Page 158 of Make Me Laugh

A distant voice echoes in the back of my mind, telling me it’s not too late. I can save this.

The cabbie pulls to the curb outside my house. Hilda’s lights are out, but the porch light’s on. I wonder if she’s been leaving it on in case I come home.

Hilda knows I’m a flight risk. She’s told me multiple times I remind her of herself when she was my age… I think it’s why she can read me so well most days.

I stand outside in the cold for a minute, staring up at the old dark green house on the corner with the wrought iron fence and dark wood wrap-around porch. The swing with the perfect view for people-watching sways in the salty breeze. I shiver, but I haven't made a move to go inside yet.

I love this house, and I’ve missed it so much. I’ve missed Grim. I’ve missed my bed. Fuck, I’ve missed Hilda… but there are so many things I’m not going to miss about the person I was before I left.

I don’t want to become her again. This scared version who runs to protect herself from feeling something is going to end up like Hilda—alone in the same house she’s been in for over thirty years.

I can be alone. I know that. I used to think it was what I wanted, and that I wouldn’t miss being in a relationship, but that was before I knew what a healthy one was supposed to look like.

The two-month fake relationship I pretended to be in with West taught me more about love than the five years I spent with Dylan.

If it was fake, why does it hurt so fucking bad?

I don’t want to miss West, but I already do. I missed him the moment I opened my phone to the article and made the snap decision to leave.

I thought I needed time to sort this out, to let the dust settle, but it turns out all I needed was a flight from Michigan, a three-hour delay in Chicago, and a checkmark from West.

With my backpack slung over my shoulder, I take my first step towards the house, and before I can talk myself out of it, I find West’s name in my recent call log and put the phone to my ear.

I’m up the three steps to the porch by the end of the first ring. By the end of the second, I have the foyer door unlocked. I’m locking it behind me when the third finishes, and I’m holding my breath, avoiding the squeaky spots in the stairs during four and five. I unlock the front door to my apartment on the last ring.

The light above my kitchen sink is on, which isn’t out of the ordinary when Hilda’s around to keep an eye on the place, but I catch a glow coming from one of the bedrooms around the corner.

West’s voice distracts me from going to check. “Hey, it’s West. If you’re expecting a call back, hang up and send me a text.” The phone beeps, and I’m motionless in the middle of my kitchen, unsure what my plan was.

“Hi…” I squeak, dropping my backpack by the front door where it doesn’t go. “I, uh,” I pause, taking a deep breath. “West, I’m so sorry. I’m truly the dumbest person on the face of the planet. Probably in the entire galaxy. Tattoo it across my fucking forehead.” My chuckle turns into a hiccup as a sob rattles my chest. “I think I’m broken,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to love people.” I sink into a chair at the two-seat kitchen table, hanging my head in my free hand. “Especially someone as incredible as you, and I’m so scared whatever’s wrong with me will rub off on you.” A tear splashes against the wooden table. I have no idea how I have any more left to cry.

“You deserve someone who doesn’t leave without saying goodbye in the middle of one of the most important shows of your life.” I roll my lips together and cock my head to stare out the window at the nearly naked tree. “I just want what’s best for you, and I don’t know if that’s me.” I wipe my tears, even though there will be more to follow. “But I want it to be… So fucking bad.” Somehow I manage to keep my voice from cracking, but the strain in my throat burns. “I don’t want to go back to a life without you. I like me better when you’re around. I like everything more when you’re around.”

The heat kicks on, the sound of the old furnace rattling to life as warmth pours from the baseboard register.

There are a million more things I could say—I should say, but I can’t. Not like this. “I made it home, but it doesn’t really feel like a home anymore I don’t think.” I sit back in the chair, staring at my closed front door while I shake my head and huff a pathetic breath. “Tell your parents I’m sorry. Kell and Enzo too.” My apology falls flat, just like my heart.

I hear them both splatter at the same time.

“I’ll talk to you soon…” The words bear no confidence. There’s a pause where I should hang up, but I can’t yet. “Thank you… for seeing me too.” I don’t say goodbye before ending the call and cross my arms on the table, resting my forehead against the back of my wrist. I’m exhausted, mentally and physically, but I’m never going to be able to turn my brain off.

I startle at the sound my phone makes vibrating against the wooden table.

West’s name and my favorite picture of him, tongue out, one eye scrunched, grinning like a fool, his hair damp with sweat from the hot stage lights and the hat he’d taken off his head and put on mine while I snapped the picture of him coming off stage the last show in NYC, stare back at me.

“Hi,” I answer on the fifth ring and don’t breathe until he replies.

“Hi, Joey baby.” West’s voice surrounds me, the echo of his words a second behind in my speaker. I spin around to find him standing in my living room, phone to his ear, still dressed in the same clothes he’d worn at tonight’s show. “Sorry it took me so long to call back. Your phone’s still on Do Not Disturb, so I had to call twice.” He smiles, but I’m frozen in place.

West is in my apartment. In Salem. On Thanksgiving morning. I almost think it’s a dream, tempted to pinch myself as proof. “How did you get in here?” I don’t know why I pick a question I already know the answer to.

At the same time, we both say, “Hilda.”

I don’t remember putting my phone down or getting out of my chair, can’t remember crossing the room, but I somehow do, because West’s wrapping me in a hug, and the electric hum of his touch is all the evidence I need.

This is real, and West fucking Isakson didn’t let me run.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN