HOLY CRAP, IT’S COLD UP HERE.
I watch Ari and Camden wrap their arms around each other.
If Jamie hadn’t left, maybe he’d be doing the same thing and my teeth wouldn’t be chattering.
I understand why he went after Eliza. Maybe he will actually come back and everything will be okay and perfect and at least a little warmer.
Someone puts their hand on the top of my head. I spin around.
But it’s Emerson.
“You’re shivering,” he says.
I step toward him and he gives me a hug, and his breath smells like cigarettes. I love my brother so much, even if he is a big idiot sometimes.
“I won’t ask where your guy is,” he says.
“Thanks. I won’t ask where your guy is.”
“It’s going to be a great year, Kendall. You’re going to rock your last months of high school.”
With all the drama, I haven’t had the chance to tell him about maybe not going back, but this isn’t the time.
“Three minutes!” someone yells, and I hear a champagne cork being popped. Someone passes out plastic flutes.
I look up at the stars. Only the brightest, brashest ones are out.
Someone calls to Emerson to come get a glass and he moves away. I go to the railing of the rooftop deck, which faces west, toward the Hudson River. The lights of the city are scattered in patterns, random yet organized. From up here, they look like hope and magic and life itself. I think of Luna, and Erica the waitress, and the seven times we found a way to be truly kind to other people, and suddenly I don’t feel like the spectator anymore. This isn’t some giant photograph on a museum wall somewhere. I’m in this. I’m a part of it.
The Biggest Thought Worm Ever arrives:
Where I belong is here, because that’s where we all are, fighting our hard battles for the same things.
The force of realizing this makes me tear up. Or maybe it’s the wind.
Emerson hands me a champagne, then moves off. I silently toast anything (The new year? Erica’s dare? Myself?) and take a small sip and the bubbles warm me up.
“Thirty seconds!” someone yells, maybe the same someone as before but maybe not.
Ari and Camden have found a spot against the railing. Their foreheads are touching and they’re talking intensely about something good, I can tell. Maybe he’s telling her he loves her or maybe she’s telling him that whatever happens next, it’ll all work out.
Suddenly, the crowd is counting down from ten.
Nine.
Emerson’s nowhere to be found.
Eight.
Jamie definitely did not come back.
Seven.
I check my phone. He didn’t text, either.
Six.
This is really not how I imagined tonight, at all.
Five.
How is Luna right now? What is she thinking? I picture a nice nurse holding her hand.
Four.
Maybe it’s time for me to go. I walk toward the door.
Three.
I reach for the handle, throw it open.
Two.
Christ, what a relief to step back into the stairwell, out of the wind.
One.
“Kendall?” asks someone from behind me. I turn around.
Happy New Year!
“Max?”
He steps forward from a corner, right inside the door.
“Hey,” he says, and in the mostly darkness I can see that he’s smiling.
Before I know it, I’m throwing my arms around him. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
He laughs. “Me, too.”
We look at each other and his face is draped in shadows, so I imagine that mine must be, too. Outside, I can hear people blowing horns.
Now it happens. My lips on his, and I’m surprised by how much I remember about them. There’s a boom of fireworks from somewhere out there in the cold, non-Max-kissing world.
Max pushes me gently against the wall. It’s good to have this foundation suddenly, something to keep me upright. I look up above the door and see the red glowing exit sign, and wonder what it must look like to someone scrambling down the stairs in a fire.
He pulls away. “Did you know we’d end up here?” he asks.
“No,” I say truthfully. “But I think maybe I wished for it.”
Max shakes his head. “Why is this always happening under the most fucked-up circumstances?”
“I don’t mind the fucked-up circumstances,” I say, taking his hand. It’s smooth, but cold, and the sheer size of it makes me like him even more. It’s like grabbing a lion’s paw.
“Where is Jamie?”
“Don’t know. Will you come with me onto the roof? It’s beautiful out there.”
The fireworks have ended and now we just hear people singing, badly and drunkenly, from the other side of the door. It’s really important to me, suddenly, that we get on the other side of the door. Like, that’s where the new year and pretty much everything else starts.
Max nods and I still have his hand in mine, so I push on the bar and the cold air rushes in, and then so does reality. We step onto the roof and the first person I see is Ari, her gaze locked on our joined-hands situation. She smiles with one side of her mouth.
I lead Max to the other end of the deck, away from all the others.
We take in the night. The lights, the shapes of the buildings, the hum of the city churning forward. Max reaches for my cheek and turns my face to his, and we kiss again. Slowly, gently, like we’re already old pros at it. Like we have all the time we could possibly want to do this.
“What now?” asks Max.
“You tell me,” I reply, passing the buck.
“We’ll go home. I’ll start my job again. You’ll go to school. We’ll have the rest of winter and spring and summer.”
When he says summer, I picture our town’s swimming lake, and the creek where I know Max and his friends like to hang out. I see the Ulster County Fair and mini-golf at the Scoop-N-Putt, where I always work from June to August. It unrolls like a tapestry in my head.
Maybe because I’m thinking about a much warmer situation, I shiver uncontrollably. Max opens his coat and he doesn’t have to ask me twice, I step into him and he wraps his coat around me tight, tight, tight. I slide my arms around his waist and dig my hands into his back jeans pockets. This is really intimate and rather fresh, but I don’t care. I feel like this is a small concession to wanting to put my hands everywhere on all six feet plus of him.
In one pocket, my hand hits something sharp with corners.
“Is that an envelope in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Max snorts and nuzzles my neck. Oh my God. Do that again! Better yet, do it forever!
“Ha-ha. Something Big E gave me earlier. I forgot I had it.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“He likes to give me magazine articles. I’ll open it later.”
I grab the envelope and pull it out, then bring it around so it’s between us.
“Open it now! Maybe it’s something funny.”
“I can pretty much guarantee it’s not.”
“Read the headline, at least. Then we can call this year the ‘Year of’ whatever the headline is.”
Max smiles and shakes his head. “You’re crazy, but you’re cute.”
“It works for me,” I say with a smile, so glad we get to do this again. To play, to spar, to simply have fun (and kiss a lot more).
Max opens the envelope, then removes a folded piece of white paper with handwriting on it. There’s something else in the envelope, but I can’t tell what it is. I look up to examine Max’s frown, because this is not what he expected to find. In fact, he actually turns away from me and hunches his back against the wind.
“What?” I ask, trying to see.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispers.
“What?”
Max turns back around, his fist clenched around the paper, which he’s folded tightly.
“Big E gave me an airline gift card. With a note saying he wants me to go to Seattle.”
“Okay. That’s . . . random.”
“Well, my uncle invited me to come there before I start college. I can stay with him and do an internship at his tech company, and travel. I didn’t think anyone knew about it.”
I have no idea what to say to this, and this new possibility of Max being gone and not with me.
“I’m a little blown away,” continues Max. “Too bad I can’t accept the gift.”
Max stuffs the envelope safely back into his pocket and reaches for me. He kisses me deeply and it’s almost enough to make all the Thought Worms stop their frenzy in my head.
There’s one for the many months I just saw playing out, me and Max and school and home. Him giving me whatever I need to get through my final semester.
There’s another Thought Worm for how much Max regrets putting off college for Eliza.
Max regrets! the Thought Worm squeals.
It’s almost loud enough to make me open my mouth and say something similar to him.
Suddenly, I hear Ari’s voice call, “Guys!”
We turn and there’s Ari and Camden moving toward us, together.
“Happy New Year!” says Ari, and they’re wrapping their arms around us until we’re in a four-way hug.
I close my eyes and let the sound of the wind drown out all that noise inside me.