Free More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera Page A

child—a little guy I think we’ll name something ironic, like Faust—just to have her back to punch me.
    I didn’t even change clothes when I woke up because the shirt had her fist print, not that I would ever tell my friends. I tried distracting myself with some Sun Warden sketches. Funny how I was so big a distraction to Genevieve that she had to fly to New Orleans just so she could get some work done.
    I never do anything right.
    These are bad thoughts for me to be thinking. That shitty therapist Dr. Slattery told me to speak to someone—friends, a stranger on the subway, anyone—whenever I find myself in an unhappy and lonely place: obvious advice and not worth the bank we spent on him. I go outside and search for Brendan since there’s no one home for me to talk to. Not that I’d be chitchatting with my mom and Eric anyway. I try calling Brendan; he doesn’t pick up his phone.
    Outside, Skinny-Dave is playing handball. He lets me join him, which is great because it keeps me busy enough to suffer through his small talk about “procrastination masturbation,” where you save a porn link for later because you can’t be bothered with the cleanup at that moment. But it’s not long before he stops playing so he can check on his laundry, leaving me alone with a handball I “better not fucking lose” or he’ll castrate me and my future sons. (Sorry, Faust.)
    Twenty days.
    I only have to survive twenty more days without her.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHey, it’s Aaron.”
    â€œI know, Stretch. What’s up?”
    â€œNothing, which is a problem. I should be doing something instead of sitting here and only missing Genevieve. You free to hang out?”
    â€œI’m sort of in the middle of something right now. You doing anything tomorrow morning?”
    â€œNope. Unless whatever you’re about to suggest is stupid, in which case, yeah, I have plans to save the world or something.”
    â€œWell, if you’re done saving the world before noon we could go see a movie.”
    â€œI guess the city can take care of itself for a couple hours. So what are you up to right now?”
    â€œNothing,” he says.
    He sounds kind of ashamed and dodgy, sort of like the way someone (not Skinny-Dave) gets really uncomfortable when you ask them if they watch porn or not, even if the answer is obvious. But I let it go and instead get him to talk to me about stupid things, like what superpower he would like to have—invincibility, which Skinny-Dave always confuses for invisibility.
    It’s better than handball, at least.

    8
    NO HOMO
    T homas looks tired as hell when I meet him on the corner of his block the next morning.
    It’s a little after 11:00. Not sure if he got any sleep or if he’ll be able to stay awake for the entire movie.
    â€œAre you cloning yourself?”
    â€œWhat?” Thomas groggily asks.
    â€œI’m trying to figure out what you’re obsessively working on.”
    â€œI don’t think anyone wants two clueless Thomases walking around.” We take a shortcut through some shady projects to get to the theater as fast as possible. “I don’t want to tell you or you’ll think I’m some lost puppy.”
    â€œNah, you’re more like a work in progress. We all are,” I say. I hold my hands up in surrender. “But I’ll drop it.”
    â€œYou’re supposed to try and force me to spill the beans.”
    â€œOkay. Spill the beans.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it.”
    So we don’t.
    Again.
    Instead, he goes on about how he loves summertime mornings because of the eight-dollar ticket charge for a movie, which usually doesn’t even matter since he knows how to get in for free because he worked there for two weekends last summer before—you guessed it—quitting.
    â€œBut you want to be a director. Isn’t working at the movies a good