My eyes glaze over the moment we step out onto Forty-second Street. In fact, I think they do everything they possibly can: glisten, squint, widen, stare. There’s so much to take in, and as Tyler places his hands on my shoulders and guides me around the corner onto Broadway, the first thing I notice is how bright and vibrant everything seems. It may still be light out, but it all still looks incredible. At first, I’m not too sure what to do or say. I’m stunned into silence as my eyes drift from left to right and back again. It seems not all movies set in New York are misleading, because the sight before me is an exact replica of all those scenes set in Times Square that I’ve seen so many times before. And that’s exactly what this all feels like: some sort of incredible movie, like none of this is actually real.
The huge neon illuminated advertisements are flickering around me and it makes me wonder how you can come here if you have epilepsy. There are people everywhere. It’s mesmerizing, and I don’t even care that I totally look like a tourist right now. I’ve been drunk on the image of Times Square for so long that I can barely contain myself now that I’m actually here.
For a second I must forget the fact that Tyler’s still standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders, because I pull out my phone and immediately start taking pictures. They’re not the best, my hands so shaky that half of them are blurry, but I’ll send them to Mom and Dean later nonetheless. I snap some shots of the LED billboards, some of the bustling crowds, some of the sky, which only seems cool because it’s the New York sky. Everything seems cooler over here.
Even the yellow cabs fit my perception of Times Square perfectly. They’re skimming past each other dangerously, screeching to halts as the drivers slam on their brakes for potential passengers. The traffic lights are shifting between colors, pedestrians rushing to cross over to the other side of the road. There’s a strange smell in the air, like a mixture of hot dogs and peanuts.
Times Square.
It’s real. It’s actually real.
With a grin on my face so wide that it’s beginning to hurt, I spin around and pull Tyler toward me, ensuring the neon lights are behind us. I bury my body into his warmth and hold my phone up. I’m much smaller than him; my eyes are in line with his mouth. He tilts his head down, resting the side of his face against my own.
“Smile,” I breathe, and as I do, I take the picture. The flash dazzles us for a few moments, but when my eyes return to normal, I glance down to admire the image.
Tyler’s smile matches mine. It’s just as wide, if not wider, and there’s something so attractive about it that I could turn around and kiss him right now if I was brave enough to even attempt something like that. I think being here in New York with him has made me go insane already, and it’s only been three hours. Three hours and already everything is coming back, ten times worse. If I thought I was attracted to him before, then I’m completely addicted to him now.
“I like that picture,” Tyler says quietly, and I feel my eyes being drawn to his. He’s been staring at the photo from over my shoulder, at the way we both look happy. His eyes are still sparkling.
“I like it too,” I say, swallowing the lump that’s growing in my throat. I wish he didn’t have this effect on me. I wish it had worn off over the past year, but it hasn’t. I glance back down to look at my phone, which is about to die any second, and quickly I set the image as my wallpaper. It replaces a photo of Dean. I almost feel guilty, like I’ve betrayed him, but before I can actually think through what I’m doing, Tyler is talking again.
“I’m taking you to Pietrasanta. It’s an Italian restaurant over on Ninth Avenue.”
“Italian?” Of all the restaurants Tyler could have chosen, he chooses the one that’s most likely to remind me of Dean. I bite the inside of my mouth.
“You love Italian food, don’t you?” He suddenly looks worried, but the truth is, suddenly I am too. And it’s not because of his restaurant choice. “You told me a few months ago, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” Every Wednesday I have dinner over at Dean’s place, and his mom makes the best Italian dishes. Dean thinks his mom’s tradition is just embarrassing, but I think it’s cute. Her food tastes amazing. I told Tyler this a while ago, and the fact that he took note of it is the reason my frown is turning back into a smile. “Italian food sounds great right now.”
“I’ve, uh, actually had a table booked for a couple weeks now.” He rubs nervously at the back of his neck and I don’t think I remember him ever being this shy before. It almost feels like he’s taking me on a date, which I kind of wish he was. “It’s for 8PM, so we gotta get moving. You don’t care about seeing the stores tonight, right?”
“Tyler, c’mon.” I shake my head. He knows I’m not the biggest fan of shopping, and some bright lights and flashing signs aren’t enough to make me enthusiastic about it. “You know me better than that.”
He’s not joking back with me, though; he’s only shrugging and staring anxiously at the ground. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I just want you to enjoy New York. I want to make sure you have a good time.”
