Chapter Fifty-Six
Fifty-Six
“SO, WHERE TO NOW?” I squint, holding my hand over my eyes, shielding myself from the morning sun. And the clock. I make my face and my voice go normal, upbeat even.
“Oh, suddenly you’re letting me run this show?” Peter raises his eyebrows.
“No. I just mean, I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
The city is already fully awake and moving. Cars honking, people chugging Venti coffees, suits bumping into each other, jockeying to defend their little square of space on this planet.
“Let’s get something to eat and go to the park. Oh! There’s also this really cool bookstore I’ve been wanting to go to.”
“Great,” I say. And then I take his hand, threading our fingers together.
I don’t have time for hesitation or bullshit anymore.
Peter looks slightly surprised, and I mean, I get it, this is kind of a wild 180 for me, but he also looks happy.
And that’s all that matters. We walk down the sidewalk, holding hands, our two little squares of space now one rectangle.
We grab some bagels and coffees and he points out more stoops and architecture, and tells me little facts about the city. And if I try hard enough I can almost convince myself that it’s just another normal day. That we’re two teenagers walking around, talking about nothing. Invincible.
But we’re not.
Is it better or worse to know?
That question pulls at me, threatens to drag me all the way under. But I still don’t tell him.
Later he asks if my feet are hurting from walking so much, but I say no. I tell him it’s because I’m a runner. My feet are used to much worse. But really, I can’t feel anything right now. It’s like I’m not inside my body at all. We don’t take any taxis or subways. We just walk.
We make it to the bookshop he wanted to visit. A hidden place called Cygnus. It’s this all-brick narrow little place with two dark blue doors. Peter opens one and holds it for me as I slip inside.
I’ll have to get used to opening my own doors again.
The place is cozy and warm, lit tea candles on the antique checkout desk, giant reading chairs tucked away in different corners of the store. The ceiling is painted a dark blue with little golden stars and constellations dotting the painted sky.
I can feel Peter come up behind me and bend down, his lips at my ear. He points to one of the clusters on the ceiling. “That’s Cassiopeia.”
“Really?”
“No.” He laughs. “Well, maybe. I have no idea.”
I turn around to face him. He pushes his gold-rimmed glasses up and grins at me. And I tilt my face up and kiss him, because, Jesus, how could I not?
I spend the next two hours, thirty-two minutes, and eighteen seconds watching him browse the shelves.
Sometimes he’ll stop and read me a funny or sweet or sometimes gut-wrenching passage from a favorite book.
I watch the way he runs his finger over a spine, feeling the bumps of the letters.
I watch the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he finds something hilariously sarcastic on a page.
I love the way he bites his bottom lip when he finds a line that he thinks is so unique and interesting that he has to read it out loud to me.
I try to memorize all of him. To collect these little facts, these tiny Peter-things, and hold them, like pebbles in my pocket.
Like maybe if I keep collecting them, eventually they’ll weigh enough to keep me from floating away.
Peter keeps asking if we’re spending too much time here, but I keep telling him no.
There’s no such thing as too much time anymore.
I slip off to use the bathroom—going as fast as I can so I don’t miss any more time—but when I come back, he’s at the checkout, laughing with the old man behind the counter who hands him a small paper bag and thanks him for coming in.
“What’s that?”
“Something for you,” Peter says. But he doesn’t hand it to me. “For later.”
Later. Later is a promise he doesn’t know he’s going to break.
When we push open the blue doors and step back out into the city, the sky is already starting to get dark. The suddenness of this day slipping away takes me by surprise, even though I’ve been watching every second.
Our time is running out.
49:47:12
It’s almost been an entire day. We have two days left. That’s it. And then he’s gone forever.
Panic grips my chest so violently that my knees almost buckle under me.
“Are you okay?” Peter asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think maybe I’m just a little hungry.”
I pull out my phone. “There’s this restaurant close to here that has five stars. Their reservations are usually booked way out in advance, but some people in the comments say if you get there early enough you can get a spot at the bar.”
Peter looks at me for what feels like forever but is actually only three seconds. “Why don’t we just grab some hot dogs?”
Is it better or worse to know?
Hot dogs.
“Cool,” I say, and he tucks the little brown bag under one arm and puts his other around my shoulders. We find a vendor who Peter bonds with over a shared love of some random band, and we keep walking, eating, and talking, the pink glow getting brighter the more light the sky loses.
“You know, at some point we’re going to have to talk about the elephant in the room,” Peter says, taking my hot-dog wrapper and tossing it in the trash for me.
Fear zaps through my body, freezing me solid. “What do you mean?”
“The poetry project.” Peter smiles. “Eventually, we’re going to have to figure that thing out.”
“Oh. Right,” I say. That English class is cursed.
“I do have some ideas, though,” he says, the pink light of his clock mixing with the sunset colors in the sky. “You’ve been … inspiring.”
“Oh my god, you’re not going to try and write your own poem, are you?”
Peter laughs. “Nah. I’m a reader. Not a writer. You won’t have to be subjected to my innermost thoughts.”
“Actually,” I say, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I do want to know your innermost thoughts. I want to know everything.”
A guy in a purple boa offers an “Excuse me” and walks in between Peter and me, but we keep our eyes on each other.
“Okay,” Peter says. “Here goes. My innermost thoughts are all about this girl. This girl who annotates Heidegger in the cafeteria, and who kisses me under waterfalls and has really weird taste in music.”
He looks down at me, his green eyes sparkling with something almost like a challenge, and even under all that pink he just looks so beautiful. He looks too good for this shitty world. I stand up on my toes and kiss him, my fingers on his hair, his cheek, the back of his neck.
He pulls away, his slightly red lips breaking into a smile. And then he puts his arm around me and we keep walking, together.
At 10:15 p.m. Peter taps his phone and turns it around to me. “Man, we’ve really been here all day.”
46:21:11
I nod.
“We should probably head back to Grand Central, unless you want to miss the train again.”
“Maybe I do,” I say.
“Syd, I know you’re probably still processing all that stuff I said before.
” He runs his hands through his hair. “But you’re not responsible for me or anything, just because I might or might not have a life-altering, debilitating disease.
” He waits for me to laugh, but I can’t force myself to do it.
“Geez, tough crowd. I’m telling you, Syd, everything’s going to be okay. ”
“Okay.” I feel like an asshole, not telling him, making this choice for him. But I still can’t get myself to say the words.
“Okay,” Peter says, as if that settles it. He holds my hand again and starts to walk toward the train station. But I don’t move. He turns back to me, our arms stretched. “What’s the matter?”
“Just … can’t we just stay?”
Peter looks at me, following my eyes to the top of his head, but I cough and look down. “Please, Peter. Let’s just stay a little longer.”
He smooths out his hair. “Okay.”