“I’m going to go,” Sarah told Ashley.
“But we just got here!” Ashley replied.
“I’m going to go,” Sarah repeated, this time to Lindsay.
“You should,” Lindsay told her. “Go do something you want to do.”
“I just want to wander,” Sarah said.
“Then wander.”
“C’mon, Sarah,” Ashley said. And Sarah felt bad, because she knew if Amanda was in the boy zone, Ashley was going to be a barflower for the rest of the night.
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.
Ashley shook her head. “Is it cramps?” she whispered.
Sarah decided to avoid the polite lie.
“I don’t belong here,” she said. “I’d rather be doing something else. So I’m going to do something else.”
Ashley took it personally, even though Sarah had asked her along.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
And Sarah thought, Well, I wasn’t until you said that.
Lindsay was scribbling her phone number on the back of a receipt.
“Call me when you get there,” she said, passing the paper over.
“I will,” Sarah said, and hugged Lindsay good-bye. Then she did the same to Ashley, who was still confused.
As Sarah pushed forward into the crowded hallways, a strange grace filled her. Instead of being sick of all the people around her, she recognized that many of them were actually having fun. This crowded, loud, playerful atmosphere was the right kind for them.
She laughed when she got to the door and realized she didn’t have her coat. Then she plunged back in, seeing Amanda out of the corner of her eye as she passed the living room. Amanda was in firm girl-grasp of her target guy’s arm. Her peripheral vision was turned off, so Sarah could slide by, retrieve her coat from underneath a guy in the third stage of passing out, then head back to the door.
As soon as she was out of the apartment, she felt free.
It didn’t matter that she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to go was the perfect destination.
While Mateo, Miranda, Ben, and Stewart talked about what was going on with them, Phil sneaked away. He wasn’t done with his questions. There was still some kind of answer he was looking for, but he hadn’t found it yet.
He saw two guys sitting on a bench, both about his age, probably from Stuy or Bronx Science or one of the other smart high schools. They were clearly with each other, but they weren’t really talking. It reminded Phil a little of him and Stewart, how some nights they’d sit around for hours and wait for something to happen instead of making it happen themselves.
One of the guys was lost in thought, and Phil could see how that would happen on a night like tonight. The second guy looked at Phil strangely as he headed over.
“Hey,” Phil said to the guy who seemed to be paying attention. “What’s up?”
“We don’t want any drugs,” the guy replied. “Sorry.”
Damn, Phil thought. Do I look like a dealer?
He laughed. “I’m not selling drugs. Just coming by, saying what’s up.”
“Oh,” the guy said. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that. He wasn’t exactly apologizing. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Not much really going on.”
The quiet guy looked up now. No longer lost in thought, because clearly there was one thought that had found him and was taking hold. It was hurting him.
“What’s up?” Phil asked him.
“You’re not the person I should be telling,” the boy replied.
“Fair enough,” Phil said. “Fair enough.”
Suddenly he felt out of place, self-conscious. Why was he talking to strangers? What was he trying to find?
But there was something in that quiet boy’s eyes.
“Say it,” Phil told him. “Not to me. But to whoever you need to say it to.”
“Thanks for your advice,” the louder guy said sarcastically.
“See you,” Phil said. He saw a girl he knew, Isabel, coming into the park. He wanted to get to her before she saw the others.
“What’s up?” he called out to her, leaving the two guys on their bench.
“Oh, it’s all the same,” she said, coming over for a hug. “You know.”
“What do I know?” Phil asked. “Remind me.”
“What was that about?” Simon asked. Even if he’d been sarcastic with the guy who’d come over, the sarcasm was diluted now by a simple confusion.
“He was just being friendly,” Leo replied. “Remember friendly?”
They were both in a bad mood, and Simon wasn’t sure why. Leo had been weird all night. Simon had been friends with him long enough to know what these moods were like, and how to get through them. But usually he also had a clue about what had caused them—Leo knowing he had to dump his boyfriend, Leo feeling he was fucking up his chances at a good school, Leo feeling overwhelmed by his parents’ expectations and his feeling that his writing was never going to be any good. Simon knew these things because he and Leo talked about them. But tonight: nothing. At dinner they’d volleyed between trivia and silence. Normally Simon might not have even noticed. But tonight he did, and Leo’s bad mood started to put him in his own bad mood. Maybe it would have been a good thing if the guy had been selling drugs. It would’ve been something to do.
“I love you.”
Simon had been zoning out, but he heard it. So quiet, but unmistakable. He turned to Leo.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Tell me.”
Leo sighed. The saddest, deepest sigh. “I said ‘I love you.’”
“To who?”
“To you.”
Simon didn’t know where this was coming from. “Well, I love you, too,” he said.
“No, not like that, Simon. I mean, I really love you.”
Simon was about to respond, but before he could, Leo went on.
