Chapter 27
Tyler
June, Eleven Years Ago
Long Island
I watched the Mets game. I read three chapters of The Sound and the Fury. I went to a party and talked to some girl, and then another, and then another. I texted Mikey and told him to quit baseball
and come home. And then, around two in the morning, when I was stumbling into bed, when I saw Katie’s room glittering and
bright and aglow, when I saw her spinning in circles, everything light and pink and orange and gold, I couldn’t help myself.
I climbed onto my sill and flung a stress ball at her pane. That was a memento from my mom’s latest ex-boyfriend: a pharmaceutical
rep who always stopped into the diner she managed for a cup of coffee. The same guy who’d taken her on a cruise to the Bahamas
in May then turned out to have another family in Syosset. Two golden retrievers and a mortgage and everything.
Katie clunked open her window. Her hair was down. Her tank top, white. Her sleep shorts, pink and purple plaid.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Were you . . . twirling?”
She paused the music—girl pop, and blaring—on her phone. “I’m trying to lock into my character’s point of view. She’s very—”
“Sunny?”
She glared at me. “Rude.”
I chuckled, then tilted my head. “What are you doing right now?”
“I literally just told you. Character work.”
My hand found a lighter in my pocket. I flicked it twice, then glanced up. The stars were out again, and it was so, so quiet.
“You hungry at all?”
Katie, for a second, froze. And then she said, “I . . . I can’t leave the house after ten.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, I . . .”
But it was too late. I’d already dropped from the sill, bent my knees, and let go. I’d already hit the grass and pushed back
the loose slat of fence that separated us, already pulled back the thorny rosebush that bloomed beyond it. Already climbed
the lattice, scaled the siding, and outstretched my hand.
Already knew what I wanted.
Already knew it was mine.
“I could get in trouble,” she said.
“Katie,” I said. “It’s just me, all right? I’d never let anything bad happen to you. That’s a promise.”
She looked around for a second, then put her hand in mine.
I think, in that moment, we both believed me.