“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“He likes to give me magazine articles. I’ll open it later.”
I grab the envelope and pull it out, then bring it around so it’s between us.
“Open it now! Maybe it’s something funny.”
“I can pretty much guarantee it’s not.”
“Read the headline, at least. Then we can call this year the ‘Year of’ whatever the headline is.”
Max smiles and shakes his head. “You’re crazy, but you’re cute.”
“It works for me,” I say with a smile, so glad we get to do this again. To play, to spar, to simply have fun (and kiss a lot more).
Max opens the envelope, then removes a folded piece of white paper with handwriting on it. There’s something else in the envelope, but I can’t tell what it is. I look up to examine Max’s frown, because this is not what he expected to find. In fact, he actually turns away from me and hunches his back against the wind.
“What?” I ask, trying to see.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispers.
“What?”
Max turns back around, his fist clenched around the paper, which he’s folded tightly.
“Big E gave me an airline gift card. With a note saying he wants me to go to Seattle.”
“Okay. That’s . . . random.”
“Well, my uncle invited me to come there before I start college. I can stay with him and do an internship at his tech company, and travel. I didn’t think anyone knew about it.”
I have no idea what to say to this, and this new possibility of Max being gone and not with me.
“I’m a little blown away,” continues Max. “Too bad I can’t accept the gift.”
Max stuffs the envelope safely back into his pocket and reaches for me. He kisses me deeply and it’s almost enough to make all the Thought Worms stop their frenzy in my head.
There’s one for the many months I just saw playing out, me and Max and school and home. Him giving me whatever I need to get through my final semester.
There’s another Thought Worm for how much Max regrets putting off college for Eliza.
Max regrets! the Thought Worm squeals.
It’s almost loud enough to make me open my mouth and say something similar to him.
Suddenly, I hear Ari’s voice call, “Guys!”
We turn and there’s Ari and Camden moving toward us, together.
“Happy New Year!” says Ari, and they’re wrapping their arms around us until we’re in a four-way hug.
I close my eyes and let the sound of the wind drown out all that noise inside me.
Max
ON THE SUBWAY, KENDALL AND I GRIP THE SAME pole, our bodies pressed close. Foreheads touching.
The train will stop any second at Seventy-Seventh Street. It’s where I get off. Kendall, Ari, and Camden will continue on, to crash at Emerson’s now-ex-boyfriend’s apartment. Beyond that, I have no idea what comes next.
“This is me,” I say as the train slows. What else should I add? I’ll call you! We can go on an actual non-fucked-up date! I really want to kiss her good-bye, but feel suddenly shy about that.
Kendall nods, her eyes wide. They dart around us, asking questions. Searching for answers.
The subway doors hiss open and I let go of the pole. Step backward with my hands raised in the lamest farewell gesture ever. Then I blink hard and turn around. Leap from the train onto the platform.
The train pulls away and I’m bereft again. This is what it felt like in the lobby of Taj’s apartment building. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave Kendall. It’s why I turned around and rode the elevator straight back upstairs.
Fortunately, by some miracle, Kendall’s standing on the platform next to me. I almost jump when I see her.
“Not yet,” she says. “Not like that.”
Thank God.
I smile and hold out my hand. She takes it. We step forward.
When we get to Big E’s building, we still haven’t said anything to each other. I haven’t really even looked at her face since the last block, because when I did, she looked confused and upset.
“Happy New Year,” I say to Tony in the lobby. He echoes it back. It’s cool to have this simple, one-size-fits-all thing everyone can communicate to everyone else.
In the elevator, Kendall stares at the security camera mounted in the top corner. She squints at it, as if trying to see something inside.
Big E’s asleep when we enter the apartment, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on the TV. I still can’t believe his gift. I wonder when he got it. It must have been before Christmas, before our time together here. I wonder if it took him a while to decide to give it to me.
Kendall walks ahead, straight to my room. I follow her. Which should feel strange, since this is not her turf, but it doesn’t feel strange at all. Once we’re both inside the room, I close the door. Glance once at Freddie Mercury, who seems much less pissed off now. He seems psyched for us, actually. Kendall sheds her coat and moves toward me.
We kiss for a long time. Let me just say, when you’ve only kissed someone in weird settings, kissing in the normalcy of a bedroom feels like a whole extra level of amazing.
I step out of my coat. Off with our boots. Now we’re on the bed. There’s a red glowing question mark in the back of my head. What does she want? What does she expect? Those questions apply to me, too.
“Just so you know,” says Kendall, drawing away from me, her breath jagged. “I’m not having sex with you. Not here, not tonight.”
“Okay,” I say. “Good.” Now I know that’s what I want, too. My brain does at least. My body will come around eventually.
“I wanted more of tonight, that’s all. Even if it’s time while we’re asleep.”
“Are you tired?”
“No way.”
“Me neither.”
Still, we lie down on the bed. She fits perfectly into the crook of my arm, her head on my chest.