“You have no idea how many times I’ve told you. I can’t believe you finally heard. I have been saying ‘I love you’ to you for years. Years. Sometimes when you’re asleep on the subway and I’m sitting next to you. Sometimes if the music’s really loud. Or if we’re at the movies and you’re not paying attention to me. I’ll be watching you watching the screen, and I’ll say it really softly, and I’ve always felt that if you were meant to hear it, then you’d hear it. I have been in love with you for years, Simon, and it’s become too heavy. I can’t do it anymore. I know it’s ridiculous and I know this is going to be a disaster, but you have to understand it’s been a disaster for me to try to keep it inside, only letting it out in all of these I love yous that you never hear. I know you’re going to be kind to me, because that’s what you do. I know you’re going to say that we’re friends, and that it’s about friendship, but you have no idea how many times I’ve watched you, how many times I’ve had fierce arguments with myself about you. I always told you the truth when you weren’t listening—and now you’re listening, and it scares the hell out of me. I know this will change everything, and it will probably screw it all up, but I have lived with this so long, Simon, and I just can’t do it alone anymore. I have to tell someone, and that someone needs to be you. That guy—that guy asked, ‘What’s up?’ And I realized that the answer to the question was ‘I love Simon.’ Whether you lean over and kiss me—which I know isn’t going to happen—or whether you push me away and tell me you don’t want to see me again—which I’m pretty sure isn’t going to happen either—I just need something to happen. I can’t keep having the same feelings over and over again in secret. Because if you hold something inside long enough, you start to hate it. And I don’t want to hate you. The opposite, really. I love you, you see. I love you.”
“But Leo—” Simon began.
“No,” Leo interrupted. “Please don’t start with a but…”
Sarah couldn’t figure out what was happening in the city that night. As she wandered, she was witnessing the strangest things. Shopkeepers walking
out of stores, leaving them unlocked, wandering off with their aprons still on. Waiters walking away with their order pads still in their waistbands, taking out cell phones and saying, “I need to see you now.” There were painful, aching fights in the streets—not between strangers, but among friends or lovers or people trying to be either, the truth suddenly so plain to see. People were clutching at photographs, searching through purses for the love notes they could never throw out. Love had suddenly become an active verb—prodded, confessed, kissed into words. There were no innocent bystanders, because how could you see this and not think of the person who love always made you think about? Or you felt the absence of that person. Or, like Sarah, you felt the absence of the absence. Walking through the honest chaos, she felt moved but untouched. I am myself, she thought. I am myself. And that was okay. That was fine. That was what she wanted.
“What’s up?” Phil asked.
“My mother is dying and I don’t know what to do.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m a fake. And I’m not going to get away with it.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s a beautiful night, don’t you think?”
“What’s up?”
“Phil, I haven’t seen you in two or three months. And I’m not ready to forgive you for that.”
“What’s up?”
“The opposite of down?”
“What’s up?”
“I’m afraid of this park. Bad things happen in this park.”
“What’s up?”
“I need to eat.”
“What’s up?”
“I feel guilty because I forget about the war.”
“What’s up?”
“I just want to be happy, and I don’t know if that will ever happen.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s getting late, isn’t it? I feel like it’s getting late.”
But Leo, Simon thought, I will never love you like that.
Sarah was not used to being up so late. The city, she felt, had entered its vulnerable hours, not quite awake and not quite asleep, not quite loud but unable to be silent, the line blurring between what was thought and what was said.
She thought briefly of Ashley and Amanda, that old life that would probably still be hers in the morning. She wondered if Lindsay was still at the party, or if she had gone home. Maybe she would be a new part of the old life. Maybe the old life could have new parts.
The streets were getting less and less crowded, as people took their confessions indoors. Walking through the East Village, Sarah could see that many lights were still on, and even if they were off, it didn’t necessarily mean that the people inside were asleep. Murmurs and moans, conversations and truths in many forms seeped through the walls and into the streets. Sarah could hear some of the shouting coming from the street-level apartments—“You never loved me!” “This is what I want you to do.” “You are too good for me, and I’ve always known it.” She did not stop to listen. These things had everything to do with the night, but nothing to do with her.
When the streets had been more crowded, Sarah had been overwhelmed by the immensity of humanity, how many of us there are and how little we can affect. Now, with the streets emptying out, she was struck by a different kind of immensity—the immensity of space and building, the immensity of all that’s around us. It didn’t make her feel inconsequential, as it normally might. Instead, she found some comfort in the immensity. It guaranteed that she could always wander. And it also guaranteed that she’d never have to wander too far.
She followed Eighth Street until she got to the park. It, too, was emptying out. People looked exhausted from speaking, but glad about what had been said. On one bench, two guys held on to each other, one of them clasping, the other one trying to comfort. On another bench, a young woman cried silently, shaking her head in disbelief. But not everyone was sad or longing. Other couples kissed under lamplight—some extending the kiss beneath their clothing. Sarah saw one guy watching it all, looking more exhausted than most. She’d had no desire to talk to anyone for hours, ever since she’d left Lindsay. But now the impulse returned. As she walked over, he looked up at her. He didn’t say anything until she’d arrived.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Not much,” she said. “And everything.”
