Page 107 of The Romantic Agenda
“Joy,” he reads, “the first time I saw you, I thought you were having a panic attack in your car—”
A manic giggle shoots out of Joy before she can stop it. “Sorry,” she whispers, covering her mouth again. The interruption seems to do the trick. He seems less tense now, like he suddenly remembered that she’s Joy, Queen of Laughing at Her Own Jokes. Absolute seriousness need not apply to this moment.
He continues, “I thought about helping you, but then you pulled it together and walked into Malcolm’s house. You know what happens after that. I don’t know a lot of people because I choose not to. I like to keep to myself. I like being alone. If I don’t have something to say, I don’t.” He pauses to inhale, shoulders moving as he does it. “I live in my head because it feels better there. Faster. I don’t have to wait for people to catch up to me when I’m already ten steps ahead. Hopefully, that makes sense.” He turns the page over. “Joy, when you walk into a room, it’s like I forget how to think. I can’t look at anything or anyone else. You’re so warm and so funny and so beautiful.
“I realized your mind races just as fast as mine does, except you’re loud about it. You don’t hide it. You’re not ashamed or frustrated by it. You embrace it. I love the way you dress, the way you laugh, the way you stare at me, your humor, your heart, your selflessness, how hard you try even when you know you might fail. I love spending my mornings with you. I like being alone with you. Everything about you is devastatingly wonderful and so unexpected. I even love the things I don’t like about you because they mean you’re not perfect. And if you’re not perfect, it means you’re real and not a dream. I think I see the difference now.
“I don’t care that you love Malcolm or that you will always love him. If the situation were reversed, I would never expect you to love only me. But I’ve seen how big your heart is, Joy. I can only hope there might be room in it for me too someday.”
Fox folds the paper and places it back into the notebook. “That’s it.” He stands tall, with his hands folded in front of him.
“Funny story,” Joy says, throat tight from struggling not to cry. “This strange thing happens to my knees sometimes where they disappear. I would get up, but I’ll probably just fall on account of not having knees, so if you could just come over here. Please.”
Fox’s face folds in confusion but he does as she asks, bringing the second chair around the table and sitting in front of her.
“I had—” Joy stops to catch her breath because that’s gone too. “I had no idea you felt that way aboutme.” Her voice cracks and so does the rest of her. She’s crying and trying to talk and it’s not working.
“Joy, please don’t cry.” He wipes her tears with his thumbs while she tries to stop hyperventilating.
She launches herself at him—arms around his neck and holding on for dear life. She finds enough control to wail, “How could you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, as he holds her. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Of course I like it!”
Sometimes she can be a little weird around strangers.” Joy unlocks her door. “It’s best to let her come to you.” As expected, Pepper flies to the front door, squeak-meowing for Joy to pick her up.
Fox places the take-out boxes on the counter.
“Pep, this is Fox. Remember in the video Mommy showed you?”
“You showed your cat a video of me?”
“Shut up. Nobody asked for your judgment. Here, hold her.” Joy smiles as Pepper passes between them with no complaints. “I’ll get some plates.”
After setting up the coffee table with their food, Joy runs to the bedroom to change into comfy pajamas and grab some blankets and pillows. They sit together on the couch, watching the next Nicolas Cage film on their list while they eat. A fabulously low-key evening that suits them both perfectly. Joy sits in Fox’s lap, her back to his front, and he wraps them up in a blanket.
When the credits begin to roll, Joy is full of food, dizzy with happiness, and her old lady timer is about to start screeching. She yawns, then says, “If someone told me how this past week would play out in advance, I probably would’ve laughed myself to death.”
“So I’m a joke to you?”
“Now isn’t the time for wordplay, don’t do that,” she whispers quickly, and he laughs. “Everything’s changing so fast. I want to be okay with it, but I’m high-key kind of scared. I need to tell you something.”
Fox tightens the blankets around them, pulling her closer. “Go for it.”
Joy says, “I was fourteen when I realized I was asexual. I didn’t know that word existed yet. I just knew I was different. I remember the exact moment it happened, down to the smallest detail.”
At school, in the cafeteria, where everything smelled overcooked and well on its way to being slightly burnt. Filled with the kind of loudness that echoed until it became a cacophony of voices, shouts, and the scraping plastic utensils against metal. There was no privacy, not even an illusion of it, as Joy sat at a round table with her sister and three friends.
Clustered together, as close as the table would allow, heads bent toward one another almost as if in prayer. Words like “gentle” and “nice” but also “painful” and “intense” floated out of Kelly’s mouth and around their circle. Joy, already feeling confused and not understanding, watched everyone carefully—their faces frozen in rapt fascination, and even a little jealousy. She had wondered,Do I look like that?Then she saw the same looks on Grace’s face: awe and wonder and scandal. And then she thought,Oh shit. I’msupposed tolook like that. Joy copied Grace’s expression as best she could before anyone could notice.
At home, Joy asked Grace about it because her sister wouldn’t look at her weird for asking obvious questions.
Their fourteen-year-old consensus: Joy hadn’t met the right guy yet.
Their twenty-year-old consensus: there would never be the right guy. Or girl. Or person of any gender.
“I started researching by reading romance novels before I moved on to forums and wikis. There were no two ways about it: Iwasdifferent. Then college happened. I met Malcolm and he was like me. We fit together like we were tailor-made for each other, and it was enough. I didn’t need anyone else. Being with Malcolm was easy. That’s part of the reason I stayed by him for so long—it was easy and he understood me.”
