Page 18 of The Getaway List
“Well, they’ve got the whole summer,” says Jesse. He’s also combing the rest of the list now, jamming a finger at one of the items. “Oh shit, I forgot you two missed that camping trip sophomore year. You’re doing that one, too? Listen, if you want company I’ve got a s’mores hack that’s basically unholy.”
I wince. “I’m actually leaving tomorrow.”
“What the fuck!” Jesse exclaims.
“What the fuck,” Mariella agrees.
Tom finishes his business as a sentient clipboard and turns around with a sad but resigned smile.
“Well, you have to come back to finish it, right?” says Jesse hopefully.
Tom and I meet each other’s eyes in a brief moment of uncertainty, the kind that’s tinged with something else that it’s too loud and bright in here to fully feel.
Before the tension can thicken, Mariella takes the list and carefully folds it on the crease, handing it back to Tom. “She’d better, because I want in, too. Hell, we all have a stake in this now. I want to take photos of these ridiculous adventures and Jesse here obviously can’t read a map to save his life, so he can’t be left to his own devices.” She turns to me and Tom sharply, pointing a finger at us both. “This isn’t a list anymore, kids. It’s a goddamn humanitarian project.”
Soon after that the main band kicks it into high gear with a punk-rock Disney medley that nearly threatens the structural integrity of the Milkshake Club with our enthusiasm, and the night slides out from under us in a stream of glitter and bright lights and happy shouts until suddenly, abruptly, it’s all wrapping up, and everyone’s getting to-go milkshakes for the subway ride home.
We all collect our belongings and Mariella hugs me hard, saying, “You understand New York is the only place that matters, right?” She emphasizes it with an extra squeeze. “You’re out of your mind for leaving after two days.”
She turns around then to say something to Tom over at the milkshake bar. It’s just me and Jesse when he leans in to hug me next, smelling like salty sweat and vanilla, warm and familiar. “What she said.” He laughs, and I think he’s going to let me go then, but he holds me for an extra beat. Long enough that I feel the slightest shift between us, tipping an old familiarity we had when we were dating into the newness of these taller, older selves.
He pulls in a deep breath I can feel against my own ribs and lets me go, keeping a hand on my shoulder. “I mean it,” he says. “It’d be nice to have another familiar face around here.”
I lean in, playfully pressing my weight into his palm. “You’ve got the band.”
Jesse looks toward them, where they’re polishing off their second milkshakes, his eyes lingering on Dai for a split second. “Things are a little—tense right now.”
I don’t want to pry but I also don’t want to disregard whatever it was that just brewed in his eyes. “Is there boy-band drama?” I settle on asking, giving him room to play it off if he wants.
Jesse shakes his head, pushing me back into place before letting my shoulder go. “Nah. Just Jesse drama, probably.”
I nod, letting it go, but not without wondering if it has anything to do with the rumor that Jesse and Dai were dating toward the end of senior year. It’s not like it’d be the first time either of them dated another guy, but it would have been pretty surprising considering Jesse’s maybe the only one at school whose mouth is bigger than mine. If they actually had gone out I’m assuming half the school would have known before they could so much as bat an eye at each other.
“Well, I’m just leaving the city, not the planet,” I tell him. “Call me if you want to talk about it.”
Jesse nods, blinking himself out of his trail of thought before his lips curl into a rueful smile. “Man, I thought this might be the summer we finally swapped skills! Remember how I was gonna teach you guitar and you were gonna teach me how to do a handstand?”
I do remember, even if my human body surely doesn’t. I haven’t successfully done a handstand since I was in braces—which is to say, a long (and embarrassing) time ago.
“I can’t guarantee I can teach you that anymore without either one of us getting our brains rattled. But hey. Tom and I have more of the list to get through. I’ll be back,” I tell him, hoping that it’s true even as the dread for tomorrow starts to trickle in under my skin.
Jesse opens his mouth to say something, but just then Eddie calls him over. He gives me another quick one-armed hug and says, “I’m holding you to it.”
The lights in the Milkshake Club start to dim then, ushering everyone out, but it does nothing to dim this new flame that’s igniting in me. I came to New York because I felt lost about the future, and the truth is, I don’t feel any closer to figuring it out. But I feel a small kind of found just the same. In Luca’s ridiculous stories. In the click-flash of Mariella’s camera. In Jesse’s wink from the front of the stage.
In Tom’s warm shoulder pressed against mine the entire subway ride home.
Chapter Six
Around one in the morning I give up on sleeping and instead open my text thread with my mom, scrolling through the unanswered blue bubbles: Went to a writing class this morning. My character bit it but Tom and I are still kicking! says one. You’d lose your shit over this grilled cheese—the sourdough bread is unparalleled, says another. One is a selfie of me and Mariella, both of us streaked with the glitter she had in her purse, captioned with Made a new friend. Not entirely certain she isn’t my twin. Did you Parent Trap me, Genny Larson??
All of the texts have read receipts under them the literal minute they were sent, and nothing else. She’s never not answered a text before. I’m too stunned to feel anything else about it, or maybe I just can’t let myself while I’m still here.
I ease out of Vanessa’s bed, my bare feet padding on the cold hardwood. I blearily head to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water—incidentally what my mom would always prescribe on nights I couldn’t sleep as a kid—but the lights to the kitchen are already on, and Tom is on the couch to the connected living room, frowning at something on his laptop.
He closes it gently before he turns around to meet my gaze. “Hey, you,” he says, his voice slightly hoarse from the not-sleep.
I tilt my head at him, all sweatpants-clad and messy-haired, and ask, “Why are you up?”