I feel like this is where we’re supposed to talk. To open up, share our secrets. Thing is, we already did all that. Maybe now, it’s time to simply be together. Many minutes pass. I’m pretty sure she’s asleep. I start to drift off myself.
“Max?” comes Kendall’s voice, piercing the silence.
“Mmmm?”
She pauses. She really wants to say something, I can tell. It’s a struggle to stay conscious enough to hear it.
“Never mind,” she says.
My eyes fall closed again. All I feel is exhausted and the true existence of her next to me.
In the morning, I’ll be ready to be whatever person she needs.
JANUARY 1
Max
WHEN I WAKE UP, IT’S LATE. I CAN TELL FROM THE light leaking through the shades.
It takes a few seconds for it all to rush back in and I turn to Kendall, already smiling.
But she’s not there.
I prop myself up and look around the room. Her coat and boots are gone, too.
The envelope from Big E sits on the night table. She’s written on the back of it.
If you don’t use this and stay here because of me, you’ll always regret it. I don’t want to be part of that. We’ll be doomed from the start. Go to Seattle. Have an amazing time. Please don’t call or text or anything for a while, it’ll make this so much harder than it already is.
I loved these last few days. Call me when you get back.
Happy New Year.
K.
I read the note three times, trying to make sure I understand what’s happened. And why. And also trying to understand what I feel.
Which is, set free. This freedom is terrifying but now I know how much I wanted it.
I’m going to Seattle.
Everything between now and September looks completely different. It looks the way it should.
I close my eyes and imagine Kendall in my arms, her hair in my face, and know that will have to be enough for now, and for a while, and maybe for good. That hurt
s, but it’s not a bad hurt.
When I can finally venture out into the living room, Big E is awake, watching the news. I sink down into the chair next to him. After a minute of us simply sitting there, he mutes the TV and turns toward me.
“Thank you,” I say. “For the . . . envelope.”
He stares at me for a moment. The slightest twitch of a smile on his lips. “Your father told me about the invitation to Seattle. He also told me you were being an idiot and convinced yourself you had to stay here and earn money for tuition.”
“That’s all true.”
“Whatever you and your dad can’t cover, I will.”
“Big E . . . you don’t have to—”
“Of course I don’t fucking have to. Are you going to use the card?”
“Yes.”
“Great. When are you leaving?”
“I don’t know. I have to figure some things out first.”
“Like what?”
I open my mouth to answer, and realize I have no idea how.
“I guess I could call Uncle Jake today,” I finally say. “And I could leave right away. Maybe even tomorrow.”
My grandfather searches my face. For what, I don’t know. But for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I think maybe he’ll find it.
“Good,” he says. “Don’t waste a single day if you don’t have to.”
Okay, then. Maybe I can actually do this. I get up and turn back to him one more time.
“I’ll send you postcards, but you have to actually read your mail.”
“I’m agreeable to that arrangement.”
We’re silent again. I know that any second, his attention is going to drift back to the TV. Or maybe it won’t and he’ll reach out to hug me. I’m not sure which would be worse.
“I have to go pack now,” I say.
“Be gone, then.” Big E waves his hand, as if I’m a pest and he wants me to scat. But he’s full-on smiling now.
Be gone.
Yes. It’s time for that. Funny thing is, I’ve never felt so present.
Kendall
ERICA’S WORKING THIS MORNING, LOOKING CRISP and 500 percent more awake than anyone else in the coffee shop. Honestly, it hadn’t crossed my mind that she wouldn’t be working. I couldn’t imagine her not being here, waiting for Max and me to show up. Although as I slide onto a stool at the counter, I realize it’s very possible she’s forgotten about us. Maybe she throws out her dare to a dozen people a day.
I wait until she comes behind the counter to grab a pitcher of coffee.
“Hi,” I say, waving to catch her eye. “Erica, right?”
She smiles politely. Yeah, no way does she remember me.
“Good morning,” she says.
“I was in here a few days ago with my friend. Super-tall guy?”
Erica squints as if trying to see into her own blurry past of customers.
“You gave us a challenge, to do seven acts of kindness to strangers before New Year’s.”
She puts down the coffee pitcher. “Yes. That’s right.”
“Well, we did them.”
“You did them.”
“All seven. We have proof.”
Erica smiles for real. “Do you, now?” She looks off toward the tables. “Hold on. I’ll be right with you.”
She moves to one of the tables, refills several coffee cups, then returns, placing the pitcher gently back onto its warmer.
“Okay. I’m all yours.” She leans her elbows on the counter, like she’s waiting for me to tell her a story.
I pull out my notebook and I show and I tell. As I’m doing that, I realize that I’ve actually been able to finish something I started. It’s not my novel about the end of the world but it’s better, it’s about the beginning of something, at least for me, filled with characters more interesting than anyone I could make up.
When I’m done, Erica just says, “Wow. I had no idea that you’d take me seriously.”
“Well, we did.”
“I promised you a fantastic breakfast, didn’t I?”
I’ve thought about this.
“Yes, but my friend’s not here and it wouldn’t feel right to have it without him. Can you give it to someone today who seems like they need it?”
