If It Makes You Happy Read online

  Hearing Dallas say that he liked me hadn’t lost its shiny newness. I’m not sure why he told me quite so often, and it didn’t seem to bother him that I had only said it back one time. I wanted to. I don’t think it would’ve hurt anything for me to say it.

  But the words just wouldn’t come out anymore. Like they physically weren’t allowed to leave my body for whatever reason.

  Dallas returned, one hand behind his back. “Close your eyes.”

  “No.”

  “Fair enough.” He grinned. “I brought you flowers.”

  Sunflowers. Giant sunflowers wrapped in cool, crinkling plastic.

  No one had ever given me flowers before. Holding them turned my insides into heartsick mush. Knowing they’d been bought specifically for me smoothed out the frustrated and unhappy bits that wouldn’t stop stressing me out. It felt almost silly how special they made me feel.

  Suddenly, I understood why my friend kept falling for the Valentine warfare trick. Receiving flowers was something I didn’t know that I wanted until it happened. Getting them from Dallas had immediately tipped me over into soft land.

  I shook off those feelings and stamped them down as far as I could. Be strong. Stay in control. I had to be straightforward and keep myself from slipping into that place where my wants would become too different from his.

  Ask. Don’t assume. “Why?”

  “Just because. My mom likes to have flowers in the house, so I went to Forget-Me-Nots and bought her some today.”

  “You buy your mom flowers? That’s oddly sweet.”

  “It’s a small thing I can do that makes her happy. Anyway, while I was there, I saw these and they reminded me of you.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know.” I stared into their large brown faces as I pulled them close, touching their yellow petals. They didn’t smell like anything, not like how roses could overpower all the everything. And they had a general pleasantness to them—subtle and earthy. Such a stark and surprising contrast to their stunning vibrancy. “I’m not really the sunny type. I think I’m more of a moonflower. Or a tulip.”

  “Maybe those represent exactly how I see you.”

  “Maybe you see me wrong and I really am a Technicolor tulip but you want me to be a sunflower.”

  “That’s a good point.”

  “Not that I trust your floral machinations, but this was kind of you.” I couldn’t look at him. My joke seemed too harsh even as I said it. “I think.”

  “You’re welcome. I think.”

  The crowd began clapping again. Dallas raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Ready?”

  “Not yet?”

  “Sure. Be right back.”

  He left me and my sunflowers to go back to the stage.

  How could Kara not like him?

  It bothered me so much that she couldn’t even give him a chance, because if she did she’d see that he could be perfect for us.

  Not just me—us.

  Sometimes it scared me how forcefully I could desire things. That constantly starving, tender ache thrived in the quietest, deepest parts of me. Parts I was terrified to look at in the light and feel in the dark. The bold audacity of my wishes had the unbidden power to overwhelm everything else that made sense. But in those seconds right before sleep, I cracked that door open and let those feelings take center stage in my dreams of maybe and what if?

  When I looked at Dallas, smiling onstage in his crown, making everyone laugh and covering for me, I felt like I might finally be ready for more than five minutes.

  I might be tired of waiting and playing it safe.

  Kara (Kara Kara Kara Kara) Chameleon

  Kara: Still not talking to your granny

  Winnie: Not not talking. You know how she is

  Kara: I mostly know how you are. Life’s too short to hold grudges.

  Kara: Especially against family

  Winnie: HA! I know you’re not trying to lecture me about familial grudges

  Kara: That’s different. Sisters are supposed to fight

  Kara: SHE DESERVES IT YOU KNOW SHE DOES

  Winnie: LMAOOOOOO

  Winnie: Just checking: this isn’t a thinly veiled text to gauge my reaction right? I’m not holding a grudge against you.

  Kara: I know <3

  Winnie: I want to call my dad but I dunno. He gets super protective of Granny, you know? It feels like a bad idea

  Kara: Call your mom then

  Winnie:… but I want to talk to my dad. I need help with a thing

  Kara: What kind of thing?

  Winnie: Ummmmmmm

  Kara:????????

  Winnie: It’s not something I want to tell you over text. Can you call me?

  Kara: Oh.

  Kara: That.

  Kara: No.

  Winnie: We can’t move forward if you won’t at least try to talk to me about this

  Kara: I’m not ready

  Winnie:… but I am.

  Kara: This is new to me too. It’s easy for you because you know what you want. There’s no one on my side.

  Winnie: I’m on your side! How can you not know that?

  Armed with poster boards, magazines, scissors, markers, and a crapload of stickers, I headed straight to Kara’s house.

  She wanted to ignore what was happening. I understood that—sometimes that felt like the best way to handle things.

  Before I came out as queer to my parents, we had that whole unconditional trust thing going on. Their reaction had shaken that foundation until only straight-up rubble remained. Parents weren’t perfect at all. They messed up, too, but got to pretend like they did so in the name of parenting because it “didn’t come with an instruction manual” and they were “doing the best they could.”

