The Punchline to the Joke Is Asking

For the first time in a month, I logged onto Facebook only to find the guys had plastered my wall with greetings, questions, and declarations of undying love. They’d flooded my email inbox with hellos, demands for pictures, pleas to text them. Which I had done… a bit… in the beginning.
But I’d lost touch with them.
I felt my heart sink. How lousy could I be? Those boys had taken me in and loved me from the get-go, making me one of them and accepting my differences when we disagreed. They’d loved me.
I’m still alive, and experiencing a real family for the first time. It’s… interesting? I miss you all, so much! (yes, even you, Frankie) I entered my new status and watched as it was ‘liked’ almost instantaneously.
I logged off before I could chat with any of them, not entirely sure why.

“Hey Cinnamon.” Jimmy grinned, waltzing onto the back porch and dropping onto the gliding bench next to me. “Whatchya playin’?”
“Stuff.” I mumbled, completely absorbed in my acoustic guitar. “Do you know this one?” I asked, playing a familiar riff. I’d go back to my stuff later.
“I see a red door and I want to paint it black!” Jimmy half yelled, purposely off-key.
“No colors anymore I want them to turn black!” I sang with him, shouting and tuneless, the two of us kids again, with nothing better to do than massacre a good rock ‘n roll song.
Later, after we’d finished our renditions of some of the greatest rock hits ever, we slid into the car for another round of me learning how to drive.
“It’s not hard, just like those games in the arcade. The little one’s the brake, okay?” Jimmy grinned crookedly at me, and I nodded, my mouth a taut line. Driving made me nervous, mostly because if I screwed up, it could be deadly.
And I’m a screw up.

“Streetlights, people, livin’ just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night!” Jimmy sang as he drove us home. I’d dragged him to the ice cream place and the playground, and Jimmy had offered to take us home.
I’m not sure what happened, after that. Not exactly.
Jimmy was watching the road, totally focused.
Our light was green, I remember that much.
And then I remembered the crunch.

Screaming. Red lights. Blue lights. Red blood. Crying. Pleading. Bright sky. Red blood. A green car. Our car. The broken mirror, holding my stupefied gaze. Red blood. Them. More lights. Pain. Red blood.
More lights. More screaming. More blood.
Black.