Bad Origami

C’mon, she says, you promised you’d share. Can’t you at least give me one?

I start to say no chance in hell but Addy holds her hands out like gimme-gimme and makes those big old puppy-dog eyes, which I know shouldn’t work on me but my God they do. They really do.

Alright, I say, just one.

I hand her the paper cone and she breaks into the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, and I just think to myself, eff it, if it makes her that happy she can just have it. So we both pretend we don’t notice that she takes three chips instead of one.

They’re my favorite chips, too, from the shop on the corner of High and Victoria, right next to our old school. At first we only went cause it was convenient but by the third or fourth time we were like, wait a minute these are actually wicked good. They come in paper cones made from yesterday’s news, so you can read it after you’re done, if you’re the brainiac type, which I’m not. It’s damn near impossible anyways with all the grease stains. Addy always does, though, unfolds the whole thing and lays it out flat and tries to piece the story together.

Sometimes she makes me little cranes and flowers after she’s done. Origami, she calls it. When she gives them to me I tell her that’s grody or that smells like a deep fryer or that’s gotta violate some sort of health code, but when I get home I put them all in a shoebox I keep at the bottom of my closet.

And now she’s laughing, and talking, probably telling me about some book she read or some film I just have to see, and she doesn’t even realize that I’m not paying her any attention. I don’t want to focus on what she’s saying. I was never any good with words.

Bad Origami

I just want to pay attention to the way she says it, how she keeps on laughing even though she’s the only one talking. Normally, I’d think anyone who did that was cracked out. I don’t think that about Addy. I want to hear her laugh forever.

I shove the last chip in my mouth and unfold the newspaper to make a hat, which is all the origami I know, except the paper is too soggy and wrinkly and it turns out I don’t remember so good after all, so I end up just sorta dumping it on my head. Ta-da, I say, and Addy starts laughing again, and I can hear it so loud it’s like it surrounds me, and a kid on the other side of the road stares at us but I don’t care. I love the way she laughs, so long and loud. I’m glad to be the one to make her laugh. I want to live inside of her laughter and stay there long enough that maybe one day I’ll start laughing too.