Two

The bright spring sun blinded me, and I had to use my hand to shade my face as I searched the parking lot of the school. My best friend, Drew, honked the horn of her polished silver VW convertible Bug as soon as she saw me. I bolted down the front stairs and into the street.

I held up the ten-dollar bill as if it were a golden ticket. “I’ve got a hankering for processed cheese that only Subway can satisfy.” I smiled as I squeezed into the front seat and pointed to her cheek where a tiny smear of blue pastel from art class could just be seen on her dark skin. Drew glanced in the mirror, licked a finger to wipe it off, and then hit the gas.

“Hi-yo, Silver—AWAY,” we yelled at the same time. It was a lame joke, but we’d made it ever since Drew got the car as a sixteenth birthday present. We had a million inside jokes dating back to when we first met in third grade.

I didn’t have any siblings, but Drew felt like my sister. I liked how she smelled like oil paints and how she left smudges on everything from the charcoal pencils she used. She was irrationally scared of hamsters, but totally fearless when it came to doing a backflip. She actually enjoyed all the old books they made us read in English class, and swore like a sailor when there weren’t any adults around. I knew her better than any person on the planet, and she knew me too.

Well, she knew most things.

When the Subway was just barely in sight at the far end of the street, Drew put on her signal and started to slow down. She was a driver’s ed instructor’s wet dream. She pulled carefully into the lot and parked near the back.

“Did you look through that stuff I sent you on apartment brokers?” Drew asked.

I made a noncommittal noise as I pretended to fish for something in my bag, hoping she’d drop the subject.

She pulled open the door to the restaurant, and the steamy smell of lunch meat wrapped itself around us. “Look, I know you were set on Brooklyn, but everything I’ve seen makes me certain it will be easier to find someplace reasonable in another part of town.”

Drew and I had been planning to move to New York for years. We talked about how we’d weave through the crowds of tourists in Times Square, past the half-price theater ticket booth and the chain restaurants with their neon signs. We’d know which subway lines to take without having to check the map, and there’d be a guy at the corner deli who would save us a copy of the paper on Sunday mornings when we slept in. She’d be in school, and I’d get some kind of cool job—like working at an art gallery or for a fashion magazine. We knew what it would be like to live there, even though neither of us had ever set eyes on New York except for in movies and TV shows.

It had seemed like a harmless dream. Like picking prom dresses out of a magazine when you weren’t even dating anyone. Now it was getting real, and that realization made my anxiety ratchet up several notches.

“Queens is an option,” Drew added. She started listing the pros and cons of different areas of the city as we waited in line. She didn’t need to worry about where she would be living. She’d been accepted to the School of Visual Arts, and her parents had put down a deposit on one of the dorms. I was the one with nowhere to go.

I stared up at the menu board, considering my sandwich options even though I always got the exact same thing. The clerk shoved the various vegetables I pointed at into my roll as I pushed my plastic tray down the line. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.” I passed over my hard-earned ten to the cashier. Now I didn’t have the money, but I did have a fresh pile of guilt. And one veggie sandwich.

Drew grabbed her sub and, after a pause, a bag of chips. She looked great, but she worried about her weight. “Yeah. But you don’t want to wait too long. Finding the right place is going to take some time.”

There was no right place. At least not for me. Her family had plenty of money for her to go. I didn’t even have enough to cover first month’s rent for an apartment. Not even a tiny studio. Hell, not enough for a shared tiny studio. I was going to have to tell Drew the truth soon; there was no way I could move with her. At least not this summer. I kept putting off breaking the news, and the longer I did it, the harder it became to tell her.

