to do now? Let’s go get caramel apples. Do you want anything else? I’ve got a lot of money left.”
“You don’t have to keep buying me things.”
“I just want today to be nice.”
“It’s nice.” He cups my forearm tenderly, inspecting my elbow again. “Joy, it’s nice.”
What will he say when I tell him? I deserve his anger. I want to feel it.
He can even call the police. Prison’s where they put people to keep everybody safe.
We walk. I say things and forget them seconds later. We watch a costume-judging contest. We pass a face-painting booth. Everyone’s having so much fun.
“All right,” he says suddenly, stopping so that I almost bump into him. “Okay. Gotta just do it. I wanna tell you something, Joy.”
Tell him now. Don’t make him go through with this.
“I was trying to decide how you’d react, but I don’t know you well enough yet,” he says nervously. “I say a lot of stupid shit but none of the brave shit.”
Stop talking for once.
“You’re brave,” he stammers. “That’s the main thing I know about you. And the main thing I know about me is that I wish I was braver. I think sometimes we fall for the people we wish we were. Not that I’ve fallen for you, what a stupid phrase. But I think I could. I don’t just like who I am in the context of you, I like you.”
No, no, no.
“I don’t want you to be some fantasy of a girl I met once, I want to know you for real. I don’t want you to be an ex-maybe.”
The reality of me is going to break his heart, just like the reality of Adam did.
“It’s probably wimpy of me to tell you this right before I move back to Indiana,” he babbles. Then he stops. “Actually, you know what? I am not a wimp. I’m dealing with the fact that my dead half brother was an asshole, and I told you about my mom—you’re the first person I’ve ever told about my mom—and those were really hard things for me to do. So I’m a badass, as a matter of fact. A super cute and funny badass who you should probably make out with or something.”
I can’t move or breathe or I’ll lose it.
“Oh, God. Okay.” He stares at me, terrified, misinterpreting my silence. “Can you just pretend I didn’t say any of that? Just, uh. Forget it.”
The thing about feelings is that they’re not separated into packets you can open one at a time. They’re tangled. If you pull on one, everything comes apart. Levi’s pulling hard and I’m about to unravel.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I lie.
I don’t wait for him to follow me. I find the Porta-Potties, garish blue. Inside, I reach for my phone to call Preston, but . . .
He believed in me. He thought I wasn’t capable of it. I don’t want to destroy his version of me, either.
Anybody who gets close enough to find out who I am for real is going to hate me.
The people who love me only do because they don’t know the real me yet.
Then I see it, shoved in the corner, one more gross thing abandoned in a Porta-Potty. A bottle of cheap whiskey with two inches of amber liquid left in the bottom. I unscrew it.
People talk about their lowest point like there’s some safe distance separating it from who they really are. But this is me. Without my sister, me at my truest self. Hyperventilating in a Porta-Potty, drinking a stranger’s dregs.
I’m staring myself in the face, and I refuse to look away.
When I come out, I find Levi again and I smile at him. Now that I’m floating, it’ll be easier to put my house of cards back together.
“I’ll pretend you never said it,” I tell him.
He grins like a maniac. “Great! Selective amnesia is a rare talent. Now I can do anything idiotic that I want around you. I’m gonna make a list of other stupid shit I’ve said that I want you to forget. Including everything I’m saying right now. I’ll have the list on your desk by Monday.”
He burns up the silence.
I point at a game where you shoot miniature pumpkins with a pellet gun. “I want to win you something.”
He trails after me, his shoulders lowered.
“The more you hit, the better prize you’ll get,” chants the man at the booth as I hand him my money. I take aim. But it’s not a pumpkin