City Love(44)

Thinking about my blanket is tolerable. It’s when I think about how much I miss my family that I have to fight back tears. I miss their comfort. Their familiarity. I miss knowing I had a support system no matter what. My family and I have always been really close. I knew that being so far away from them was going to be hard, but it’s harder than I expected.

My upstairs neighbors are relentless. I have to get out of here. Hopefully Mica can meet up with me.

“Classic,” she says when I call and tell her about the elephants. “You wouldn’t be having the full New York experience without noisy neighbors. I feel your pain. Neighbor noise is the worst. Even worse than traffic and construction noise put together.”

“Do you have neighbor noise?” Mica still lives at home on the Lower East Side. She’s in the same financially challenged boat as I am. Her plan is to live at home freshman year and save up enough at her work-study job to move out next year.

“Not anymore. This old guy used to live below us who snored so loudly I could hear him through the floor.”

“You heard him snoring? That’s insane.”

“Insane doesn’t even begin to describe it. Then there was my former next-door neighbor, who thumped every time he came home from work. Not like he was throwing down his shoes or something. It sounded like he dropped two concrete blocks right after he closed the door. I ran into him one time in the hall and asked him about the thumps. He had no idea what I was talking about. To this day I’m still dying to know what those thumps were.”

“What happened with your downstairs neighbor who snored?”

“He died a few months ago.”

Whoa. New York neighbor noise is hardcore. It’s like you have to put up with the noise until your neighbor either moves out or dies.

“That’s intense,” I say.

“Heavy walkers are the worst. They shake your whole apartment.”

“I know! What are they doing up there? Why can’t they ever sit down?” I love how Mica and I understand each other. We think the same way. Usually I have to explain myself to people who never really seem like they’re entirely with me. But with Mica, there’s a sensation of her understanding what I mean before I even finish what I’m saying. I’ve never felt that kind of connection to a friend before. “Hey, I have to get out of here. Do you want to do something?”

“I have plans with some friends, but you’re welcome to join us. We’re meeting up at Tick Tock.”

“What’s that?”

“Only the best diner on the Lower East.”

“No thanks, I’m okay.” Tagging along with Mica’s friends would feel like I’m intruding. Her friends don’t want a random person showing up. “I’ll probably go read at a café.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After we hang up, I consider my options. Sadie and Darcy are still out. It’s just me and the herd of elephants. I could go read at a café. But D is making it impossible to concentrate on anything. I can barely read a paragraph before he infiltrates my brain. Next thing I know, I’ve been staring at the same page for half an hour. Or staring into space. D and I are going out tomorrow. Just thinking about the date turns me into a hot mess. I could walk around, but it’s still broiling out. The heat wave is supposed to break tomorrow, taking the city down from over 100 to the low 80s.

I decide to go to bed early. I’m exhausted, anyway. The elephants are emotionally draining. My earbuds block them out when I turn my music up loud. Then I lie back on the cool sheet, close my eyes, and play fantasies of D like favorite movie scenes that always make me feel better.





TWENTY-TWO

SADIE


WHEN AUSTIN SHOWS UP AT my door with a dozen long-stemmed pink roses, I’m overcome with emotion. Not just because he brought me flowers. Or because he brought me my favorite flowers. I’m amazed that a boy I met one week ago already knows me so well.

We were obviously meant to be.

“It’s like you know me better than anyone,” I say. “How is that even possible?”

Austin comes in, handing me the flowers. They look fresh, their petals soft and flawless. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Not seeing you yesterday was torture.” He slides his hand through my hair. Then he kisses me like he hasn’t seen me for two years instead of two days.

I float to the kitchen on a cloud, breathing in the sweet fragrance of the roses. Digging around for a vase under the sink, I uncover a rusty cooling rack and some ancient silverware way in the back. The cracked rubber band around the silverware is so old it’s sticking to a knife. We really need to clean everything out if we’re staying here after this summer. The thought of what other progressively disgusting treasures have yet to be unearthed is a scary one. Miraculously a chipped clear vase was stashed behind the cooling rack. I grab it without looking too hard at what else is back there.

My mom said you should trim two inches off the bottom of flower stems under running water before you put them in a vase. The flowers are supposed to last longer that way. While I’m at the sink trimming the stems, Austin comes up behind me. He rubs my shoulders in slow circles.

“You’re so delicate,” he whispers. “I love how fragile you are.”