“You’re doing good so far,” I tell him gently, but I’m confused. He seemed completely confident and comfortable around me right until we got back to the apartment. Since then, everything has felt different, and it’s because Tyler’s acting weird around me. “You’re, like, my tour guide for the summer.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He rubs his temple. And then his eyebrow. And then he sighs. “The restaurant is five blocks north.”
And so we head northbound on Broadway, with Tyler stepping proudly into his role of being my personal tour guide, pointing out each detail and briefing me on some common knowledge about Times Square. For starters, I shouldn’t stop dead in my tracks to gawk and take pictures, which is exactly what I just did, because the locals apparently get frustrated with us tourists blocking the way. Also, on the off chance that I end up in Times Square without Tyler, looking at a map is the worst thing I can possibly do. But I doubt I’ll be going anywhere without him, so I don’t have to worry about making the pickpockets aware that I’m a clueless tourist.
We make a left off Broadway and onto Fifty-seventh Street after passing the famous red bleachers atop the TKTS booth, which I do stop to take a picture of, but Tyler doesn’t let me block the way for long before moving me on.
It takes us fifteen minutes to get to Pietrasanta. It’s right on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Ninth, with wooden doors that have been opened up to allow for an open-air setting. It looks adorable, and by the time Tyler leads me over to the door he’s got a sheepish smile on his lips.
“I, uh, asked around my building for recommendations,” he admits, “and a lot of people said this place is the best Italian restaurant around. I hope it lives up to the hype for you.”
“I’ll bet it’s great,” I say feebly, trying to reassure him. I can’t figure out why he seems to have put so much effort into this. It’s just a simple meal, yet it’s as though he’s trying to make everything perfect. He shouldn’t care this much. He doesn’t need to impress me. I’m just his stepsister.
We head inside, and although we’re slightly late our waitress takes us over to our table without a problem. It’s right at the back, by the collection of Italian wines. I sit myself down opposite Tyler and quickly study the restaurant. The tables are wooden, the lighting is dim, it’s rather small, and there’s a soft breeze finding its way inside through the open doors at the front. I prefer it back here, out of sight of those passing by on the sidewalk. I listen closely as I try to decide whether or not I can hear music playing, and after a moment I realize that there is none, only the voices of the people around us, mixed with some occasional laughter. The atmosphere feels intimate.
Tyler taps his fingers on the table in front of me to reel my attention back in. His eyes are smoldering when I glance up. “Good enough to stay or bad enough to walk out?”
“Good enough to stay,” I say, with a nod of approval. “I like it.”
“Hopefully the food doesn’t suck.” He picks up my menu, opens it, and then hands it to me. He reaches for his own. “Choose anything and everything you want. It’s on me.”
“You’re being too nice.” I study him suspiciously over the top of my menu, but he just shrugs, still smiling. I’m starting to wonder if he’ll ever stop.
“What can I say? I’m the nicest guy around.”
I press my lips together and lift the menu up higher to hide my face. “I think your roommate’s egotism has rubbed off on you.”
He laughs, but it’s soft and gentle, and just as I think he’s about to reply, our waitress approaches us to order our drinks. She’s young, perhaps around our age, but she’s sweet. She disappears for five minutes to get our drinks while we scan the menu.
Tyler ends up squinting at the endless list of Italian words, biting his lip repeatedly as he struggles to comprehend the language. I’d point out that the English translation is on the reverse side, but his confusion makes him look cute, so I keep quiet.
“This is so confusing,” he says after a while, glancing up at me. My eyes are boring into his, but I don’t bother to look away. “Why couldn’t you love Spanish food?”
I lay my menu down, having decided what I’m going for, and then prop my arms up on the table, resting my chin in my hands. “Say something.”
“What?”
“In Spanish,” I say. “Say something in Spanish.”
Tyler furrows his eyebrows at me. “Why?”
“I like it when you do.”
For a long moment, he thinks. I can see the gears in his mind shifting as he considers what to say to me, almost like he needs a minute to string a sentence together. Maybe he’s not so fluent after all. “Me estoy muriendo por besarte,” he murmurs quietly, almost rasping. Leaning forward, he folds his arms on the table and looks at me intensely, and I become aware that we’re in such close proximity to one another that I can almost feel his breath as he speaks. It causes mine to catch in my throat. “I just told you that the waitress is coming.”