  My parents were supposed to be an instruction manual, a living and breathing one who taught me right from wrong and punished me when I kept choosing wrong. So I decided to punish them back. They had chosen wrong that time. I was angry at them for almost a year after and made sure they knew it. But I refused to talk to them, really sit down and say the words, “What you did really hurt me. I feel like I can’t trust you anymore.” Plain. Simple. Truthful.

  And then Kara had come to visit me for my birthday.

  My mom had seen Kara give me the ring and thought she had proposed to me. Queer had become lesbian faster than I could say, “No. I haven’t even graduated yet. Why would I get married right now?”

  We had explained our word, ungirlfriend, and all my mom had said was, and I quote, “Oh. That sounds nice.”

  Later that night, I’d overheard her talking to my dad. He didn’t sound angry. They were arguing—but in a bewildered sort of way. “But do you understand it?”

  “No! We’ll figure it out!”

  “I tried to look it up,” he said. “I even asked Twitter. No one knows what that means. How are we supposed to support her if we don’t know what it is?”

  “You didn’t see her face. This is important to her. This cannot be like last time. That’s your daughter—she’s just like you and she’s only going to give us so many chances. She has to feel like she can come to us or she’ll stop doing it.” She huffed. “I just want her to have a better relationship with us than I did with my parents.”

  “I know, honey. I know.” He sighed. “If this is what she feels like she needs, then that’s it. The end. We’ll ask questions and figure it out later.”

  Parents messed up, but could learn from their mistakes, too. They just needed a chance.

  So did Kara.

  And I wasn’t ready to give up on her.

  Instead of going through the Winter Wonderland Books front door, I used the back steps and let myself in.

  “Hello,” I called. “It’s Winnie.”

  No answer. Junie worked at a bank a couple of towns over, so I knew she wouldn’t have been home. I had assumed Kara’s parents would be downstairs and she would be up here. Crossing the kitchen, I went down the first few steps and peeked over the banister.

  “
You’re actually working?”

  Kara looked up, not even remotely surprised. “Took you long enough. I saw you skulking around the building on the security camera.”

  “I do not skulk.” I walked down the rest of the stairs and then toward the front counter. “And you could have said something.”

  “You could have come through the front door.”

  “Fair.” I held up the plastic bag and posters. “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “With?”

  “I thought we could make new vision boards for the dorm.” I sat the supplies down. “I even went to the library to find a National Geographic magazine that had pictures of Iceland.”

  That earned me a smile. Iceland—her dream country. Kara wanted to move there even if it was only for six months and take me along for the ride. She began to pick through the bag, grabbing the markers and stickers she wanted.

  “Do you want to make them down here?”

  “Yeah. My parents went out to lunch and threatened to kick me out of the kitchen for a week if I didn’t stay put and on duty while they were gone.”

  We cleared off the far corner, closest to the back of the store. Part of the reason Kara flew the coop so often? The bookstore didn’t really have a steady stream of customers on a daily basis. It did pretty well overall. They held events, did special and online orders, and obviously knew every customer who did eventually come in by name and could find the book for them, whatever it was. Winter Wonderland Books was a beloved Haven Central staple.

  I sat across from her. We positioned our boards side by side.

  “What should we do?” she asked. “College? Career updates? Or just general life stuff?”

  A decent-sized chunk of our relationship revolved around goal setting. At first, Kara being so sure about her future freaked me the hell out. Made me feel stupid, lazy, and inadequate. My girl was a little intense. A lot intense. But her certainty had also been infectious.

  I wanted to be on her level.

  Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted out of life beyond not letting the entirety of my existence flop. Being with Kara helped me realize I could reach for more.

  I had decided to major in hospitality in college because I loved working in Goldeen’s so much. My little brother had the potential to become a head chef. My ungirlfriend baked liked she’d been born to do it. I knew a sign when I saw one.

  The idea of starting my own family-centric restaurant or bed-and-breakfast might be so outlandish that the universe would laugh at me for the next thousand years. I might not ever be able to make it happen. The point, though, was to dream, to believe, to try. And to trust and support each other.

  “I think we’re overdue for a life check-in. Let’s do that.”

  Kara eyed me for a moment before sighing and picking up a dark green marker.

  We needed to at least poke the beast sleeping between us before our relationship devolved into a toxic, radioactive cesspool of hurt and misunderstanding.

  If she wasn’t willing to work through this, the proper way, then—well, that wasn’t something I could make her do. But I would be clear that it was something that I wanted to do. I needed her to know that. Whether it worked out or not, telling my truth, opening that door for her, would be my bottom line. I refused to compromise on that.

  In bright blue marker, the same color as the stone in my ring, I wrote Remember: Life is messy and imperfect. It’s okay if you are, too.

  I looked at Kara, who had been watching me write my heading.

  “Nobody expects you to be perfect,” she said.

  “It’s just a reminder.” I shifted on the stool and cleared my throat. “It’s okay to make mistakes even if they hurt people you care about.”

  Kara turned away, looking off to the side and twirling a piece of hair around her finger.

  “Sometimes all you have to do is just apologize and it can make a world of reassuring difference.”

  She began to sort through the stickers, landing on a baking-themed one with pink-and-white anthropomorphic cupcakes. “I panicked. It was a mistake,” she said quietly.

