints? My mouth tastes terrible.”

“Smoking is like sucking on Satan’s big toe after his morning jog around the ninth circle,” I say.

“No such thing as Satan.”

“Are we just gonna sit here and do—this—all night?”

Joy thinks, comes up with nothing. She suddenly looks so sad. Just so, so sad.

I lean over. “Hey. What happened?”

Joy blinks and blinks and blinks until two perfect clear droplets escape from her eyes, and when she blinks again the droplets break into glossy streaks down her cheeks. The tears are making her mad. Or maybe she’s mad at herself for letting me see them? Whatever the reason, she grips my shoulders and buries her face in my chest.

“I think Wu’s gonna dump me,” she mumbles. Big sniff, then another. “I think I deserve it.”

I can feel her hot face. I have a good view of her scalp; I can see bits of green in her hair. She smells exhausted. There’s an empty piercing in the top part of her left ear—three of them, in fact. Tiny holes, evidence of a fashion lark.

“He’s not gonna dump you,” I say. “You guys have been together forever.”

She presses her face into my chest harder. “He hates me. I made him hate me. I suck, Frank.”

I push her off me and look at her. “What the hell happened?”

“You know what he said?”

I watch her as she does this nervous thing with her fingertips, like she’s knitting invisible thread.

“We’re eating our stupid shitty food at that stupid shitty restaurant,” says Joy. “And he’s all, Frankenbrit’s only been together for like a couple weeks, and they’re already borderline married-slash-OTP.” She says it in California Boyfriend Informal.

“He’s just exaggerating,” I say as gently as I can.

“He’s all, Brit’s already met Frank’s parents at a family barbecue and everything, and I know Frank’s met Brit’s parents.”