I glance to my left and, of course, our waitress is approaching us with our drinks, and Tyler immediately leans back in his seat. I wish he hadn’t moved.
Tyler orders the capellini primavera (without the chicken broth, of course, given he’s a vegetarian), giving his best attempt at Italian pronunciation, while I expertly order the lasagna alla nonna. And when the waitress takes our menus and leaves, my eyes drift back to Tyler, only to find that he’s arching an eyebrow at me.
“That accent was mad good,” he says, impressed.
“And that New York slang is going to get annoying.”
Slowly, his lips curl up into a grin, and he clears his throat to correct himself. “Sorry. That accent was hella good.”
“Thanks. All I do is mimic Dean’s mom’s voice.” I reach for my glass of water and Tyler follows suit by picking up his glass of Coke, and as we each take a long sip, we never cease our staring. My eyes mirror his over the rim of my glass. Swallowing, I breathe a sigh of satisfaction and set my drink back down. “Can I ask you something?”
There’s concern on Tyler’s face for a split second, but he doesn’t make it too noticeable, and soon he’s giving me a go-ahead nod. “Sure.”
I take a deep breath and interlock my hands together on the table. I still haven’t looked away from him. “How is everything? You know, with you?”
“Really, Eden?” Tyler’s taut expression relaxes as he shakes his head at me, losing all seriousness. “You’ve asked me this so many times.”
“I know.” I’m not smiling anymore. Instead, I’m worried. I have a bad habit of asking if he’s definitely okay, but it’s hard to tell over the phone whether or not he’s telling me the truth. “I need you to answer me honestly, face to face. I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying or not.”
He rolls his eyes, almost smirking at how relentless I must seem, but then he straightens up and leans forward again, his lips pressed into a firm line. He’s even closer to me than he was before, and I think I might have stopped breathing again. Slowly, he parts his lips to speak. “I’m as fine as I can be, Eden. That’s the truth. I’m not lying to you.”
He widens his eyes dramatically, as though to prove that he’s sincere, so I squint back at him as I search for anything in his features that’ll tell me otherwise. He doesn’t give me long, though. Only a few seconds, and then he retreats, settling back against his seat.
“C’mon,” he says gently. He tilts his head down slightly, looking up at me from beneath his eyelashes. “You know I would have been kicked off the tour if I’d messed up.”
I consider this for a moment before realizing that he has a point. If he’d been caught drunk, high, in handcuffs, or involved in any trouble whatsoever, he would have been taken off the program. His job was to tell his story and set a positive example. The fact that he took part in every single event right until the end only proves that he didn’t get into any trouble. Which means he is okay. But it’s hard to forget the way things used to be a couple of years ago, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever end up in that state again. But for now, he’s doing good.
I’m not even sure why I had to ask him to clarify this for me again. I should have known he was telling me the truth, that New York would be the best thing for him. From the moment I saw him at the airport, there’s been nothing but a positive vibe radiating from him. I think that’s why I keep smiling.
When I draw my attention back to Tyler, he’s waiting for me to say something, but I can’t muster up a single word. I can’t stop staring at him, at his eyes that are still wide, at the stubble that’s making him look years older than he really is, at the corner of his lips as he holds back a smile. And then it finally occurs to me that it isn’t any of these things that attract me to him so much. It’s that positivity around him. It’s the way he’s managed to change his entire mindset and attitude within the space of two years. I can only imagine how hard it was for him to stop hating everything around him, for him to finally get over the shitty childhood he had, yet he managed. He did it.
That’s why I’m even more attracted to him than I ever was before. That’s why this sucks. It’s been two years since our first summer together. By this point I’m supposed to be over him, but now it seems like I never will be. New York was a bad idea. I should never have come. I should be in Santa Monica with Dean, not here, falling even harder for his best friend.
My stomach churns, and I can only hope that it’s out of hunger and not guilt. Reaching for my water, I take another long sip and buy myself some more time to collect my thoughts, to think of something to say. After a moment, I think of Tyler’s words back at the Seventy-seventh Street subway station. I place my glass back on the table and look at him, curious. “Who gave you strict orders to look after me? My mom?”
Tyler sighs at my change of subject before folding his arms across his chest, his posture still straight. He offers me the smallest of shrugs as he drops his eyes to the table. “Yeah. Your mom, my mom . . .” He glances back up. “And Dean.”
