Page 143 of Make Me Laugh

Comment: A PRETTY LITTLE HEX? Swooooon

Comment: sex must be magic to have this dude so whipped

Comment reply: Bro stfu I just looked at your profile, and you’re on your third divorce

The local theater lets me in after hours to get some pictures taken, which was Joey’s idea, obviously. She said I needed to remember this moment.

After I get multiple rounds of shots by myself throughout the theater, acting a total fool the entire time—because it’s fucking awkward to be in front of a camera all alone when other people are standing around watching—I get a few with my parents, a handful with Kell and Enzo, and when the photographer asks if there’s anything else I’d like before she wraps up, what I’ll remember most about the night is the way Joey smiles when I tug her in for some pictures.

I’m not sure what the woman behind the lens caught, and I don’t care. What I saw was Joey plop down beside me on the edge of the stage and scoot in close. I hope I’m the only one who notices the devious gleam in her eyes before she leans in, pretending to fix her hair. “As if you don’t already have enough pictures of me for your spank bank.”

Joey’s warm laugh fills my stomach with butterflies, and I nearly skyrocket to the top of our atmosphere with no fear of crashing to the ground.

She calls Kell and Enzo over for a group shot. They kneel behind us, and Kell wraps one arm around Joey’s shoulder, squishing his head between ours for a few clicks of the camera.

I know Kell and Enzo are going to be sad to see her go too.

We wrap up the shoot, the photographer thanking me before packing her equipment to leave.

Kell and Enzo start talking to my dad, and Joey hasn’t moved from her seated position on the stage beside me.

Everything quiets when she gives me the smile I’ve never seen her give anyone else. It’s soft and doesn’t pull at the corner of her eyes. It doesn’t look forced like the ones she fakes when she’s overthinking something.

This one is her happy, cozy, safe smile. The one where her eyes relax, and she’s able to have a moment of calm in her always-moving brain.

It’s the smile Joey gives me right after I do the simplest of things. Holding the door open for her. Ordering her coffee correctly. Asking her if she’s read every single book that pops up on my For You Page—there’s a lot of them now, by the way.

I see it when she doesn’t think I notice her staring at me.

Goddamn it, I’m so in love with her.

I don’t think it was part of her plan to help me find the missing piece inside myself, to remind me who I can be when I let go of the guilt surrounding me being the one to live and not Micah.

Joey changed my life, and I don’t know if I can ever thank her for it. I’m afraid she’ll never give me the chance.

I have to tell her. Even if it scares her. Joey has to know that I love her.

Her phone buzzes in her lap, and we both look down, our smiles instantly disappearing.

Delta Airlines

It’s time to check in for your flight!

Joey leaves in twenty-four hours.

The fear of plummeting to the ground hits me only a millisecond before I crash-land.

I have to swallow back the words I want to say. The same ones I’d almost let slip in the dressing room.

I love you. Please don’t go.

Joey hits the button on the side of her phone, her screen going black. She slides it into her back pocket as she hops off stage. “I’m gonna go call Frankie… Make sure everything’s good for Thanksgiving. I’ll meet you out front in fifteen?”

I nod, unable to say much before she’s beelining for the exit.

Frankie told me not to give up on Joey, but what if she’s the one who gives up on me? I can’t beg someone to stay who doesn’t want to.

My head hangs, and I stare at my shoes until the sound of my dad’s voice draws me out. “When I met your mother, I remember changing every single plan I’d ever made for myself because if they didn’t include her I didn’t want them.” He sits down next to me, patting my knee as we watch Mom help the photographer carry her bags out.