The Punchline to the Joke Is Asking

As we walked away from the house, where Mr. Steelle had given his blessing for my adoption, I still hadn’t said anything.
At all.
I just blinked, not really seeing anything, my mouth slightly open and my jaw slack as we walked along. I was moving automatically, not really aware of where I was going, but somehow moving in the right direction.
Joe took my hand anyway.
“You gonna say something?” Joe finally mumbled, when we were about halfway back to the buses.
My gaze snapped out of space and locked onto him, out the corner of my eyes, taking in the way he was staring at the sidewalk as we wandered back.
I just looked down at the smooth concrete beneath us, finally closing my mouth, still silent. I couldn’t sort through what was going through my head, and I didn’t want to blurt out something that could bite me in the ass later.
This had never happened before; no matter what happened on the streets, good or bad, I could either sort through what I was thinking fast enough to survive or I could blank it out and run or fight, as needed.
I couldn’t untangle the thoughts in my head this time, I couldn’t shove it away, and there was nothing for me to fight. All the gears in my brain were clinking towards ‘run’, but that would wreck everything.
“It’s… it’s ok if you don’t want me to.” Joe informed me quietly, not looking at me as his grip on my hand slackened.
I instinctively held on tighter, closing my fingers around his instead of just leaving my hand limp. “I’m just… thinking.” I breathed.
“’Bout what?” Joe asked, glancing up at me. He was so childish, sometimes. He wanted to be my legal guardian? I somehow doubted that any judge would put me in the custody of this man.
“You want… But I’m… And then… What if…” I sighed. “Why me?” See, that’s what happens when I try to talk and think about something I haven’t figured out yet. I’m about as coherent as my thoughts.
“Because you’re a good kid, and you deserve a family, and I love you.” Joe said, and I met his blue eyes, jerking to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk.
“I… You… What?” I gasped, trying to make sense of everything.
“I love you.” Joe tried to pull me into a hug, but I stepped back, wide eyed and panicking. That word was not in my dictionary.
“Love isn’t real. Families are bad. I’m a bad kid.” My speech pattern was regressing to that of a child as I clung to what I’d taken as fact for all 17 years of my life. This one man was upsetting everything I knew, and I wasn’t taking it well.
“Love is real, there’s all kinds. You love your friends, you love your family, if you love a boy I’d have to approve.” Joe almost grinned, joking a bit. “Look at Pete and Gerard, what are their families like? And-”
“There’s exceptions to every rule. Everybody we know has their own tick, it figures we’d know people with nice families. We know all the freaks.” I said quickly. I meant it affectionately, in the best way possible, but it was true. There was something wrong with all of us.
“Your parents were the exception to the rule. Most families are wonderful.” Joe informed me. “At any rate, you know I wouldn’t be a ‘bad’ dad.”
I’d never called any man in my life ‘dad’. Never. Not even Jamie. I’d never wanted one. I’d never pitied myself for not having the ideal, Hollywood-esque ‘mom and dad’ type of doting parents because I’d thought they were rare. In my world, they were just fairytales. Something to scoff at and not believe in. Like love.
“N-no.” I stammered, shaking my head, wide eyed. “I don’t need a family. I don’t want one.” Liar.
Joe looked incredibly hurt, but I couldn’t stop.
“I’m not… I wouldn’t be ok with a family. I just… no. I’m better off on my own.” I took a step back, shaking my head, still wide eyed, trying to sort out my thoughts.
Joe reached out to take my hand again, trying to comfort me, but I turned and ran.
I ran faster than I ever had in the city, where I’d been running for my life, for my sanity.

*

I ran all the way back to the place I’d been so many times before, the one only Keisha, Blaise, and I knew about.
The little clearing, deep in the woods, completely surrounded by a waist-deep stream was exactly as I remembered it; lush, grassy, dotted with wildflowers and completely concealed by the tall, dense trees and vines defining it.
I collapsed on the far side, as far from the path as I could, and curled into a ball at the edge of the grass, where it dropped off steeply for about a foot to the stream. I shook with suppressed sobs, fighting not to let the tears continue their path down my cheeks as I tried to sort through everything in my head.
I decided to try the last-ditch effort of a street kid, the one that we only resorted to when every other option was gone and we were out of control and we didn’t know what to do because there was nothing we could do and we just had to let everything happen and hope we were still around when it was over-
I sighed, exhaling in a rush as I closed my eyes and blacked out.