“Oh,” I say flatly. It’s not surprising. It’s such a Dean thing to do. Frowning, I stare at my glass and run my fingers around the rim, not quite sure what to think. “What did he say to you?”
“He said that I have to make your trip worth it. You know, since you chose this over him.” Tyler shrugs again, and I can feel the tension growing around us. Or perhaps it’s only me who can notice it, because I’m the guilty one. I’m the one who’s gazing at Tyler in the middle of an Italian restaurant in New York City while my boyfriend is on the other side of the country, most likely still mad at my departure. “He’ll be pissed off if you don’t even have a good time.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that I’ll guarantee it,” Tyler says, and he smiles again, wide and sincere.
Silence ensues. It’s mostly because I have no idea how to navigate the whole Dean situation, but partly because I’m desperate for Tyler to look uneasy. He looks too comfortable talking about Dean and I, like it doesn’t bother him anymore, which is only more evidence that he’s over me. Totally and completely over me.
My heart sinks, and I decide right then that I’m just going to go for it; I’m just going to blurt it out and ask. I just need to man up and get it over with, otherwise I’ll spend my entire vacation wondering “What if?” I just need him to tell me straight up. I think hearing him admit it will kill me inside, but hopefully it’ll help me to get over him too. I have to.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and take a deep breath, trying my best to keep calm, but Tyler still notices how panicked I must suddenly appear, because his smile slowly fades away.
“Are you okay?”
I force my eyes to find his, and when I finally do, I part my lips to speak. My voice is nothing more than a quavering whisper when I dare myself to ask, “Does it bother you?”
Tyler’s eyebrows immediately furrow. “What?”
“Dean,” I say. The group of people on the table next to us erupts with laughter, and both my and Tyler’s attention is grasped for a split second before Tyler’s eyes return to study me. I press a hand to my temple and lower my voice even more. “Does it bother you that I’m still with him?”
“Eden.” There’s no trace of a smile left. Now his lips are a bold line, his eyes sharply narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just wondering,” I splutter quickly, and I’m so nervous that I can’t even look at him, so I press my hand over my eyes and tilt my head down toward the table. “It still bothered you a year ago, before you left. I just want to know if it still does now.”
“Eden,” he says again, his voice coarse, firm. He pauses for a long moment. I’m too scared to move my hand away. Eventually I hear him slowly exhale, and his words are even slower. “Are you asking me if I still . . . you know?”
“I’m trying to,” I whisper.
“We’re not talking about this here,” he says abruptly, loudly. Loud enough for me to lift my head and remove my hand from over my eyes. His jaw is clenched, the muscle twitching.
My voice rises to match his, and I keep on pushing. “Are you over me?”
“Eden.”
“Have you met anyone else? Are you single?” I’m so frustrated and terrified all at the same time that it ends up fueling some sort of adrenaline, and within a matter of seconds I’m brave enough to look him straight in the eye, and he must be even braver to stare back. “When did you get over me? I just need to know, so please just tell me.”
“Eden,” he says, more forcefully this time. “Please stop talking.”
“So that’s it?” I shake my head in disbelief, my temper quickly rising. All of this has been going on for far too long. I need to know whether I’m wasting my time. I need to know whether he and I are a lost cause. “You’re not going to give me an answer? You’re just going to leave me to go insane over this?”
“No,” he says, and his voice is much calmer than mine, despite how hard his features have grown. He has definitely grown up. Two years ago, he would have lost his temper by now and he would have been muttering and cursing and glaring at me. Instead, I’m the one who’s losing it. “I’m just not going to answer you here.”
“Then where?”
“When we get back to the apartment,” he answers, and he narrows his eyes into smaller slits as he fixes me with a firm look, as though to tell me to give up for now, which I do, but only because our waitress is arriving with our food.
She must think I’m rude, for I’m too busy glaring across the table at Tyler to even thank her when she places the dish in front of me, and I barely even blink. Once she disappears again, Tyler leans forward to grab his cutlery, and within a matter of seconds his smile has returned.
“There’s something I still need to show you,” he murmurs, swiftly twirling pasta around his fork, his eyes on his plate.
“What?”
He pauses and tilts his head up, a small smirk on the corner of his lips. “It’s a surprise,” he says. “But here’s a hint: It has an amazing view, and we’ll talk about all of this there.”