Page 149 of 72 Hours of You

“I do.”

I roll my eyes.

“I can handle it, Sydney. I want to know.”

“Fine,” I say. He’s going to regret this but whatever, it’s his funeral. “The clocks suck the fucking life out of me. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? That every time I see one of those pink motherfuckers, I wish it were over my own head. This isn’t some superpower. It’s a goddamn curse. I’m a goddamn curse.” A thick lump forms in my throat but I choke it down. “Are you happy now? Did that satisfy your curiosity?”

Peter reaches for my hand, but I pull away before he can grab it.

“This isn’t a game. And I’m not some manic pixie dream girl sent to you to change your life.”

“Oh, I know. You’re far too depressive to be a manic anything.”

“I mean it, Peter.”

“So do I,” he says. “I see you, Sydney. I promise I do. Or—” He pauses. “At least I’m trying to see.” Everything feels charged and dangerous, the distance between us like a live wire inches from water, ready to explode into an electric fire.

I open my mouth but the words are stuck, jammed in my throat. And still, Peter just waits. Waits while I swallow and look back at Probably Thomas, pushing his glasses back up for the hundredth time, all his earthly belongings splayed across the steps of his stoop. One of his fountain pens rolls off a step and he lunges after it, scrambling, while attempting to keep his glasses on his nose.

“There’s nothing I can do,” I start, the words barely a whisper. It feels so fucking dramatic, but I can’t get my voice to cooperate.

Peter doesn’t speak. It looks like he’s holding his breath, afraid to move, as if I’m an escaped house cat that he’s trying to corral back inside without chasing it farther away.

“I tried, before. To save people. But it doesn’t work. And telling people …” A pain so big it threatens to crush me on the stone step swells up around me, and I decide not to finish that sentence. Not to even finish the thought. “It’s like … you know those dreams where you can’t scream? You open your mouth to let the terrible thing out, but nothing happens?”

Peter nods.

“It’s like that, every time. Except I don’t wake up. It’s not a nightmare. It’s real. I have to watch everything happen, but I can’t say or do anything. And everyone else just keeps going like nothing strange or horrible is happening. Because to them it isn’t. And I’m there—in this living nightmare, screaming in my head—alone.”

I close my mouth, instantly regretting the words that are hanging in the cool New York air just in front of us. The sound of them still ringing in my ears.

Peter lets the seconds tick by, waiting to see if I’m done. When I don’t say anything else, he finally clears his throat. Here it comes. He’s going to want to fix it. He’s going to jump in with some plan, some golden-eyed vision for how to Make It Better.

“You can scream to me,” he says. “I’ll hear you.”

A sarcastic comment burns the back of my throat, waiting to be spat out. Something sharp and barbed to pierce right through Peter, to jab at him until he goes away. But for the first time, I can’t bring myself to say it. I don’t want to say it.

Probably Thomas starts dejectedly putting his yellow legal pads and other random things (a whole stapler and a mango?) back inside his bag, his pen between his teeth. The pink clock now reads 71:42:39. He’s wasted eighteen of his last 4,320 minutes searching for something he’ll probably never find.

The poor guy looks like he’s going to cry.

“I mean, would it be nice if I could just … do something for these people? Sure,” I say. “But that’s not how this works.” There was nothing I could do for Ms. Jegstrup, or the man at CVS, or the woman at the hotel, or my mother, or …

“Hold on,” Peter says. He stands up, suddenly all full of energy and life.

I thought we were having a sad hopeless moment here. “What’re you doing?” Oh god, he’s looking at Probably Thomas like he’s going to save him. Fuck. Shit. “Peter, listen. Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t a good idea. I’m telling you. Seriously.” But Peter just smiles at me, big and full of confidence.

“Just trust me.”

“I don’t.”

He shrugs. “Oh well.” And then he takes off, not in the direction of Probably Thomas, but across the street. To the flower stand.

Wait. No. To the hot-dog stand. He says something to the hot-dog guy, who laughs and hands Peter two hot dogs cradled in foil paper. Peter hands him cash and then throws more into his tip jar. I’ve never seen someone our age with so much actual paper money.

Peter jogs back across the street, walks up the three steps to where I am, and holds out one of the hot dogs. “A street dog for you.” He winks.

I take the warm hot dog and look up at him. Are we seriously going to just sit here and eat hot dogs together?