Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
PETER SQUINTS AT ME. “You what?”
“I mean, not literally. Well, actually. Maybe literally.” BE FUCKING NORMAL!!! God, I wish his stupid hair would just lie flat and stop being so … humble? I’m having a hard enough time trying to keep my grip on reality without having to look at his annoyingly endearing bed head.
“What exactly are we talking about here, Syd?”
I throw my hands up. “Fuck, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Ms. Jegstrup gave me this packet, and I just had this idea. And I felt like if I didn’t tell it to you, I’d lose it or something.”
Peter is grinning. Like full-on beaming. Now I feel like I’m the one in my underwear. I cross my arms. “What? Why do you look like a clown that just snorted DMT?”
Peter laughs. “I don’t know. I’ve just never seen you like this.”
I cross my arms harder. “Like what?”
“So … unsettled.”
“I’m literally always unsettled.”
“Yeah, but this is different.” I can tell what he’s getting at, but mercifully he doesn’t elaborate. Instead he does his level best to control his unbridled joy and says, “Okay, so do you want to tell me what this idea is? This idea that apparently necessitated a middle-of-the-night—”
“Early evening.”
“—drop-in? I think you mentioned something about hot-dog distribution?”
“Well, when you say it like that it sounds stupid. And shit, I don’t know, maybe it is stupid.
But I was thinking about what you did with Gordon today.
I think maybe we should do more of that.
Give people—Clockers—hot dogs. Or not necessarily hot dogs, but like we could find them, you know?
In the city? And just do a tiny, nice thing for them.
Nothing heroic. Give them a hot dog or flowers or whatever.
Just, like, change … something. Like you said. ”
I can feel the childishness of the words spilling out of my mouth right now, but the shiny purple packet under my desk is stuck in my mind—fucking insisting on being noticed—and I force myself not to take the words back.
I just let them sit there all cold and naked and exposed while he looks them over.
Peter raises his eyebrows. “We?”
God, that’s what he’s focused on? Fucking boys. I shrug, ignoring the tug in my stomach. “Yeah. We. Unless you have something better to do. Which, clearly you don’t.”
“You’re right. I don’t. I’m in. And even if I did, I’d still be in.”
“Okay, but you have to be sure. Because it could get fucking weird. And morbid and—”
“Sydney. I am absolutely all the way in.”
I shift on my heels. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Well, now that that’s settled … I guess I’m going to let you get back to sleep?
” Part of me wants to stay and flip through his books and see which ones he considered worthy of writing in the margins, ask him what his favorite passages are and which books are overhyped.
But another part of me wants this entire thing to be over so I can sit in my car and replay it in my mind, looking for flaws. I take a step toward the door.
“Wait.” Peter reaches out and touches my wrist. “What was that thing you said before? About Jegstrup. What did she give you?”
“Oh. Nothing.” I really don’t have it in me to explain the whole NYU ice cream convo to him. “It doesn’t matter. The point is the hot dogs.”
“Right.” Peter drops his hand. He looks like he wants to ask me more, like he desperately wants to know what brought about this change in my otherwise shriveled-up Grinch-heart. But I know he won’t ask me. He’s too careful, too considerate. He nods. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I say, and it feels like a promise.
I duck out of Peter’s room and walk downstairs.
His mom is on the couch, but she gets up when she sees me.
She walks me to the door and then sort of pauses like she’s considering if she should say something or not.
Apparently she decides she should, because she leans in to me, the sweet acid of her wine breath warm on my cheek.
For one crazy second, I panic that she’s going to ask if I’m on birth control or something, but she just says, “I’m glad he’s got a friend. ”
“Oh. Yeah. Thank you,” I say, patting her arm.
She must be totally sloshed or one of those moms who worry about everything.
Because really. It’s not as if someone like Peter with that face and that brain didn’t have a million friends at his old school.
For a second, I almost let myself wonder what kind of mom mine would be now, but then I stop.
I can’t afford to go all dissociative in Peter’s foyer.
His mom nods and gives me a hug, which is weird but also kind of nice. And as I walk to my truck, I have this strange feeling in my chest that I can’t quite place.
Oh god. I think … I think it might be something like hope.
I slide into my truck and turn it on, the sound of one of Mom’s favorites, Alanis Morissette, coming through the speakers. And I think I feel an actual honest-to-god smile creeping onto my face.
I’m going to do something about these clocks with Peter Beckett.