Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(43)

“No,” cries Joy. She makes a quick desperate search for words and finds none. “It’s just that, tonight, I realized how I’ve been keeping him like this”—she stiff-arms me—“for our whole relationship, and I’m wondering: can you truly, truly say you love someone who’s always been held at arm’s length?”

I hold her arm with both hands, mostly to admire its fine lithe structure. She hooks her fingertips to my hand and lets them cling there. Her question is rhetorical, and I realize that the answer—if we’re already being brutally honest here—is no.

My phone buzzes again, and again it’s Mom calling. Leaving right now, be home really soon, I promise, I say.

I’m still stuck on I love you. “When you say I love you, what exactly do you mean by those words?”

Joy lets her arm fall. “I don’t know, Frank. I’m beginning to think it was just a thing to say. Like a ritual or a habit that couples are supposed to engage in to signify Hey, we are a real couple-couple over here.”

This rings true. The gum holding my love for Brit is still there, but I don’t know for how long. “Shit,” I say.

“Why, did something happen with Brit tonight?” says Joy.

“No. Yes. Maybe.” I offer a brittle smile.

Joy sits up, as if she’s eager to stop being sad. “Tell me.”

I see me and Brit on the beach, with the moon, and the sand, and everything. My heart does a lazy flop. I am thrilling inside—or is it quaking? Am I in love? Or am I in fear? Are they two sides of the same coin?

“So,” I begin. “We’re at the beach tonight, just us, alone.”

Joy leans in. “Uh-huh.”

“And we walk out to the sand.”

“Did you do it?” she says, like a little devil.

“No, we did not do it.”

“I’m rooting for you guys. Even if Wu and I break up, I’ll sit in a cafe or something and wait out the night while you guys are together.”

“We don’t know if it’ll come to that yet.”

“You guys are perfect for each other.” Joy does a funny thing: she holds my earlobe between her thumb and forefinger and rubs it three times, like a lucky charm.

Joy retracts her hand and blinks with attention. “So what happened next?”

I work hard to articulate this next part. “We’re just standing there. I know what she’s about to say. I can feel it. It’s like the chorus to a song you kind of already know how to sing even though it’s the first time you’re hearing it.”

Joy keeps her eyes locked on mine. “I don’t get you music people, but I trust you.”

“It’s like she had the whole thing planned. So when she says it, I’m just floored, but I also expected it in a weird way?”

“Goddammit, man, what did she say?”

“She said the words I love you.”

“I love you,” says Joy, impressed.

I nod. “I love you.”

My phone buzzes again. Mom. “Jesus,” I sigh. I auto-text: Be home soon.

As soon as it sends, it buzzes again. And again, and again.

“Gee-zuss.” I answer the phone.

“Frankie-ya,” says Mom. “Frankie-ya, where are you? You coming, right now.”

“Mom, I’m in the car right now as we speak.”

“You coming right now, please,” says Mom. Something’s wrong. Her voice feels dented. And she never says please.

“Hey,” I say. “Is everything okay?”

“Daddy,” says Mom. “We in hospital right now. They shooting.”

Joy’s hand is upon mine all of a sudden. She’s looking at me. She knows something’s wrong, too.

“One man with gun,” cries Mom. “He shooting Daddy. He shooting Daddy!”





shake the world



upside down



and see what sticks





chapter 16


wait-and-see mode




The hospital is sage green. I sign a form and slip it through the window.

“Are you two together?” says the woman behind the thick glass.

I can’t seem to understand English at the moment, so Joy cuts in: “No, we’re just”—she glances around—“we’re just friends.”

“I wasn’t asking if you were married,” says the woman.

We sit on the hard seats.

We’re here, I tell Mom.

Doctor is here one moment ok i come out soon bye Is dad okay?

Daddy okay he stable don’t worry

What do you mean by stable?

Mom doesn’t write back. She must be busy talking with the doctor.

Everyone occasionally harbors the secret wish to be free from their parents’ rules and constraints. Everyone fantasizes now and then of living untethered from the burden of family. But fuck, I just felt the string connecting me to Dad yanked hard by forces beyond my control, and all I can feel is relief that it did not snap.

I don’t know what sort of bond me and Dad have. But I know I need it, whether I even want it or not.

One time when we were little, I whispered to Hanna: Do you love Mom-n-Dad?