Chapter Forty-Nine
Forty-Nine
THE SUN IS DROPPING outside my window, casting my room in that weird dusty-blue color that comes right before night.
Peter props himself up on his elbow and drags his other thumb across my puffy lips. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
He sighs and lies back, his arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I can feel the energy rolling off him—like he needs to say something to me.
“Tell me your favorite line in a book.”
“Ever?” Peter rolls back over to face me.
“Yeah. Ever.”
“Man,” he says. “That’s kind of impossible. I think it probably changes depending on what’s going on in my life. Like some days you really need Jane Austen, and other days, David Sedaris, you know?”
“And now?”
“Dickinson.” Peter pauses and looks me in the eyes. “‘I think of love, and …’” He swallows, his Adam’s apple jumping. “‘ … And you. And my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.’”
Love.
My breath gets tangled up in my chest and I have to remind myself to breathe normally. Just … breathe. “Peter …”
The seconds tick by. I should say something.
I should tell him the truth. And the truth is that I love him too.
That I love the way he reads whatever he wants and that he’s always learning.
That I love the way he looks at other people like they’re good.
That I love the way he rubs his neck when he’s nervous and that sometimes when he’s reading his eyebrows get all crinkled like he’s trying to make the words part of him.
And that when he holds my hand, I feel like maybe the world won’t crush me.
That being next to him makes even the worst parts of me seem okay.
But maybe just being here is enough. He knows.
Peter reaches out and touches my cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”
I put my hand over his face. “Okay, that’s enough. No more looking at me.”
“I mean it,” he says, pulling my hand down. “You’re—”
“If you say something like ravishing I’ll actually die.”
Peter laughs. “How about … pulchritudinous?”
“Wow, an SAT word. You really know how to take a girl’s breath away.”
“Seriously, though, Syd. It’s like …” He brushes the hair out of my face. “It’s like everyone else is a star, but you’re a quasar. And like, yeah, there’s a black hole at the center of it—”
“Thanks.”
“—but the light around it … You’re the brightest thing in this universe.”
There are a million different things racing through my mind, a million different things I want to say to him. But I just roll my eyes and say, “Oh my god, you’re so obsessed with me.”
Peter laughs. “I am!”
“God, take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
“You know what?” Peter’s eyes light up. “I think I will.”
“Will what?”
“Take a picture.” He grabs my phone off the nightstand and pushes the camera icon. “I don’t think we have a single photo of the two of us.”
He holds the phone up and we push our heads together to cram into the frame.
“This is exceedingly cheesy, you recognize this, right, Peter?”
“You’re still doing it, you recognize that, right, Sydney?”
He counts to three and he takes the photo.
“Aw, come on,” he says. “You weren’t even smiling.”
“Yes I was.”
“You were smirking. I want to see teeth this time.”
I roll my eyes but then he squeezes my side, and I let out an uncontrolled squeal-laugh like a twelve-year-old, and he takes the picture.
He’s still holding the phone above our heads, the two of us reflected in the small rectangular screen.
“One more,” Peter says. “One, two—”
A burst of pink lights up the room.
72:00:00