When His Favorite Joke Walked Away Novels & Stories

I just wanted to get away and was just saying all kinds of nonsense that came to mind. I marched away almost tripping into the rose garden then plucked one out, flinching as I got pricked in the process, and held it out in a triumphant display. “Ah!” I said and marched away feeling like a bloody idiot and knowing he must think I am an imbecile. But the joke was on him. I left without telling him who I was.

Being banished had buttered my lying skills, and it was a plus if you look at it from this angle. "And your luck, to the no ladies.” I faked a smile. More like my luck. “By luck, you mean?” He questioned. “Less drama.” I continued in my silly conversation. “Oh, yeah.” He stepped out. "It means Special Guest, satisfied now?” He didn't wait for me to defend myself before he closed the door and walked away, his steps grew fainter with each passing minute.

he joked, “But first, if you want to, we’ll go to dinner with the weirdos.” Roxie jabbed him playfully on the arm, “Well, if tonight goes well and you behave, I just might give you a reward when we get back..” “You know what that does to me when you say things like that,” Walker growled, shifting in his seat, “I can’t go eat with them and have a raging boner..” “Did you just make a dog joke?” “I wasn’t meaning to, but now we know where your mind is.” “Fuck, I’m never going to get rid of you, am I?” Roxie teased, making her way to the room where her painting sat along with the piano, “What is this? Shoot, I think it got damaged..”

“Or is this your favorite hobby now?” As I expected, he didn’t answer me, but something in his face wasn’t right. His jaw was tight, like whatever he came here to do was already pissing him off. For a second, I wondered if he didn’t want to be here at all… and that made me hate him even more. “We’re leaving,” he said. I blinked, then I let out a frustrating laugh, because what the hell kind of joke was that? “Leaving?” I repeated. “Wow. Took you long enough. So what, you suddenly grew a conscience?”

But I carried it through every class and every corridor and all the way to the end of the day because the joke had landed somewhere true and that was the part I couldn't put down. Tyler found me at the east exit at the end of the day. He looked at my face and said nothing for a moment, which was the most useful thing he could have done. We walked to the main path. "Bad afternoon?" *The joke stayed with me, I know it shouldn't have.* "It doesn't have to make sense to affect you," he said. "That's not how it works." I looked at the path. *I just need to sleep.* "Okay," he said simply.

I stood there in silence, long enough for the snow to blanket the ground, long enough for a decade of passion and resentment to vanish like snowflakes in the wind. At last, when he seemed to feel my presence and our gazes locked, I walked away. For a fleeting moment, clarity flickered in his eyes, and he took a step to follow, but was quickly swallowed by a tide of jumbled memories. He grasped at a snow rabbit that happened by, asking, "Have you seen my Fiona?" I slipped away into the night, leaving the North to its Fiona-less fate, under a sky painted with crimson auroras.

Hugh didn’t wait long before crouching in the courtyard, rubbing his eyes from sleep, and complaining that he wanted to go home. I pulled him back firmly. “You’re my best friend. If you don’t stay, who will be here with me?” I said, rubbing my reddened, frozen hands. Taking the chance, Hugh dashed two meters away. “Sure, I’m your friend, but this? This isn’t something friends can help with. I’m just here for the show. I’m out of here. Bye!” He made a funny face at me and ran off. My legs had gone stiff from the cold, so I could only sigh and continue working on the snowmen.

According to the Moretti family's rules, my twin sister Chloe and I were supposed to inherit our grandmother's trust when we turned eighteen. But the night before the trust was unlocked, my mother came to us with red-rimmed eyes and told us the family was three million dollars in debt. We needed to pay it off immediately. My fiancé Damian held my hand and moved our wedding date up to the end of the year. He promised we'd face it together. That night, Chloe and I both signed the waiver. Three days later, I got my Harvard acceptance letter with a full scholarship. I rushed home early to share the news—and walked straight into the living room projector still running. On the screen was a g

I finally stopped him at the bend of the trail. The evening light fell through the trees, making his thin face look even darker. “I just want to give back what you gave me.” “I do not need it. Staying away from me is the only repayment I want.” I told no one about my decision to leave Ironhold Academy. On my last training day, I shared a simple meal of roasted meat with a few close teammates. Orion was the last to find out I was going to a Pack in the north. On the day I left, he followed my car for a long time. The forest road curved and turned, and his figure kept appearing and disappearing between the trees.

My old life, performing without me, and me in the audience with cocoa. At nine, Jack took the podium for the foundation remarks. He was good at it; he'd always been good at it; the charm was real, that was never the lie. He told the room the foundation was family, that family was everything, and then he told a joke about seizing the day, and my whole body went cold, because the joke was ours. He'd written it at fourteen, in the treehouse, on the lid of a biscuit tin. It had been ours for sixteen years, private currency, and he was spending it in public on a room full of strangers to sound like a man who'd invented joy.