You are not too much. You have never been too much. Anyone who tells you that doesn’t deserve you.
Take care of yourself, my little chaos gremlin.
Leo
I read it three times.
Then I fold it very carefully and put it in the drawer beside my bed, the drawer where I keep things that matter.
My broken ankle might be healing, but now, unfortunately, it appears I’ve got a broken heart.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Archie
I do my first solo gig since Leo left on a Saturday.
I don’t need someone to be my legs because the walking boot means I can actually move now. Granted, I’m clunking around the room like a pirate with a peg leg, but fortunately, that works for today’s theme.
I don’t have a sidekick. It’s just me, a bag of props, and a room full of kids who’ve never known a version of Captain Giggles that came with backup.
It’s fine. I was doing this alone for a year before Leo showed up in hooves and a grumpy attitude. I can do this alone now.
So I conduct the “Who believes in magic?” call and response, and twenty-four children scream “We do!” and I don’t point at anyone afterward to say “I’m the proof” in that flat, long-suffering voice that somehow made the children laugh harder than any joke I’ve ever written.
During my magic show, I reach sideways for a prop without looking, the way I’ve done dozens of times, and my hand closes on air. I’m used to Leo having the prop ready, held out at exactly the right angle, his face conveying that he considers the entire enterprise beneath his dignity while his hands tell a completely different story.
I grab the prop myself. It takes four extra seconds. Nobody notices except me.
But the hollow feeling inside me grows.
After the party, I pack up my props in the hallway. On my way out, the birthday girl tells me I’m the best magician she’s ever seen, and I choose to believe her because she’s five and five-year-olds don’t lie about these things.
In an Uber on the way home, my phone is in my hand before I’ve made a conscious decision to get it out of my pocket. I scroll through my contact list and hover over Leo’s name. I want to tell him about the kid who asked if pirates have dental plans. He’d do that thing where his mouth twitches, but he refuses to commit to a full smile.
But I honestly don’t think I can handle a reminder that Leo exists out there in this world and is continuing on without me.
That evening, Jaymee drags me to a pub quiz. Apparently, her solution to my moping is to surround me with cheap wine, obscure trivia, and Londoners who take general knowledge extremely seriously.
I end up wedged into a corner booth with Jaymee, Billy, and Jaymee’s cousin Dan and his girlfriend Priya, who has already corrected Billy twice on his pronunciation of “quinoa.”
Our team name is Questionable Intentions, which I’m unreasonably proud of.
“Right,” Dan says, pushing his glasses back onto his face. “I’ve got sports covered. Priya’s got science. Billy’s on entertainment. Jaymee’s on music. Archie, what about you? What do you do for a job?”
“I’m a children’s entertainer and dog walker,” I say.
“So you can do…what? Arts and crafts?”
He grins as he says it. He’s friendly enough. But there’s a flicker of something underneath, the assumption that the children’s entertainer with the walking boot is here to make up numbers.
Three months ago, I would have leaned into it, maybe made a joke about my specialist subject being balloon animals and let everyone laugh.
But something has shifted inside me since Leo left. Something I can’t quite unshift.
You are not too much.
His note. Tucked into my sock drawer like a grenade with nice handwriting.
