We Made Our Way Dreaming

I had decided that today I should go through the stuff in my room and start cleaning stuff out. This stuff had been in here for so long. I never used any of it. It was kind of hard because so many of the things came attached with memories, memories of Joe. It wasn’t that they were bad memories, and that was what hurt the most. Every memory I got in this room was something good, something that I had forgotten, something I had once sworn I would never, could never, forget. I picked up my copy of the movie The Godfather.

”Joe, psst Joe,” I shook him harder, trying to wake him. He waved his hand at him, trying to push me away and then turned onto his stomach, still sleeping. “Oh my God, Joe!” I punched him.

“What the,” he jumped up onto all fours, looking around. He glared at him. “What do you want?”

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

He sat right and rubbed his arm where I had punched him. “Hmm let me think, you just forgot it was Joe and Melody day today and we were supposed to go to the zoo and hang out. Yeah I’m not mad at all.”

“You know, you’re 13. Sarcasm isn’t a smart move yet,” I smirked.

He just narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you even doing here at,” he looked at his nightstand clock, “11 o’clock?”

“I think the more important question is why are you asleep at 11 o’clock at night?”

“I was tired and I wasn’t doing anything better,” he said accusingly.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Will you get over it already? I’m here to make it up to you!”

“How?” he asked suspiciously.

“Don’t you trust me?” I pretended to be hurt.

“The last time you asked me that I had to get four stitches – on my butt!”

“That was so your fault. I didn’t tell you to fall off the rocks on your butt on more rocks. Besides, don’t worry this time is risk free!”

“What are we doing?” he asked, getting out of bed. I got up and moved his pillow to the foot of the bed, a method we had developed with our parents to let them know when we were going to each other’s house at night.

I grinned and led him to the window, starting to climb out the same way I had come in. “Mitchie’s boyfriend is over. They’re watching The Godfather downstairs. We’re going to watch. I mean you know how much I love mafia movies.”

“When have you ever seen a mafia movie?” he asked, climbing out after me.

“Good point,” I said, climbing down the tree next to Joe’s window. “Which is why we have to watch it.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” he said, imitating my steps until we were both firmly on the ground. “I doubt Mitchie is going to want us barging in on her date.”

“Like we want to watch her and Damon make out,” I rolled my eyes and started walking towards my house. “We’re going to watch from the top of the stairs. Now you coming or not?”

He looked up longingly at his window, probably wishing he hadn’t followed me. He sighed and looked at me. “Fine, but if it sucks, I’m still mad at you.”

“Fair enough,” I said, opening my back door and stepping aside to let him in. I closed it behind him. “But if it’s awesome, which I know it totally is, you can never ever, ever be mad at me again.”

“Fine,” he grumbled and we tiptoed into my basement, sitting at the top of the stairs, where we usually did when we wanted to watch a movie Mitchie was watching that we weren’t allowed to.

We were quiet, watching in awe through the movie. Joe was more into it than I was. And he thought he wouldn’t like it! I had to cover his eyes when Michael’s new Sicilian wife took her clothes off. He pushed my hand away, and stared openly at it, though it was over a split second later. When the credits started rolling, we tiptoed back up to my room, jumping onto my bed.

“That was so awesome!” he exclaimed.

“Now you can never be mad at me,” I grinned.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved that off. “But seriously, I want to be a Godfather.”

“It’s not a Godfather, Joe,” I rolled my eyes. “It’s the Godfather.”

“Fine, I want to be him.”

“And I can be your right hand woman, carrying out your law! I can shoot them if they don’t agree with us,” I made a fake pistol with my hand and pretend fired it, closing one eye.

In the Godfather’s voice, he said, “I’ll make him a deal he can’t refuse.”

“Aw Joey, we got to teach them other families that we’re the best,” I imitated a mafia tone.

We erupted in laughter. We lay back on my bed, our arms under our heads, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry I forgot about our Joe and Melody day.” I asked after a moment.

“It’s okay.”

“You promise to never be mad at me again?”

“You know I can’t really be mad at you,” he promised.

“Hey,” Joe said, coming into my room, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Mitchie let me in. What are you doing on the floor?”

“Hi,” I said. I held up the movie in my hands. “Going through some stuff.”

When he saw the movie, a grin broke out on his face. “I got that for you for your birthday the year after we saw it. You kept it?”

“Of course,” I said quietly, getting up and sitting on my bed. I stared down at the movie cover in my hands.

Joe sat down next to me. “You know, that’s still my favorite movie.”

“It’s a good movie,” I agreed.

“That’s not why,” he said quietly. I looked at him in confusion. “We saw it together the day we promised to become a mafia family together and the day I promised to never get mad at you.”

“Looks like we broke those promises,” I smiled sadly.

He sighed and leaned back on his hands, looking at the wall in front of him. “Mel, can we – can we talk?”