“Isn’t that a great idea?” Drew said. I nodded, even though I hadn’t been paying attention. She would keep brainstorming plans to make the move easier, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Well, it would happen for Drew. She’d go to New York. I hated the tiny part of myself that resented her for that fact. It wasn’t her fault she was who she was, or that our lives had been on different trajectories since we met, but I’d been able to ignore it until now. Now the division was speeding toward us like an out-of-control truck. The truth was graduation was coming, and I’d be the one still living in a small Michigan town trapped between the touristy towns like Traverse and the less desirable cities in the south. The boring middle. A town that could be exchanged for any other small town, with places like the Kwik Klip Hair Salon, where the K was a pair of scissors on the sign, and where the bowling alley still did big business on a Saturday night, and the most exotic restaurant in town was the run-down Chinese place. She’d do all the things we talked about, but I wouldn’t. I’d be stuck working at the Burger Barn, or at the grocery store, dreaming about a life I’d never have. My stomach was as tight as a drum. I didn’t even want my sandwich anymore.

Subway was packed. We grabbed the last empty table next to a group of the people from our school. I hoped their loud discussion of where to eat on prom night, which they were debating as if it were as important as nuclear disarmament, would take Drew’s mind off moving.

“I’m still not sure about bringing my car,” Drew said. “My dad thinks it’s a waste, but then we’d have it if we ever wanted it. What do you think?”

I took a sip of my Diet Coke, letting the carbonation burn through the lies building up in my mouth. “I bet parking in New York is expensive. It may not be worth it to drive.”

Lucy Lam turned around. “You can’t drive in New York. It’s, like, impossible.” She tossed her hair over a shoulder. One long dark hair drifted down onto the table, landing on her salad. I considered telling her and then thought, Screw it. She’d moved to our school a year ago. Tragically for her, the role of school bitch had already been filled, but she was doing her best to be a skilled understudy for the part.

Drew arched an eyebrow. “So you’re a New York traffic expert?”

“I’ve been there, like, a million times—my aunt lives there, so basically, yeah,” Lucy said.

“I thought your aunt lived in Jersey,” Paige Bonnet countered from the far end of the table where she sat as the official queen of the popular people. She smirked at Lucy, and the other people at the table exchanged awkward glances. Looked like there was a battle brewing in Popularlandia. I didn’t even bother to try and keep up with the politics of who liked whom and who was on the outs anymore. Allegiances in that group changed more often than I changed my socks.

Lucy’s nostrils flared. “Yes, she lives in New Jersey, but we go into the city all the time.”

“You guys are moving to New York, right? In the city, not the ’burbs.” Paige looked at Lucy.

Drew nodded. She was beaming as if thrilled that Paige knew about our postgraduation plans. “We’re still trying to find an apartment,” she explained.

Lucy snorted. “You’re both moving to New York?”

I swallowed the lump of bread that had expanded in my throat, cutting off oxygen. I should have eaten in the cafeteria.

“Yeah, Skye’s going too,” Drew said. She sat ramrod straight, as if daring Lucy to push it.

“You planning to go to Columbia?” Lucy asked, the corners of her mouth curling up.

I shook my head. I wasn’t university bound, not even community college. I hadn’t applied anywhere. It wasn’t that I was stupid, and my grades were decent enough, but I didn’t have the money to go, and it seemed pointless to take out a loan when I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life. I had vague ideas about photography or maybe something in social work, but as soon as I tried to picture myself in the future, the image got blurry and faded away. Drew had always known what she wanted. She’d been drawing since we were kids. “I don’t have any firm plans right now,” I mumbled.

Lucy drew back as if shocked. “What, here I thought you’d tell us you had a full-ride offer from all the Ivy Leagues and an apartment on Fifth Avenue.” She smirked. “I know how you love to tell a good story.”

Blood rushed to my face. I wanted to drop under the table and disappear. Just when I thought that people had forgotten the past, someone dug it back up. The joys of living in a small town. The bodies of your mistakes rarely stayed buried. They had a tendency to pop up when you least expected them.

“Hey, take it easy. That’s not cool,” Brandon said, nudging Lucy with his elbow. He smiled at me. His big sister had some kind of special needs, so he was, possibly, the nicest person in our entire school, but having him stick up for me made me want to puke my vegetarian sandwich onto the table.

Lucy tossed her hair again. “I’m joking,” she said to the group. Ah, the joking defense. The tried-and-true excuse for bullies everywhere. “I just didn’t think she’d have the money for someplace like that. You know the city’s really expensive, right?”

