Fan Service

by Rosie Danan

“People don’t care if you’re falling apart. They care if you falling apart makes their lives harder.”

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.” Devin leaned down and kissed the top of her head in a way clearly designed to shut her up. “You can’t out-asshole an asshole, baby.”

This was the deepest kind of friendship, in her opinion. Sharing stuff you loved, the stuff you got weird over, with someone else. Hoping they might get weird over it too.

“Do you miss them? Your parents?” Alex held very still, not wanting to disturb whatever made him feel like sharing. Devin stirred his noodles for a moment. “I don’t even know where they are. They could be dead. But I think I miss the idea of them. Not the parents they were but the parents I wish they’d been, ya know?”

“They’ve seen my messy parts. They know every mean thing anyone’s ever said about me. They were there when my dad got sick. The last time I spoke to my mom. But I think part of the reason our relationship works has always been that they’re far away. It’s easier, in some ways, to lay your heart on the line when most of your communication comes through a screen. You can hide when you need to.”

“When you decide to give someone everything, whoever that person is, they’re gonna be really lucky,” he said, gently nudging her aside to put their plates in the dishwasher. What he meant was, Let it be me.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Alex said, once Devin had made a break for the safety of the loft. She leaned down to kiss her dad’s cheek as he sank into his favorite armchair and reached for the remote. “I always worry about you,” Isaac said, uncharacteristically grave. “You’ve already given up so much to take care of me—leaving school, sticking around this town when I know it hasn’t been easy. I just want to make sure you don’t jump into putting someone else’s needs above your own again.”

This body knew lots of things. When it was allowed to remember.