Halfway to Love | A Joanne Fanfiction

Fourteen

Joe didn't wake up that morning until gone midday. He'd arrived home just after eight, but his entire evening had been taken over by paradoxes and confessions and quite frankly, his mind was completely frazzled. He found himself checking Instagram just to prove the messages he remembered were there, and not some sort of dream. But no, Oti Mabuse had spoken to him, and he had confessed to feelings that he hadn't even properly admitted to himself yet.

"Byron!" he called mid-yawn as he made his way to his kitchen.

"Yeah bru? What's up?" His roommate asked as he joined his friend.

"This is going to sound a bit of a random question, but how good is your maths?"

"Umm not terrible, I wasn't half bad at school, but that was a while ago." He replied, not even questioning why he was being asked.

"I need your help." Joe said. "You know I was supposed to meet Dianne last night?"

"Yeah, sorry I wasn't home when you got back. How did it go?"

"Well, umm how do I say this? She sent me on a trail through the park to meet her and by the time I got there, she'd gone."

"Aww that sucks. How comes you've got your camera back then?"

"She left it, along with a note apologising for not staying." He said, rolling his eyes at his roommate's preoccupation of the camera than the important issue at hand.

"So what's the problem?" Byron asked innocently, continuing to deliberately ignore Joe's dilemma until he spelt it out.

"I wanted to meet her!" he cried out in exasperation. "I was really looking forward to meeting her, and I know this sounds weird but I like her. I wanted to see her, get to know her, not get my camera back. But now I have my camera and no reason to meet her."

Byron was about to respond when Joe continued to speak. "Anyway I messaged her to see if she would meet up with me another time, and two hours later all I got was this in response." He said, opening his phone to show Byron the message.

"Ahh so that's why you were asking me about maths."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes well about ten minutes later I got a message from her roommate and essentially, she likes me too." He said, and Byron tried to contain a smile at the fact that his friend's face lit up as he revealed the news.

"Aww that's great! I'm happy for you Joe."

"Thanks mate but that's no use yet. Apparently, she's been hurt before so solving this paradox, from what I understand is the only way to get her to let me in. But I'm awful at maths and google has only confused me."

"I'd love to help you- but isn't the entire point of this that you win her trust by doing it yourself?" he asked.

Joe sighed, knowing that he was exactly right.

Three months later...

Dianne was tired. She'd just finished her first arena tour with strictly, and had had the time of her life. London, and England were finally becoming more like home, and although living apart from her family was still difficult, the excitement of the tour and her Christmas visit had helped her a lot. She was still a dreamer, still positive and had all but-forgotten her encounter with the YouTuber the previous year.

She slumped on the sofa, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram as countdown played in the background. Her heart stopped.

Joe's Instagram story. A simple picture of him smiling widely with the caption "I've finally solved Zeno's paradox."

"Oti!" she called immediately. "Come here."

To her credit, her roommate was immediately by her side. "What is it?"

Wordlessly, Dianne showed her phone to her friend, trying unsuccessfully to disguise her smile.

"Yes Di! That's your cue- what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Do you think he'd go and see me perform? I'm going on tour with Kevin and Karen next week so I won't really have much time to see him. Besides, I want to show him what I'm good at." She explained, a shy blush painting her cheeks pink.

"I think it's perfect."

Dianne smiled widely. "I'll send the tickets then."

Less than three days later, Joe found himself booking train and hotel tickets to Liverpool for the next weekend. He was excited, he'd always loved the city, and as apologetic as Dianne had been about not being able to get tickets to a show closer to home, he realised that she could have invited him to a show halfway across the world and he still would turn up.

He cursed himself at the smile that had crept up as he thought about her. Over the past few days, they'd been messaging non-stop, and he found himself falling deeper and deeper with her jokes and questionable spellings. She made him laugh, and he'd never met anyone like her before. Immediately, the hours and hours of trying to work out an answer to the paradox had been worth it. He just hoped that he'd live up to her expectations, knowing that those who watched his videos had the tendency to believe he was someone superhuman rather than just an ordinary guy.

Oti, who had been watching their situation from afar, couldn't help but worry at the prospect of the two meeting. Dianne had been broken after their potential encounters, she couldn't help but worry at the prospect of the same thing happening again. She knew her friend, and she wasn't anywhere near convinced that she would stay if she was given the slightest opportunity to run again. She dialled a familiar name, wanting to at least lessen the chances of Dianne doing something that she'd regret.

"Hi Oti, what can I do for you?"

"Karen, do you have a minute?"

"Of course. Give me two seconds and I'll be right with you."

Oti smiled at the muffled sounds of dogs barking and the shuffling of padded feet.

"Right, what can I do for you?"

She wasted no time in getting straight to the point. "Your Liverpool show. Dianne has Joe Sugg coming to watch her."

Karen was just about to interrupt her when Oti said "Yes Karen the Joe Sugg she was obsessed with a few months back. It turns out he likes her too."

They laughed for a few moments "What can does that have to do with me?"

"Now don't laugh but the last two times Dianne has tried to meet this guy she's ended up running away. Now he's not given up yet, I certainly would have with the amount of curveballs she's thrown at him, but I just don't want anything to repeated and for her to let someone in for once. I've spoken to him a little, he seems like a genuinely good guy and she really likes him. But he might need a little pushing to run after her if he needs to this time. He couldn't hurt a fly by the looks of him, but you know Di-."

Karen laughed loudly down the phone. "Of course-I'll push him towards her and lock them in a room if that's what it takes."

"I knew I could count on you for a reason."