Page 102 of My Own Kind of Person

Chapter 37

The guy in the second row still seems to be asleep, but as I stand in the bright lights listening to a thousand people applaud, I feel good.

“I’d like to bring out someone very special now,” I say. “He’s been a role model to me growing up, and he continues to comfort and challenge me today. I’m so grateful for him and his work. He’s released three incredible specials and he’s making his return with us tonight. Please put your hands together for Joe Johnson!”

A staff member motions me to the spot behind the curtain where I’m no longer seen by the audience. Joe shakes my hand and says, “That was fantastic. Will you perform with me again sometime? I want to keep working together.”

“Definitely. Me too.”

“We’ll exchange phone numbers later.”

“Great. Thank you. So much.”

He squeezes my hand tighter, then takes the stage and the crowd cheers louder.

My heart is pounding.

I’ve become a person I couldn’t have imagined.

And it’s all because of someone who isn’t here.

Chapter 38

I watch Joe’s first few jokes, then I follow the fluorescent tape through the darkness to the door, a staff member opens it silently for me, and I go down the bright hallway and push open the exit to the parking lot. Minutes after I leave the stage, I’m driving away, playing Sufjan Stevens as loud as my phone will go.

When I pull up to Elijah’s, his car is in the driveway.

With a bag of luggage beside it.

Elijah exits the house carrying his shoe rack and a barbell. He sees me and stops. Before I can wave or open my car door, he keeps walking and places his things in his trunk. Without turning my way, he goes back inside.

When he comes back out with two cardboard boxes, I’m beside the front steps.

“I can carry one.”

“No thanks.” He keeps walking.

I follow beside him. “Thank you for helping me in English. I’m sorry I didn’t write to you afterwards. I thought I was being kind by not bothering you, but I think I was accidentally ignoring you.”

He drops the boxes in the trunk. “I literally texted you in English that you were ignoring me.”

“You did. But in addition to that, afterwards I was accidentally ignoring you. I wish I’d texted to thank you for bringing me to the nurse.”

He crosses his arms. “How’s your head?”

“It’s fine. I’m going to do a better job taking care of myself now, so something like that won’t happen again. But how are you?”

He uncrosses his arms and brushes a finger across an eyebrow. “I’m sorry for not believing you when you said you were bi. I believe you.”

“And I’m sorry for getting confrontational about it in your bedroom.” I try to figure out what will let us keep talking. I try to determine how to be caring but not irritating. “I’m trying to—”

He cuts me off. “That first day in the bathroom, you told me you cried when you and your mother moved when you were young, and I said I related. I never had to move like you did, but I didn’t want to leave New Jersey to come here. I did it because the life I needed wasn’t there. It turns out it’s not here either.”

“Are you moving back?”

His mom comes out with two reusable shopping bags. “Your father won’t have cooked a thing, so—”

She’s wearing the same large purple glasses as in the framed photo.