Page 58 of Make Me Laugh

We finish up dinner, give each other a hug, and I watch as Frankie pretends to walk in the direction of her apartment a few blocks away, but instead of turning left at the intersection like she’s supposed to, she slips into a dark-blue-almost-black Honda Accord.

I text her when I get on my train to Salem.

Me

I saw you.

Tell Sam I hope he’s at least able to make you come tonight.

Frankie

I’m willing to bet he’ll try… which is… better than nothing.

Not everyone gets lucky enough to go on tour with the man who gave them six orgasms in one night, JoJo LOVE YOU!

Me

Make him wear a condom, remember your birth control, and take Plan B just in case. I’m willing to let you sleep with your stupid ex, but I am NOT helping you raise Sam from insurance sale’s bastard baby. Love you too

The second I’m home with a clean face and brushed teeth, I crash into bed and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.

I don’t think about the six mind-blowing orgasms West gave me. I don’t wake up to go pee in the middle of the night. I don’t worry about all the shit I have to do in the morning. I don’t even remember dreaming.

I sleep until the sun peeks through my closed curtains, a beam of light shining directly into my eyes when they open.

But now it’s Tuesday morning… and there’s no more hiding from the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE ONE WITH FRANKIE’S MOM

HexedHeroine is tagged in a post: Read a rec from Hex that changed my brain chemistry last night… I hope she knows the good she brings to our lives!

Comment: I hope she knows we wanna know what’s going on with @WestParkerComedy

Comment reply: It’s been 72hrs dude chill let them breathe

The first step to moving forward, to changing this narrative and molding it into something I can work with, is facing it.

But before I face anything, I make a cup of coffee and roll a joint on my couch, because I’m not dumb enough to go to war with my emotions without either.

I start easy by responding to a few texts from friends. They’re mostly worried about me, which is endearing, but I’ll be fine, I tell them. It’s just a viral video!

Gaslighting myself won’t work forever, but it’s working for now, so I’ll take it.

I don’t have any blood family of my own who checks in on me, not since Grams passed. She was all I had left. I was eighteen before starting senior year, so I was legally an adult, but couldn’t afford to live on my own, finish up my last year of high school, and stay on track for admission to the college of my dreams, while also mourning the loss of the woman who raised me. If it weren’t for Frankie’s parents taking me in like their own, I’m not sure where I’d be.

They started calling me their plus-one when Frankie and I became best friends my second year of first grade. Most days after school, I’d go back to the Sullivan’s while Grams worked nights at Winn-Dixie, and she’d pick me up after her closing shift.

The message from Frankie’s mom has tears stinging my eyes from the very first line. It’s from Sunday night, getting mixed up in all the others I’ve been ignoring.

Marcia

Hi JoJo! Franceska said not to call you (How did she get so bossy?) but I wanted to check on you, regardless.

Marcia is the reason Frankie has a big personality, and she knows it.

I smile and puff a laugh through my nose. Frankie’s mom is the oldest of six girls in an Italian-American family from New Jersey. She was also one of the top Surgical Oncologists at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida up until she turned seventy and decided it was time to join her husband in retirement.