Erica laughs. “Sure, sweetie. That won’t be hard, believe me. I promised you a photo on the wall, too.”
“That I’ll take you up on. Can I send you one to use?”
I show her the picture of Max and me at the penguin house. We look tense and awkward, like someone forced us to be there. We are not those people anymore. But I love that that version of us will live on the coffee shop wall: confused and lost, drifting our way through some kind of purpose while surrounded by the rest of the world. Not knowing, yet, what we were capable of. Not knowing that it would all come together at midnight.
Ari, Camden, and I grab the last forward-facing three-person seat on the Metro-North train, and this is important. I couldn’t bear to ride backward, it would be too symbolic. But I am, after all that, going home and back to school. I am doing it because I know I can, or at the very least I know I can try and that’s enough for now.
Ari and Camden let me have the window. Before the train’s even left Grand Central, they’re both asleep, Ari’s head in Camden’s lap, and I’ll be honest, that stings. Because if I hadn’t left Big E’s the way I did, if I hadn’t scribbled that note quickly before I changed my mind, Max and I might be doing something similar. Everything would be different.
But it would also be wrong.
Right should feel better than wrong but at this second, not so much. There are at least twenty different moments for me to replay in my head from last night with Max and let me tell you, every single one of them causes me physical pain.
Finally, we’re on the move and as we travel out of the tunnel and north through Harlem, I’m determined to think about something else.
Jamie? asks a Thought Worm.
Okay. What about Jamie? I picture his face right before he ran after Eliza and expect to feel angry and guilty. But all I feel is relief. Every minute of being with Jamie took effort, and not that I have anything against effort, but when you experience a different way of being with a person, stuff begins to make sense. Jamie and I were never going to happen, at least not in any real or lasting way. It all went down the way it needed to, for him and for Eliza, too.
So I think about Luna. I open my notebook and sketch what I remember about her. I start with her eyes, and then her mouth. The rest is a little fuzzier in my memory, but I go on impulse.
Then it’s time to start writing her up as a character. I scrawl her name, but when I try to write more, I find I can’t do it. Instead, I add the word Dear in front of Luna, and now the words come.
I tell her about everything that happened in the days since she stepped off that curb. It takes me most of the train ride. My handwriting is shaky and it’s a struggle to keep it legible. When I get home, I’ll send this to the hospital and maybe she’ll get it, maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll be able to read it herself or maybe someone will have to read it to her. Maybe she can’t even hear or understand it. These are things I have no control over.
I take a picture of the finished letter for extra proof that yes, I did this.
The Hudson River sparkles with midday light and when it does that, it’s hard not to feel like maybe everything will be okay.
JANUARY 2
Max
A LAST-MINUTE TICKET MEANS GETTING STUCK IN the middle seat. I’m not sure who seems more annoyed by my presence: the woman in a tracksuit on my left by the aisle, or Suede Vest Guy on my right by the window. I’m basically a folded-up human accordion, my kneecaps pressing hard into the seat in front of me. Every time the little kid in that seat moves, it jiggles. Ow.
I check my phone again.
I don’t know who I’m expecting to hear from. Everyone went back to school today, including Kendall (I fucking hope she went back to school today). It’s te
n thirty and I wish I knew what class she has now. I wish I knew what she’s thinking and feeling and remembering. I start writing her a “good luck at school” text message . . . then stop myself.
Honor what she said about no contact, doofus. Be cool.
I lean forward to peek out the window. Outside on the tarmac, there’s white snow and gray concrete. A pale silver sky beckons. No more of that palette for me, for a while. I’m going back to colors. Not the artificial holiday kind, but real colors. Ones that occur in nature. Especially green. Green goes a long way toward making you feel good about shit.
Suede Vest Guy leans his forehead against the edge of the window. Hugs himself and sighs. I’m crowding his personal space. I’m sure he was betting on my seat being empty. I’m going to make this whole flight miserable just with my existence.
A flight attendant’s voice comes over the plane’s PA system, telling us to turn off all our electronic devices.
The guy glances up at the sound of it. I can see his face for the first time. It’s a kind, quiet face. His cheeks are wet with tears.
At first, I turn away. Dude, that’s embarrassing.
Tracksuit woman senses something and glances at us both. When she sees the silently weeping guy in the window seat, she snaps her head back to the in-flight magazine she was reading. I can tell it’s a gesture of respect. She’s giving him privacy.
I’m not going to do that.
I unfold my arm and touch the guy lightly on the shoulder.
“Sir?” I say.
The guy turns to me, clearly mortified. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Are you all right?” I catch his eyes and can tell he understands what I’m really saying. Do you need help? I can give you help.
He wipes his cheeks and smiles a bit. “No, man. I’m not all right. But I will be.” He smiles weakly and turns back to the window. I guess that’s all I’m going to get of the story.
Suddenly, he turns to me again. More composed. “Thank you for asking, though. I really appreciate it.”
Now he’s the one to continue the conversation with a look. You asked, his expression says. Not everyone would.
Together at Midnight Page 19
