Page 13 of When Love Gives You Lemons
“I have so many questions.”
“Talk to him,” Matty urges. “He loves you.”
My heart races, thinking he means Ricky.
“Topher,” Matty clarifies. Sitting up, he eyes the shoebox. “What’s that?”
Popping the lid off prompts a familiar anxious bubbling in my chest. Inside is the dream box Ricky gave me with the lemon carved onto its face, surrounded by other mementos of our relationship: Playbills from Broadway shows we saw together after winning cheap lottery tickets, handwritten Christmas and birthday cards with poems he wrote for me scribbled in ink next to hand-drawn hearts, a thin, hardcover photo book Ma made of usfor his graduation that she never got to give him, and the customized Funko Pop! of Ricky he made for me when Topher flew us out to LA for New Year’s Eve—we went to the Funko Pop! store and made a Pop! of ourselves for each other, so he has the one that looks like me, and I have him, immortalized in cute plastic.
I wonder if he kept me, too.
“What’s that wooden box?” Matty asks, and I tell him its origin while trying not to cry. “Damn. You kept it?” He shakes his head. “Bad vibes. Did you put anything in it? Like a voodoo doll?” His fingers absentmindedly fondle the golden cornicello around his neck—a thin, twisted horn-shaped pendant that looks like a chili pepper meant to ward off evil.
“Relax, Matty, it’s not cursed.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe Ricky put the malocchio on you.” Matty makes the sign of the horn with his hand and points it at the box.
“You’re really making me feel better about all this, you know.”
“Sorry.” He swallows. “What’s inside?”
Upon opening the creaky lid, I pull out Ricky’s leather journal of poems. “I never gave this back to him.” The binding is worn, but still supple, and the texture brings me right back to the morning I found it, left behind. I toss it to Matty, who bats it away and onto my bed like a hot potato.
“I would’ve burned it,” Matty says.
He grabs the journal and flips through it with one hand, while the other clutches his cornicello. “Ricky wrote these?”
“He wrote poems all the time.”
“That’s romantic as fuck. Like, if a guy wrote me shit like this, I dunno what I’d do. Be on my knees.”
“I was. Often.”
“Ricky had it bad for you.” He attempts to show me a page, but I turn away.
“Hadbeing the operative word.”
“Feelings like this, they don’t just vanish.”
I look down. “What if they did for Ricky?”
Matty clears his throat, and slams Ricky’s journal shut. “Maybe this”—he jiggles the book—“is a sign. The wedding. Italy, the most romantic country in the world. Our ancestral birthplace. It’s the perfect opportunity to win him back.”
Though I’ve spent a year thinking about nothing but winning Ricky back, now that I’m faced with an actual opportunity, I’m terrified. Over the past year, I’ve monetized my Clock channel, but I’m still living at home with no clear life plan. How am I supposed to convince Ricky that I’m independent and won’t hold him back? How am I supposed to prove that he needs me when for the past year he’s probably been doing just fine without me?
“I don’t know. What if he doesn’t want me back?”
“I bet he’s hotter now.”
I stare at him blankly. “Not helpful.”
He shrugs. “Look, you’re ready now. Six months ago, I would’ve said you’d crumble. But, hey, if you don’t try to win back the love of your life, you’ll regret it.” Matty taps his fingertips together, hatching a devious plan, and my cheeks heat. “You don’t just love someone your whole life and then stop loving them, right? Even if you got shit to work on.” He clears his throat. “You two are gonna see each other, and it’s gonna be love at first sight. Or one millionth sight. Bet.”
I play with the ring on my thumb. I hope he’s right.
“If not, we’re gonna be in Italy! The motherland. Surrounded by hot, hot Italian guys. We can be each other’s wingman. Not that you have any trouble getting guys. But you can helpmeout for once.” Matty usually isn’t jealous, he’s too jovial for that, but his pent-up sexual frustration is getting the better of him. He’s a hopeless romantic, not exactly waiting for love to get laid, but for the perfect feeling and ideal scenario. He wants to feel a connection like the one I had with Ricky. Which is sweet. He wants to be swept off his feet, like the main character of a romantic comedy. Meanwhile I’ve spent the better part of the last year “getting over” Ricky by getting under pretty much everyone with a pulse. It’s been a stellar distraction.
We high-five, and I’m momentarily disgusted by my own show of machismo. “I hate being a guy.”
