Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(42)

“Yeah, but—”

“He’s all, How come we’re not like Frankenbrit? We’ve been together forever, dur dur dur, how come we’re not like Frankenbrit?”

She’s blinking again, and this time she presses her face to my chest in time to hide the tears.

“And the thing is, he’s right,” cries Joy. “Because I’m a bad person.”

I shake her. “Stop it. You’re not a bad person.”

Joy’s eyes are poofy and pink now, as if she were tired of it all.

She pounds her palm with a fist. “I just felt like, we shouldn’t have to sneak around and fake-date and whatever. We should be able to just fucking get everything out in the open and be honest with each other.”

I bobblehead. “Stop, whoa, whoa.”

She pounds her palm again. “All this time, Wu’s had no idea my parents were racist against him. So—”

“Joy, what did you do?”

“So I straight-up told him.”

Now I freeze. Even the hipsters behind us have gone quiet. A floodlight switches off. Joy shrinks a centimeter.

“You did not.”

“We’ve been together for almost two years, and this whole time I figured I wouldn’t tell him to protect him, right? Because who wants to hear that shit, right?”

“Waitwaitwait,” I say, stunned. “What exactly did you say?”

“He was all, You lied to me and Are you ashamed of me and I said no. No way. But that reeks bad, because what kind of girlfriend hides her boyfriend from her parents for almost two years?” She punches out that last part into her palm, too.

Then she boxes her own temples. “I am the worst.”

“Joy,” I say carefully. “Did you tell Wu about our arrangement?”

Joy shoots me a look. “Hell no, dummy.”

“Oh dear sweet baby jesus,” I say.

“I just told him I’ve been hiding him from my parents for almost two years,” she says with resignation. “Lying, basically.”

We both stare at an object in the dark road before us. It’s a blueberry the size of a kickball.

“You and me both,” I say. “So I guess we can be the worst together?”

“That frankly doesn’t make me feel any better, Frank Li.”

“Just saying you’re not alone.” I grip the edge of the ice-cream sandwich bench and bounce my legs.

“That makes us alone together,” says Joy. “There is no possible world in which we can just be ourselves on our own terms. This is it.”

“Come on,” I say. But she might be right. But then again, why stop being optimistic? But then again-again, would only a fool be optimistic, knowing what I know? That no matter how old I get, or how far I travel, I will never simply get to love who I want?

Will I have to wait for Mom-n-Dad to die first?

Getting dark in here, Frank.

“So Wu just bailed on you,” I say.

“No, I left him,” says Joy, wincing at the memory. “I really am the worst.”

“Huh?”

“I told him it wasn’t easy living with racist-ass parents, that he needed to be a little more sympathetic to my situation, and then I got up and left him at the table.”

I’m impressed by her colossal stupidity. “Wow.”

“The worst. It me.”

“It really is.”

“Shut up.”

I search my memory. “Yeah, I can’t think of anyone worse than you.”

“Shut up,” she sings with a smile. But in the next instant she grows sheepish with sorrow again. “He’s not texting me back. I made the boy I care about feel like shit. It’s not funny.”

“Of course it’s not funny,” I say. “Hey. You’re not the worst.”

I pull her in for a side-hug. Her head fits nicely in the crook of my neck, like it belongs there. I feel the compact sinew of her shoulder—not as soft as Brit—and wonder if Joy’s secretly athletic: running and jumping and capering on strong arched feet.

It’s easy to rest my cheek atop her head and simply inhale the scent of her scalp. She smells like an afternoon nap in the sun. I press my mouth and nose closer.

Huh, I think. Just the slightest pucker and this could be a kind of kiss.

I mumble into her hair. “Maybe it’s for the better? That you guys had a fight?”

“You mean to cut him loose gradually.”

“This is getting super heavy,” I say. “Never mind. You love Wu. Wu loves you.”

And I do give her hair a little imperceptible kiss. Because I don’t want her to be sad. Surely one tiny kiss can stem such a tide.

Joy sings quietly. “I love Wu, Wu loves me, we’re a happy family.” She ducks out from under my arm to face me. “Do I love Wu?”

My phone buzzes. It’s Mom. I auto-text her back: Be home soon.

“I’m assuming you’ve said the words I love you to each other?” I say.

“Lots of times,” says Joy with a single nod.

“And you felt it? Each time?”

“I think so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Wait, what are you telling me right now? That maybe you don’t love Wu after all?”