I felt cool night air on my arms and face, and savored it. It had been a long time since it was this nice- cool, but not freezing. I hated the summer, the heat.
Someone’s arms were wrapped around me, holding me in their lap, my head on their shoulder as we sat in the clearing. One of his arms wrapped around my waist, his hand resting on my hip, the other absentmindedly stroked my hair.
I forced my eyes open and glanced up at him. Ryan’s brown eyes met my gaze, and he smiled a little. He always smiled like that at me, crooked, with just a hint of a smirk, like he knew something I didn’t, but not in an arrogant way.
“How are you wearing a hoodie?” I teased, grinning up at him.
“It’s freezing out.” Ryan replied, raising his eyebrows as if questioning my sanity.
“I forgot, you’re from the desert.” I rolled my eyes, sticking my tongue out at him.
“Vegas isn’t exactly a sandy wasteland.” Ryan reminded me, and I shrugged.
“Never been.”
“What? You have to go. It’s Sin City, after all.” Ryan winked at me, and I laughed, playfully smacking his shoulder.
“You’re such a dork.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
I blinked, feeling his hot breath on my face and getting trapped by his eyes for a moment, before turning away. That was scary. Scarier than Joe wanting to adopt me, anyway.
“How’d you find me, anyway?” I mumbled, glancing around the empty clearing. It was twilight, the sun having dropped behind the trees but the last dregs of light hadn’t faded yet.
“Keisha and Blaise went out to look for you, and I tagged along. I sent them back when we got here, ‘cause I figured you’d still be a little weirded out.”
“Wait, you knew what was going on?” I asked sharply, meeting his eyes.
Ryan shrugged. “I knew you’d sneak out to see your parents, and when Joe came back alone and upset, I figured something freaked you out.”
“Yeah.” I agreed absently, looking away from Ryan.
“What happened?” Ryan asked gently.
“He said he loves me.”
“What?! But he’s like, twice as old-!”
“Not like that!” I said quickly, alarmed. “He… he said he wants to adopt me.” I mumbled disbelievingly, staring off into space again.
“That’s a good thing, right? You’ll have a family. Joe’s probably not the most responsible adult, but you’ll have fun.” Ryan grinned.
“Family.” I squeaked. “Family? No. Families… they’re no good.” I shook my head.
“No, families are wonderful things.” Ryan pulled me against him again, back from where I’d leaned away to look at him as we spoke.
“What’s yours like?” I asked, after a moment of being gently rocked in Ryan’s arms.
“My mom’s amazing, the nicest person on the planet.” Ryan sighed. “I get homesick; miss her when we’re on the road, sometimes.”
“What about your dad?” I asked quietly.
“…He was a drinker. He’d get drunk, smack us around a bit. He died, not too long ago.” Ryan admitted.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t understand why, but Ryan was sad his father was gone.
“Yeah, me, too.” He sighed.

We sat in silence as the dying light faded out, stars appearing overhead.
“Why don’t you want Joe to adopt you? You know what he’s like, he’d never be mean, or hurt you, or try to control your life or anything stupid.”
“Because… I don’t wanna wreck his life.” I admitted, not looking at Ryan, who abruptly stopped rocking me and stroking my hair.
“Why on Earth would you think that?!” Ryan asked, too shocked to swear. Wow, he really wasn’t expecting an answer like that.
“Because I’m a bad kid. I start fights, and I try to kill myself, and I run away, and I don’t deserve a family-” I rambled quickly, mumbling, but Ryan cut me off.
“Hey, hey, that’s not true.” He said quietly. “You’re not ‘bad’, and this is the first time you’ve run away from us. You haven’t tried to kill yourself since you started hanging around with us, and you sure as Hell deserve a family.” He brushed some of my hair away from my face, making me look up at him. Once again, his big, brown eyes caught my blue ones and wouldn’t let go.
“You should have parents- even just a dad- who love you, and you deserve to start a family of your own, one day.” Ryan informed me evenly.
“That’s just it; I’ll never have my own family.” I replied, doing my best to fight back the tears.
“Why not?” Ryan challenged gently.
“Because there’s no love. Guys marry girls so they can have families, kids. I can’t have kids, Ryan. In New York, when I got r-raped, the man hurt me so badly, I can’t have kids. I never will. Nobody wants a girl who can’t have their kids, and there’s no love-”
“Of course there’s love. It’s real. There’s all kind of love. The family kind, the friend kind, the head-over-heels kind.” Ryan told me.
“The head-over-heels kind’s the one I don’t believe in.” I mumbled.
Ryan made me look at him again, tilting my face up towards his.
Then his lips crashed into mine, and I closed my eyes and kissed him back, melting into his arms as I wrapped my own around his neck, tangling my fingers in his hair.
He kept one arm around my waist as the hand that held my face slid to the back of my neck, but he let his thumb trace one of the twin scars just beneath the corner of my jaw, the one from my wire noose cutting into my throat all those years ago.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, kissing. There were small, quick ones between gasping breaths, long, deep ones, passionate ones that made my head spin… then Ryan finally pulled away, breathless, as I just lay limply in his arms.
“Still don’t believe?” Ryan asked, smirking crookedly at me.
“I’m not sure.” I answered honestly, my eyes wide.
Ryan gently pressed his lips to mine. “It’s the butterflies.” Kiss. “The way the world is spinning.” Kiss. “Getting lost in someone’s eyes.” Kiss. “Wanting to be with them, all the time.” Kiss, kiss, kiss.