So Much Closer (4 page)

I stop. I want to be still for a minute and absorb the energy, feel how incredible it is to be in this place that’s been calling to me for so long. It’s like I already know it here so well, like these streets have somehow always been mine. Just being out on this warm night under the streetlights and neon, the excitement of finally being surrounded by everything I’ve imagined is exhilarating.

“Nice night,” an old lady says, leaning out of her first-floor brownstone window. The window is wide open and she’s watering the flowers in her window box.

“Yeah,” I say. “I love your flowers.” They’re small ones in all different colors. They look happy.

“Thanks, I try. It’s not always easy.”

I nod without understanding what she means. Is it not always easy to keep flowers alive? Or not always easy to remember to water them? Or maybe it’s a general statement about life. When is life ever easy? It’s usually one problem after another. Like the problem of living with my dad.

It doesn’t look like there’s a problem from the outside. From the outside, it probably looks like a happy father-and-daughter reunion. The truth is that the past three days have been really stressful. Our conversations still have that polite tone. But underneath all that polite is a world of hurt. We both know it’s lurking there. Except we’re pretending it’s not. All topics of conversation are kept on the safe side, like school (which I’m getting used to) and the city (Dad’s planning for us to do some touristy things together) and college (I have no idea where I want to go). Dad hasn’t asked me anything about Mom. I haven’t asked him why he left us. What’s the point of digging up a lot of stuff that’s better off staying buried?

It feels like I’ve been searching for Scott’s place forever. He is nowhere. Eventually, I find this little cobblestone road that looks like it belongs in a different century. I slowly go down it, passing windows with warm lamps in them, families having dinner, people mesmerized by their computers. It’s so different here. Back home, everyone closed their curtains at night. Here you can see right into almost every apartment. It’s like New Yorkers are saying,
Look all you want. We know we rule
.

Suddenly, there’s a highway, and then the Hudson River. I stood at my window on the other side of that river so many times, staring at the distant skyline like it held endless possibilities for a better life. Wishing to be on this side of things. And now I’m here. I’ve made it to the other side. And it’s all because of Scott Abrams. He gave me a reason to leave my whole world behind.

There’s a path by the river where a few people are walking their dogs or running or riding bikes. The air smells like fresh-cut grass. Everything looks new and clean. A sign says:

I’m exhausted from all the walking. I just want to sit somewhere and fold this piece of paper I found.

What I love most about origami is that there’s always something new. You can never master everything there is to know, whether it’s a harder design than the one you just did or a completely new one nobody’s thought of yet. You can always do better than you did before.

You always get another chance.

I find this area with tall grasses and flowers and simple wooden benches. It’s like some kind of Zen garden. I sit on a bench looking out at the river. Then I smooth out the wrinkles in my paper. Found paper is way more challenging than perfectly square precut origami paper. Found paper is real life. Real life isn’t confined by exact dimensions. It extends beyond the boundaries. It comes with flaws. Things are never easy, especially when you expect them to be. Like when people disappoint you by turning out to be entirely different from who you thought they were.

People can be really corroded sometimes.

Recently, I mastered the origami giraffe. Now I’m trying a rhinoceros. It’s hard to stay focused for more than a few minutes, though. This park is amazing. There’s so much going on, even though it’s getting late. All the people here and in boats on the river, tons of lit-up windows in the surrounding buildings, cars zooming by on the highway. No matter what time it is, there are always people getting stuff done in New York. Back in suburbia, everyone’s probably inside watching TV right now, getting sleepy. They’ll all go to bed around the same time and get up around the same time. But here, you can be free of those constraints. You can live this totally unique life that’s all your own.

Just outside the Zen garden, there’s a row of benches along the river. A girl is sitting on one of them, sketching something. It makes me really happy to be around people who are smart and artistic even if I don’t know them. Just knowing that all of these creative types came to New York to follow their dreams is inspiring.

This girl looks like she’s my age, so she probably grew up here. She’s probably lived here her whole life. A pang of jealousy stabs at me. She’s like this Sparkly City Girl who knows all these cool secrets about this place. Does she even know how lucky she is? Does she appreciate everything she has?

This is ridiculous. I’m jealous of a girl I don’t even know.

I concentrate on my paper folds. But after a while, I look up again.

Under the glow of the streetlamp, I can see her profile. We both have the same shade of medium brown hair. Hers is really curly while mine’s only wavy. And I think we both have brown eyes. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be my eye color. My eyes are that boring shade of brown with nothing interesting going on. Sparkly City Girl probably has gold flecks in hers. She probably has a lot of things I don’t have.

Whatever. I may never have all of the things I want, but one thing I do have is a fresh start. And it’s up to me to decide what happens next.

