Page 67 of Just A Little Joy

Lay it on me.

Wait. Why isn’t this in the group chat?

They’re too happy.

And settled.

For the record, I’m also happy and settled.

You don’t count.

Ouch. Hurtful.

What’s really going on?

I got a job offer today. Up in Alaska. I’d start after the new year, but I have until Christmas to confirm.

Oh. Wow. Awesome.

Not wow. Not awesome. I’ve been here over a year, so…it’s time to move on. It’s what I do.

Does it have to be what you do?

I think? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know.

If you don’t know, maybe it’s not.

I need you to be less insightful.

Why’d you message me, really?

Because I knew you’d get it.

Hmmm.

You’re being cryptic again.

Okay, we’re done here.

Happy to help.

After an amazing day,ending it by hiding in the bathroom texting Nico because my life was unfolding exactly the way I wanted and I was scared shitless as a result felt anticlimactic. Any other time, I’d tell myself to snap out of it, but this was the exception.

Because for the first time ever, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go, and I was always ready to go. Travis was exactly who and what I said I’d been looking for, so why was I about to pitch it out the window for a good time in Alaska that wouldn’t bring me one inch closer to what I claimed I wanted?

These and other big thoughts would be handled…at some point in the future that was not right now.

“Bub, you okay?” Daddy asked after a soft knock on the door.

“Yeah. It’s all good. Give me just a sec, and I’ll be out.”

“Take your time. I’m gonna put a movie on…Klausokay?”

“Ooh, sweet. Five minutes, and I’ll be fine.”

What I wanted to say was absolutely not that movie.

Tonight, when I was skittish as a fox, was not the time to watch a story about a guy who’d rather run away than build anything real. A guy terrified of roots and family who only fixed himself when he finally stayed still long enough to care. There was no way Daddy meant anything by it, but the timing felt cosmic and cruel.