Page 175 of 72 Hours of You

The dark part of me wants to scoff or pull back but for once I let the other Syd win. And I hug him back.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

Thirty-Six

WE STAND OUTSIDE THE BAR, the black sky above us, the music and shrieks of joy muffled behind the wooden door.

Peter looks at me and then grabs my wrist. Oh, okay. We’re doing this.

Except he’s not actually trying to hold my hand. He’s tilting my watch toward him.

“Oh shit.” His face goes white. “Oh shit shit shit.”

“Hey, I think that’s my line,” I say.

“It’s 1:38!”

“And?” I say. My dad doesn’t give a shit about curfew or any other normal parenting things. “What, is your mom going to ground you or something?”

“Worse,” Peter says. “We’re going to miss the train.”

“What do you mean? This is New York City, don’t the trains run like twenty-four seven or whatever?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not outside the city. The last train home is in eleven minutes.”

“What do we do?” The stupid beer is still fizzing in the base of my neck, making it hard for me to come up with some genius plan. Oh wait, no. I’ve got it. “Run?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, and then he actually does grab my hand and we bolt down the street. He’s got those long legs, but even though I’m half his height and a handful of drinks deep I’m still way faster than him, so I end up kind of dragging him after me.

“Jesus, Syd,” he says, stumbling to keep up, “you’re not even panting.”

“You’re not even running,” I say, yanking on him again.

We make it to Grand Central with a minute to spare. The place feels weird and slightly eerie at night. It’s not like it’s deserted or anything, but it’s not frenzied and bustling like it is during the day. There are even a few people curled up on the ground, using backpacks as pillows, sweatshirts draped over their heads, fully sleeping.

“What platform?”

Peter scans the marquee. “Seventeen.”

We run, our shoes squeaking on the tile floor. We fly down the ramp … just as the train jolts to life and takes off, blowing my hair back in a gust of stale air. Fuck.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Fuck.”

“So … how long are we trapped here for? When’s the next train?”

“Like five a.m.”

“Great. So what now? We just go out there and sleep like those backpack people?”

“You’re not sleeping on the ground,” Peter says.

“Doesn’t really seem like we have much of a choice. Unless you want to stay out all night, but honestly, I’m not really up for that.” My heart rate is starting to slow down and as the franticness of this whole situation starts to slip away, the Charles of it all starts creeping back to me. I can feel his text messages burning at the bottom of my purse, demanding to be answered.