Because wasn’t that the truth of it? In terms of the immensities, nothing much was happening to Sarah. But on her own terms, things were.
“What’s up with you?” she asked back.
It was the first time the whole night that a stranger had offered Phil this. And now that it had been asked, he realized it was what he had been waiting for. It was what he needed. And he couldn’t figure out how to respond.
“I’d like to be able to give you an answer,” he said. “I’d like to know.”
He began to tell her everything that had happened that night—all the people he’d asked, all the answers he’d received. Stewart and the others were long gone; he was the only one of his friends left in the park. It was as if he had lost something here, and he had to find it before he could leave. But he wasn’t sure what it was, or what it looked like.
“It’s a strange night,” Sarah said. Then she told Phil about the party, about leaving, about wandering. She told him about the vulnerable hours, even as the sky started to tinge with lightness.
“It’s loneliness,” he said. “These hours bring out the loneliness.”
“I’m not sure,” Sarah told him. “I used to think it was loneliness, when I thought about it at all. But maybe it’s just the fear of loneliness. I think that makes us more vulnerable. But tonight I don’t mind being alone. If you let go of everyone else, it’s amazing what you can see.”
“And who you can meet,” Phil added.
Hours ago, Sarah would have thought this was a flirtation. But now it was just an observation. A late-night, early-morning observation in the middle of an empty park and a full city.
“I’m Sarah,” she said, offering her hand.
“I’m Phil,” he said, taking it.
“I’ll be here tomorrow at sunset.”
“In that case, so will I.”
And with that, they parted. Because Sarah wanted her wandering to end at home. Because she wanted to start the new part of her old life. Because she realized now: If you can conquer the vulnerable hours, you can allow yourself to be yourself, to go forward. You breathe in the night air, and it sustains you.
About David Levithan
David Levithan is the critically acclaimed author of Boy Meets Boy; The Realm of Possibility; Are We There Yet; Marly’s Ghost; Wide Awake; How They Met, and Other Stories; and (with Rachel Cohn) Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List. He’s won Lambda Literary Awards for Boy Meets Boy and The Full Spectrum (edited with Billy Merrell), and his books have appeared on ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults list in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. He is also the founding editor of PUSH, an imprint dedicated to new authors and new voices, and teaches in the New School’s MFA program. You can visit him online at www.davidlevithan.com. Just don’t expect him to respond to emails late at night—he barely managed to stay up all night when he was in college, and that was some time ago.
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ORANGE ALERT
Patricia McCormick
Like pretty much everyone else in this middle-of-nowhere town, I got my learner’s permit exactly six months before my sixteenth birthday. Unlike everyone else, though, I taught myself to drive.
At first, I just sat in the driver’s seat of my mom’s old car after school. I wouldn’t even put the key in the ignition. I’d just go out front where the car was parked next to the curb and put my hands on the wheel in the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions like it says in the driver’s ed manual. I pretended I was breezing down the highway, keeping a light but steady pressure on the accelerator, always ready to t
ap the brake if I needed to. I also practiced changing lanes, checking the rearview mirror, then the side view, then snapping the turn signal down. Eventually I worked up to imaginary three-point turns, even throwing my arm over the back of the passenger seat as I backed up, the way cops do on TV.
But I always made sure I was out of the car and inside doing my homework by the time Ed, my stepfather, got home at five thirty. The last thing I needed was for him to see how badly I wanted to learn.
A couple months ago, before I turned fifteen and a half, I asked Ed to teach me. I said everyone else’s parents were letting their kids practice driving before they got their permits.
“Well, young lady,” he said, not looking up from his paper, “everyone else’s parents are breaking the law.”
I blew out a little huff of air with my bottom lip.
Ed set the paper down. Slowly.
“You have a problem with that?” He peered over the paper at me, then at my chest. I wrapped my arms around myself and shook my head.
“Pardon me?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Huh-uh?” He said this in a high-pitched girl’s voice that was supposed to be an imitation of mine.
“No,” I said.
“No, what?”
“No, sir.”
Ed was in the Army. He wore a tan uniform to work every day, but all he did was scuttle around on a stool on wheels and grab file folders off a machine that looked like a giant Ferris wheel. If you were really good at it, like Ed, you could “retrieve” or “archive” twelve files a minute. It was only the file room at the Army Depot in Nowheresville, USA, but Ed made it sound like he, personally, was the secret weapon in the war on terror. His reflexes, he says, are always on Orange Alert.
“Besides,” he said, “you’d probably kill us both.”
My mom would shake her head when I came in after one of my driving lessons. “If he catches you…” Then she would just stop and shrug, turning her palms up toward the ceiling like there was nothing she could do about it.
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