  “Definitely allowed to make those.” I nodded and waited until impatience won. “And?”

  “And what? I don’t know what you want me to say? That I’m sorry? That I’ll never do it again?”

  “That would be helpful.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true.”

  My heart skipped a beat as my stomach dropped to my feet. “What?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” She dropped the stickers and stood up, her stool scraping against the floor.

  “But I do. You can’t just say something like that and walk away!”

  “I don’t want to talk about it because I can’t. I’m still trying to figure this out and you trying to push me isn’t helping. It’s just going to make me say the wrong thing and make it worse.” Kara stood a few feet away from me with more pain than I had ever seen in her eyes. “I think you should leave.”

  “Kara, come on, don’t be like this.” What was happening to us? “Just talk to me.”

  “I can’t do this.” She shook her head. “I want to be alone. Go.”

  Twenty-Six

  “I hate this.”

  It’d basically become a ritual for me to loudly complain about going jogging. Oh, I’d finish all right, but Sam needed to know how much I detested every step.

  “We’ve barely started. Give it time.” Sam moved into the next stretching position she wanted us to copy.

  “You said the same thing about studying Spanish and I almost failed.”

  “But you didn’t.” She shook her arms out at her sides. “Whenever I need to laugh, I think about the shocked look on Ms. Flores’s face when you aced the oral during finals. Hamstrings.”

  “Adrenaline, fear, and coffee pumped full of espresso will do that. I swear my soul ascended to a higher plane of existence. I probably could’ve spoken Mandarin in that state.”

  “Calves. The mind has a way of tricking you into thinking you can’t do something, but your body has the capacity to surprise you. Muscle memory and all that.”

  “For the record, not that anyone asked, I also hate this.” Winston’s eyes were barely open. He must have stayed up late watching something.

  Sam on the other hand, bright and full of sunshine, placed her hands on her hips in a frustrated huff. “Then why are you here?”

  “Because she’s here.” He pointed at me. “I go where she goes.”

  “Like a cute little shadow.”

  “I may be cute, but I am not little and I am not a shadow. You don’t get to say stuff like that to me.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Says the high-yellow girl.”

  “Don’t do that.” I stood between them, hands out to keep them apart.

  “She called me a shadow.”

  “You know what I meant. You’re like a duckling sometimes, that’s all.”

  “I am also not a duck. Or any kind of nonhuman animal.”

  “Okay.” Sam laughed. “I’m clearly not going to win today.”

  “No. You won’t. But you will stop trying to make fun of me for wanting to spend time with my sister or I will give no quarter.”

  “No quarter?” That had to be a movie reference. And a way for me to steer the conversation toward me before they really started fighting. “Ooh! Pirates of the Caribbean?”

  “That was one acceptable answer.”

  “My God, y’all are weird,” Sam said.

  “And you’re an only child,” Winston threw back at her.

  “Look.” I glared at them. “Let’s just be chill and get this done. I’m stressed enough without you two going at it.”

  “He started it.”

  “Jesus, you both make me feel middle-aged. Stop making me be the voice of reason! I don’t want to! It’s gross and above my paltry pay grade.”

  Winston smirked, turning his head to the side.

  Sam offere
d her hand to him. “Truce.”

  “For now.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Anyway.” Sam rolled her eyes. “Same rules as always: follow my pace, not my body. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, keep Mabel closer to the water.”

  At the sound of her name, Mabel gave a reassuring bark as if she understood.

  Sam hit the timer and we set off.

  Five. Six. Five.

  Walk. Jog. Walk.

  The first four minutes of speed walking practically flew by. The one-minute warning sounded again and that same surge of adrenaline and slight fear hit me. Six minutes.

  Everything about my body became hyperfocused in those six minutes. The feel of my knees bending, the impact of my feet hitting the ground, the tightness in my lungs, the way parts of me moved around my muscles and bone, the sound of my skin—I knew my body, but also didn’t.

  I’d seen running ads for years. Gorgeous models, slick with sweat, controlling their breathing as they sprinted effortlessly like gazelles. The skin on their stomachs moved, their tiny thighs and sculpted calves jiggled because that’s what bodies did. But I’d never seen someone who looked like me move that way. It was different, exaggerated; it was more, but it was still okay.

  Extreme weight-loss shows were the work of the devil because at the core, they’d been built upon a foundation of shame and the constant need to embarrass the contestants. No one went on those shows happy and bubbly: “Hi, I’m Contestant Three, my life is super awesome and I’m here to learn how to lift weights because it seems really great!” No, it was always, “My weight controls my life. I’m at rock bottom. Please exploit and verbally abuse me until I lose hundreds of pounds, and if I don’t, have me sit down and continue to talk about my struggles for the world to hear and judge me.”

  And those shows only showed the positive side of working out. All of the grunts and straining and skin-slapping sounds covered by motivational music and voice-overs. Fat people working out wasn’t allowed to be real. It had to be aesthetic and motivational. The contestants never talked about the way their bodies felt until they’d gotten lighter. Everyone wanted the inspirational journey and the result.