Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(59)



We find a spot where no one can see us, lean on the rail, and watch the sunset. I pass Joy an invisible cigarette. She inhales, exhales, and passes it back to me.

“I needed this, I think,” says Joy. “I needed to get out of my own head.”

“Everything okay?”

Joy bumps my shoulder. “I’m chilly.”

“It did get cold, didn’t it,” I say.

“That means give me your jacket, stupid.”

Right, duh. I drape it over her shiny shoulders. It’s a shame to cover up shoulders that shiny. She snuggles in, looks back at me with twin eyes ablaze, and says: “Thanks, yubs.”

I can only gaze at her. Behind us, the music thuds on. A word pops into my head: if

if if if if

ifififififififififififififif, until the word ceases to be a word and becomes a nonsense sound you make while thinking hard.

As in if there were no Brit.

What am I saying? There is Brit. We are together. I say it slow: I. Love. Brit.

But if there were no Brit, says a voice, I would probably go after Joy. It’s true. I would.

This is news to me. I fold it up and put it away.

“So,” says Joy, gearing up to tell me something. “About me and Wu.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about Wu.”

“We officially broke up.”

Joy tilts her head back to catch tears in her eyes like raindrops. “Here come the tears for real,” she says. But there’s no stopping it. A gray streak leaks from her mascara and extends down her temple.

“Listen. Wu? He’s sweet. He’s kind. But he never made me laugh. Not really. Not in that way where you’re laughing but you have no idea why. Or where you laugh for so long you have to take a break just to rest. You wouldn’t know because you’re so stupid. Who makes me laugh, Frank? Tell me.”

I swallow. My feet are leaving the ground. “You’re gonna say me.”

“Of course I’m gonna say you.”

I look down and see her feet have left the ground, too.

That’s never happened before.

It’s always been my feet only, and no one else’s.

“Well, I’m gonna say you, too,” I say.

“Me too what?”

“You make me laugh,” I say. “No one makes me laugh like you do.”

“I know, Frank, that’s the thing.” Joy thumbs the corners of her eyes dry.

“And you’re crazy,” I say. “It’s crazy how crazy you are.”

“Because you make me crazy.”

“I make you crazy?” I say.

“You make me insane,” cries Joy. Then her voice shrinks. “Do I make you crazy?”

She’s staring at me hard now, and I’m locked into her gaze. There are two tiny sunsets burning in those eyes of hers.

“Do I make you crazy?” she says again.

“Yes,” I say finally. “You do.”

Joy cradles my pinky in her palm. “Oh, Frank. Just listen to me and don’t laugh. I got all dressed up today. I was so nervous. I was scared out of my mind. Because all I could think was, what if I got all dressed up, and what if it was all just for you, and it turned out you didn’t love me back?”

The world zooms away to become a speck. We drift and drift until we find a lime-green nebula full of fragrant breathable air. The stars here are light as Christmas tree ornaments—the slightest touch and they sway slowly in this new atmosphere.

I try out the words. They are easy to say.

I love you, Joy.

I don’t forget the I. I don’t have to practice. I don’t have to anything.

The words are there right on the tip of my tongue. They were always there.

I love you, Joy.

Joy Song, seven letters long.

“Don’t be scared,” I whisper. “Don’t cry.”

I wipe a tear on her face very carefully. I follow the gray streak of mascara and blend it with my thumb. I have to get in close to do this. I’ve never been this close before.

Our kiss stretches the nebula into a thin green laserline that spans whole systems. I hold her tight against me so our bodies almost fuse, crushed so hard that I pause out of worry—she lifts her ovalette face and breathes at me, I’m fine, Frank, I am more than fine—before kissing her again. I inhale all the scents of her secret world: the soap of her shower, the vanillin of lotion, the burnt perfume of the hot iron that ran through her hair just before tonight. She tastes like wedding food and lipstick wax and salty tears.

She tastes just like Joy.

We don’t even notice that the wall we are standing behind is not a wall, but two plain blackout doors that have at some point opened to flood the air with pop music. We don’t notice the DJ, who now says, “Ladies and gentlemen, in honor of Kang-Chang wedding 2019, I am pleased to present sparkle lights!”

We don’t see the table—the Korean meat bingo table—full of gray steel rods and other implements. They ignite and whirl. They’re fireworks, and they’re all going off at the same time in a blinding, buzzing fire hazard of a display.

Only once we are engulfed in gunsmoke do we notice what’s just happened. The whole wedding party can see us in the brilliant shower of magnesium white. They were already clapping. Now they clap even harder. The super-Koreans see us, too. They’re panting from having just finished their routine. They clap in our direction with arms weirdly stretched sideways.

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