Winter Breakage (The Edge of Everything #3)

Chapter 1

I am the first to arrive, an off-peak commuter from the suburban hinterlands of New Jersey.

There was no way my mom was going to let me drive into the city, so I got the train in and took the subway from Penn Station up to Midtown.

Usually I’d make this trip with my high school friends; this is the first time I’ve done it alone.

Now I stand by the ice rink, gazing over the skaters without noticing any of their details.

I let myself drift into a slow-motion daydream, picturing myself back on the subway, between stops.

Caught between the here and the there, stuck behind unopenable doors.

I try to look at the people around me, but it’s like we’re all reflections in the subway glass, faint as ghosts . . .

“There you are,” Andie says. I turn, and she gives me one of those hollow hugs that encircles without making contact. “How are you?”

“Metaphorical,” I reply. She smiles but doesn’t understand. Which is okay, because I wasn’t expecting her to.

“The city is so weird this time of year,” she observes. She’s also from the suburbs, but on the Westchester side of things. “I thought the tree would still be up, but it makes sense that they took it down. I wonder where they put it when they’re done.”

We say “the city” like New York is the only one, as if the people living in the suburbs of Cleveland don’t say they’re going into “the city” too.

I look to the spot where the Rockefeller tree used to perch; I’m not surprised it’s gone, but I am surprised that they’ve managed to sweep away all the needles.

“Maybe there’s a retirement home for Rockefeller Christmas trees,” I tell Andie. “Like an old military hangar, but more festive.”

“You are so weird, Eric.”

It’s not an insult, but it’s not praise either. It’s a point of difference. I am weird, Andie is not weird. This is how she sees it, and therefore how it is.

We’re saved from further small talk by Pam and Margaret.

Pam’s local, and Margaret slept over at her place last night.

There’s a round of better hugs before we dive into our trademark liturgy of indecision—What do you want to do?

I don’t know, what do you want to do? I want to go to the Strand, because that’s what I always do in New York, losing myself in the labyrinth of books and then reading my way out.

But I don’t think Andie will go for that.

She once told me that reading was a distraction, something she only does at the gym, on the exercise bike, if the TV is broken.

Pam suggests we get out of the rain as we wait for Noah, so we duck into the doorway of 30 Rock.

The liturgy continues: Are you hungry? Not really, but if you’re hungry, I could get something to eat.

No, I’m not that hungry . . . but if you want to get something to drink, I could get something to drink.

We have these conversations all the time at school, and I usually zone out on them there too.

I look through the window of our enclosure, keeping an eye out for Noah.

I see my imprint on the rainy day. That glass effect again, so much like the way my brain works.

I am faded. I am fading. If I stand back, I can be invisible.

I will slip right out of anyone’s mind. People will forget I’m in the room.

When invitations are sent, I’ll be called afterward, or right before the party, to be told, “I’m sorry .

. . I really want you to come. Things were so busy, it just didn’t occur to me . . .”

I don’t want to be in the position where I am trying to conjure Noah in the rain.

He is from the city, of the city. I’ve called him four times since break began, to see if he wanted to do something.

Three times I got the answering machine, his mother sounding like the lady who intones “Thank you for using AT it’s more like whoever made the dorm assignments chose my friends.

The only thing we have in common is that we all decided on the same school.

Which is something, but not much. My high school friends felt earned, because we rose through the grades together and had years to figure out who we belonged with.

I still hope college will feel that way by the end of it.

Right now I can’t tell whether people genuinely like me or if I was just part of the welcome pack.

I am, at least, familiar with everyone’s most obvious traits.

Pam, for example, is the one who tells us it’s time for dinner, the one who knocks on the doors when it’s time to go to a party.

She decides which room will house a last-minute paper-writing session and wheels her TV into the lounge so we can watch The Simpsons on Thursdays.

I don’t know why she’s like this. But I also know I’ll follow whatever she says, because I don’t feel I have the wherewithal to lead anyone anywhere.

I’m relieved when Pam tells us “Let’s go, then” and guides us back onto the plaza.

We start by trying to walk five across, but that lasts only a matter of seconds.

Pedestrians make us twist sideways and apart as they batter their way through.

All the open umbrellas add a certain horizontality to the maneuvering—the rain has just about stopped, but who has the time to notice?

All of us have umbrellas except for Noah; I offer him a place under mine, and he says he’s good.

I’m grateful when, a minute later, Andie makes him the same offer and he gives her the same response.

We start to go through a roll call of the people from our dorm who couldn’t hang out today.

“Paul told me he was banking up his solitude before being forced into dorm life again,” Pam reports.

“Am I allowed to say I’m glad he chose solitude?” Andie asks. “He’s such a downer.”

“Probably the most cynical person I know,” Pam says.

“So damn bleak,” Noah agrees.

“Sure,” I say. “But isn’t there a part of Paul in all of us—a Paul quotient that sees the bad in everything?”

“I hope not,” Pam says.

“That’s pretty scary,” Andie says.