Page 89 of Back for Seconds

I wanted to make sure I learned how to be me. And maybe, right now, being me meant missing Joey. Earnestly, truly missing the man who had become my closest confidant in just a week. And feeling the very-June feeling of wanting to squeeze him, dig my claws in, and hold onto him as tight as possible.

I stared down at the rows of thumbnail-sized Joeys populating my screen. He was no longer just some internet Adonis. I knew what his laugh sounded like. I knew all the ways he could smile. I knew what it felt like to kiss his neck, his chest.

For a moment, I let myself pine after one of the best guys I’d ever met—how maybe I’d fucked up everything good between us. Then I clicked on a video that had been uploaded today, titled “Explanation.”

Joey was standing in his usual spot in his kitchen, leaning forward onto the stone countertop, looking directly into my soul. His hair was pulled up into a messy topknot. I liked it like that. A lot.

“Hey, everyone. I know I don’t usually make videos where I’m talking a bunch, but I’ve been getting a lot of comments lately about how I’m wearing a shirt.” He paused to laugh at the ridiculousness of this sentence. “And I promise you, there is nothing wrong with me. I just decided that…I want to wear a shirt. Uh, yeah. It’s as simple as that. When I started making these videos, I was a young guy who was a little full of himself. I’ve grown up—I’m in my thirties now. I want my content to grow with me. I want to show you all how seriously I take this…this job. And I know some of you may not get it, but I just ask that you respect this, um, boundary.” He paused to smile. A dazzling, crooked thing. “So, that’s it. See you tomorrow.”

A boundary.

The word set my heart on fire.

***

The next day I got up early, before my usual alarm, and put on my paint-splattered pants from the day before and got to work finishing the living room. There was no fast track to healing, sure, but I wasn’t going to let another moment disappear, wasted by my own inaction.

I threw in a load of laundry, then got to work painting the room. Getting into the alcove required me to push my furniture further into the room, an activity that made me red-faced and sweaty. When I shoved my couch out of the way, a glint of gold caught my eye. I bent to pick up the sparkling object in the middle of my hardwood floors.

A thin, gold band—at the center, a simple ruby. Weird. I’d never seen the ring before. Must be Mimi’s, I thought. Then I slid it onto my ring finger for safe keeping. It fit perfectly.

I worked steadily until lunch, only stopping to refill my coffee mug and change playlists.

The deep breathing had filled my nose and throat with some much-needed air—air that smelled aggressively like singed dryer sheets.

That’s odd.

I took another deep breath.

Undeniably, my home was filling with the lightly crisped, concerning smell of dryer sheets. Down the hall, my laundry was still tumbling away, but now there was a gentle stream of smoke escaping from behind the closet door where my washer and dryer were stored.

Fabulous. Maybe my home would burn down before I even got around to buying that new table. I ran down the hall, ripped open the closet door and then the dryer door, bringing it to a stop. It seemed like the dryer wasn’t funneling exhaust out of the vent properly, instead pushing it out from…somewhere. This had to be a fire hazard.

I chewed at my bottom lip, weighing my options. Sal was most definitely working. Mimi was out of town. So was my mom. And…

End of list.

I didn’t know jack shit about dryers. I could probably figure it out—but not without electrocuting myself.

I pulled my mostly dry clothes out of the machine and carried them to my bedroom. The dryer was tomorrow’s problem. Today, I had to finish painting my damn living room.

Chapter 29 Joey

December 30

One day until New Year’s Eve

I wrote down my mom’s advice into a blank page of my notebook. Trust June. Show her she’s right—about everything.

I tore it out and taped it to my bathroom mirror, the same way I had taped up affirmations when I was a dorky seventeen-year-old with dreams of being a bodybuilder.

I tried to live life the way I had, before June. But certain things…certain parts of who I had been now just felt ridiculous. It was immature that I didn’t wear a shirt on the internet. There were a lot of people who were in my comments, telling me they wanted to drink my piss. Which was good for them, no judgment. But if I was going to keep doing this—and was really going to make something of my cooking—I needed to take it a little more seriously. I was out of survival mode. I was safe. And I wanted, more than anything, to focus on the future.

June had crashed into my life and, in one short week, cast my whole world in a new slant of light. I tried not to think about it—about her, her body. Because when I did, it knocked the air out of my chest.

***

When June’s name popped up on my screen, I thought I was hallucinating.