The class Scott
and I have together is called Outside the Box. It sort of sounds like it might be fun. A class that’s actually fun would be an entirely new experience for me. Supposedly, it’s this combination of logic and creative thinking and something Mr. Peterson calls “noodle cleaning.” Someone asked what noodle cleaning was. Mr. Peterson was like, “When it happens, you’ll know.” He seems pretty cool for a fifty-something teacher. He has this mellow vibe, like maybe he was a beatnik back in the day.

We didn’t have any classes like this at my old school. I didn’t even know you were allowed to have classes like this. If more interesting classes existed, then maybe the school system wouldn’t be such a profound disappointment.

But this is still a class.

Which is part of school.

Which is evil.

The only reason I don’t mind sitting in the front row is because I get to sit next to Scott Abrams. Normally, I avoid the front row. Sitting in the front makes you a target. Teachers call on you more. It’s harder to avoid eye contact with them when you’re exposed like that. And they assume that you’re into participating if you choose to sit there, which in my case could not be further from the truth.

Sitting next to Scott means I get to watch how he writes. He presses down hard, scratching out quick little letters. When he turns to the next page in his notebook you can see the imprints of the words from the previous page. He’s always fidgeting with his pen. He does this twirly thing with it where he quickly flips it over his hand. If I tried that, my pen would probably fly across the room and stab someone’s eye out. Scott sits with one sneaker up against his chair rung. He’s kind of too tall for his desk. He has this way of flipping pages in his book like he’s trying to rip them out or something. He flips pages roughly, with purpose. I never sat close enough to notice that before. The closest I’ve ever gotten to Scott was last year when I sat two rows behind him in English.

This is so much better.

When the bell rings, everyone scrambles. This is our last class of the day. It would be pretty easy to talk to Scott now. Or I could just see if he talks to me first. I take my time putting my things away. Who knew this pencil was so fascinating?

“Hey,” Scott goes.

“Hey.”

“Can you believe this class?”

“I know.”

“It would be practically illegal to have something like this back in Jersey.”

“Seriously.”
I moved here for you. We belong together.

“So,” he says, “see you Monday?”

“If not before.”

“Right, in the nabe! Which reminds me—are you going to RiverFlicks?”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know about RiverFlicks?”

“I just got here, remember?”

“Sorry.” Scott flashes a smile that makes girls stare at him from across the room. “I’ve had the whole summer to investigate. It’s this thing over at Hudson River Park—”

“I was just there last night!”

“Oh, cool. They do these outdoor movies all summer and tonight’s the last one.”

“What is it?”

“Excellent question.” Scott considers this. “I forget, but it’s a good one. I’m going.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You should come check it out.”

“Maybe I will.”

What does that mean, exactly?
You should come check it out.
Is he saying I should go just because I’d like it? Or was that supposed to be some low-key way of asking me out?

The movie screen is enormous. I can see the movie starting from all the way down the street. I didn’t want to get here early. I didn’t want to seem as desperate as I am.

That was a mistake.

Pier 54 is packed. There’s a section of folding chairs set up right in front of the screen with space to sit on the grass behind them. Every single chair is taken. The grass is crammed with people. There’s no way I could squeeze myself in. I keep searching for a free space along the edge of the crowd.

I don’t see Scott anywhere. He should be here already. Maybe he’s waiting for me. He might be saving me a seat.

This would be the perfect place to tell him. Outdoor movie. Moonlight on the river. The streetlights of our hometown glowing somewhere in the distance.

I carefully step over a leg, pressing up against the railing along the edge of the pier. I slink closer to the front, trying not to block anyone’s view.

Then I see him. I had tons of practice memorizing the back of Scott’s head from all that time staring at it in English last year, so I totally recognize him. He’s sitting in the fourth row. It would be impossible to get all the way up there on this side of the pier, but there’s a bit more space on the other side.

I cut across behind the chair section, ducking. Now I can see that Scott didn’t save a seat for me. Maybe he tried. Once the movie starts, you probably have to give up the seat you’re saving if the person you’re saving it for isn’t here yet. I hope he doesn’t think I’m not coming.

Some folding chairs are leaning against each other on a cart. I don’t know if you’re allowed to take one. I should go for it. If I take a chair up to Scott’s row, he could switch seats with the person at the end. We could still sit together.

I slide a chair off the cart. Before I realize what’s happening, all the other chairs fall over. There’s this huge clatter of metal chairs clanging against concrete.

Everyone turns away from the movie.

They all look at me.

Including Scott.

And the girl sitting next to him. Who is touching his shoulder.

He’s with her. They’re together.

He’s here with another girl.

This totally goes in the Of Course file. Because of course Scott Abrams is here with another girl. Of course he wasn’t asking me out.

Could I
be
a bigger reject?

After I make my way back behind the crowd, I start running. Three blocks away, I realize that I’m still holding the chair.

“Uuuhhh!” is all I can say when April picks up.

“Brooke?”

“Hi.”

“You sound weird.”

“Yeah, I usually sound weird after I’ve been mortified in front of the whole entire world.”