Page 30 of 72 Hours of You

“Yeah.” He looks embarrassed, and now I feel kind of bad, even though attempting talk therapy in the senior parking lot was seriously misguided.

“You know what?” he says, his voice suddenly all amped up. “Let’s go somewhere.”

Ah, Avoidance, I know her well.

“It’s seven forty-five in the morning. I don’t think anything’s open besides fast food and I am not a McDonald’s person. Have you seen the pink slime videos? I’d rather starve.”

“They actually discontinued the use of pink slime in 2011.”

“Who knows something like that?”

He shrugs. “Me. But that’s not what I mean, anyway. I mean really go somewhere.” Peter looks out at the parking lot as if it’s some vast ocean he wants to cross. “Let’s go into the city.”

What is he even smoking right now? “I’m not going into the city.”

“Is it because of the rats? Because they’re actually doing things to reduce the—”

“It’s not because of the rats.” Obviously, the idea of sidestepping a salmonella-infected rodent the size of a hellhound makes my skin crawl. But really it’s the sheer amount of people in the city, sweating and pushing each other, walking in front of taxi cabs, running red lights. Helmetless cyclists playing both vehicle and pedestrian when it suits them, eerily still homeless people curled up over sewer grates … I can never really explain it to anyone because—

He already knows.

The thought catches me totally off guard. It’s been so long since someone knew. And that went pretty fucking poorly. But … maybe this won’t. Maybe this one time I actually can explain it. Peter isn’t Charles, I remind myself.

Fuck it.

“There are too many dying people out there.”

Peter nods. “Fair. But also”—he turns back to the school—“there are too many mourning people in there.”

Also fair.

He pulls out his phone and types in a couple things. “If we take the train, it’s only about forty-five minutes to Grand Central. And it’s only a ten-minute drive to the train station.”

“I don’t know … .”

“We could be eating at a hot-dog stand within an hour. If we leave now.”

“My sister was pretty adamant about me avoiding street dogs.”

Peter laughs. “Okay, we’ll stick to pizza.”

“It’s pizza day in the cafeteria.”

Peter raises his eyebrows. It’s a weak-ass argument and he knows it. Cafeteria pizza tastes like cold garbage, and the lunch ladies insist on cutting it into rectangles, which is an unholy sin.

“We can keep it low-key. Maybe go to the park. See a museum or something. Just … be.”

There is literally nothing “low-key” about the city. And all the bad things about it are just as true now as they were five seconds ago. I really have no desire to see how many people are unknowingly headed to death’s door when they think they’re headed to Bergdorf’s.

But.

But the thought of sitting through six more classes of people crying and talking about Ms. Jegstrup as if they really gave a shit about her makes my palms sweat. And, honestly, the idea of just “being” with Peter has this weird, twisted appeal. Still … There’s always the secret third option, which is I leave Peter in the parking lot, go home, crawl under the covers, and sleep until tomorrow.

“If things get weird, we can just come back. We don’t even have to get off the train if you’re not feeling it.” Peter looks at me with those big eyes—and he’s so hopeful and earnest and … there’s something else in there. Like, maybe he needs this too? And some deep-down part of me wants to just give it to him. God, I wish he was ugly.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but “Fine. Whatever.”

“Awesome!” Peter’s shoulders relax. I didn’t realize how tense he was. Like he was holding his breath, waiting for my answer.