“Of course she knows,” Paige said. “Skye’s not an idiot. She’s not going to plan to move to New York without knowing what she’s getting into.”

Lucy’s mouth formed a tight line. “It’s no big deal to me. I’d just heard that in the past Skye’s confused what she wants to be true with what is true.” She turned to Drew. “All I’m saying is you might not have to worry about getting a moving van that fits both of your stuff.”

“I’m not worried,” Drew said. “I know she’s coming with me.”

“Uh,” I said.

Drew whipped out her phone. “I’d trust Skye with my life.” Her fingers flew over the screen and then she slapped it down on the table. “There. I just cancelled my dorm reservation. Now Skye and I will get a place together. Maybe, if your aunt ever lets you stay in the big city, you can come visit. That is unless you need to get back to bridge-and-tunnel Jersey.”

Paige laughed, and Brandon high-fived Drew. He turned his raised palm to me, but my hands lay in my lap like dead fish.

My breath came fast and shallow. Drew hadn’t really sent that email, had she? Maybe she just wanted to make a point. There was a huge waitlist for residence space. If she’d given hers up, she wouldn’t have anywhere to live. Her parents were going to kill her. Or me.

“Whatever.” Lucy grabbed her giant leather Coach tote from under the table. “We should get going, or we’re going to be late.” They gathered their stuff and shuffled back to the parking lot. Paige looked over her shoulder at us and waved as she walked away.

Drew was flushed, and her eyes sparkled. She looked almost high. She’d always had a crush on Paige. She’d never pursued her, or any of her other crushes, but she held her out as that unobtainable beautiful thing. Deep down, I was certain Drew knew Paige wasn’t worth her time, but it didn’t stop how she felt. She noticed how I was breathing. Her face instantly turned serious. “Hey, take it easy. Are you okay?”

I tried to say something, but my heart was galloping full speed and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.

“Close your eyes,” Drew said, her voice was calm and firm. “You got this. Breathe in through your nose.”

As she counted to three, I forced myself to follow her directions, blowing it out a few beats later. She breathed with me, counting softly several more times until I was breathing normally again.

“Better?” Drew patted me on the back.

I nodded. I wasn’t even remotely fine, but I had managed to avoid spiraling into a full panic attack, so that was a positive.

“Don’t let Lucy get to you. It was bitchy to bring that up.” Drew wadded up the sub wrapper into a tight ball. “She didn’t even live here when it happened, and she’s got no business acting like she’s somehow in the know.”

I nodded. I didn’t care about that at the moment. “You didn’t really just send an email to give up your space, did you?”

“No,” Drew said.

My lungs filled fully, relief streaming like cool water through every nerve.

She bounced in her hard plastic seat. “I sent my cancellation email last night! That’s what I was going to tell you. I told you I had a plan that you would flip over.”

Air stuttered in my chest. “Why?” My voice cracked.

Her face grew serious. “Lately you’ve been weird whenever we talk about New York, and I know why.” She patted my arm. “Money’s tight. Even with the cushion you’ve saved, and even if you get a job right away, you’ll have a hard time on your own, and I know you hate the idea of living with a stranger. I know I would. What kind of friend would it make me if I left you to handle this solo? This way we can pool our money and afford a better place. With what you’ve got saved and the money I’ll get from my parents, we’ll be all set.”

She had no idea. How was I going to tell her that I didn’t have any cash to pool anything? It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried to save, but every time I did, something came up. Stuff like late electric bills and a need for shoes that didn’t have a hole.

“What are your parents going to say?” I squeezed out.

Drew stood and dumped the trash on her tray into the garbage. “They’re going to be pissed, but there isn’t a thing they’ll be able to do about it now. I don’t want to live in a dorm if I can live with you.”

Shit. I had to tell her. “Listen, Drew, you can’t do this.”

“Too late. It’s already done.” She laughed and tucked her curly hair behind her ears. “The school sent me an email this morning letting me know my spot has been filled. They also sent me a list of possible apartment brokers.” She hauled me up from the seat. “We’re going to be New Yorkers together!”