The Odds of Lightning (7 page)

“It's
Lu.
And I really don't have time for this. I have to go to Central Park to meet my boyfriend. He's a musician.”

The words flew out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about them. As usual.

For a minute the look on Will's face betrayed his confidence.

“Who?”

“It's none of your business.” She paused. “Owen Hoffman.”

“That guy in that band? He's a pretentious dick,” Will said with a snort.

“Your mom's a pretentious dick!” Lu snapped.

But Will was grinning, and Lu felt something drop to the pit of her stomach. It had been so many years. It felt like no time had passed at all.

“I can't do this,” Lu whispered. And even through the noise of the party, she knew Will had heard her, because he didn't say anything to stop her.

She turned and ran the rest of the way up the stairs. She didn't even know where she was going, other than away from him. She'd come to the party, yeah. She'd accepted the dare he'd thrown out into the cosmos. Maybe some part of her knew if she came, something like this would happen. Maybe she'd wanted it to.

At the second-floor landing, Lu paused. She was slightly out of breath, and it wasn't from running as fast as she could up the stairs.

The hallway was deserted.

She was about to double back, when she heard a noise clattering up the back stairs at the opposite end of the hall, and seconds later Will came barreling through the door. She had forgotten there were stairs off the kitchen. The place was basically a palace.

They stood on opposite ends of the hall, facing each other.

“Luella.”

“
Lu.
”

There was an awkward pause.

“I shouldn't have said the thing about the bras yesterday.”

“You
think
?”

“Geez, don't get your panties in a bunch. I—” Then, off Lu's furious, blazing stare: “Okay, I shouldn't have put it that way. Come on. What are you, the language police? I—”

Lu had turned and was storming back down the hall in the direction she'd come from.

“Luella. Lu!” He sprinted after her, coming up around her other side and standing in her way.

“What do you want, Will?”

“I just . . .” He didn't actually look like he knew. “What
are
you doing here?”

Lu shrugged.

“That's not an answer. That's like five-year-olds who answer you with
because.
”

“It's Stormpocalypse.” Lu looked away. “If the world's going to end tonight, you know, I thought I'd give you one last chance to apologize.”

“
Me
apologize? I see you have lost none of your tactfulness in the years we haven't spoken,” Will said.

“Oooh, sarcasm.”

Lu looked at him. He looked right back.

“I'm
sorry.
About the bra thing. And . . . other things.”

“
What
other things?”

“Uh-uh, Keebler,” he said, wagging his finger. “That's all you're gonna get from me tonight.”

“Typical.”

“Well, what about you?”

“What
about
me?”

“How about you apologize to me?”

“
Me
apologize?” she said again.

“It only seems fair.”

“Hardly,” Lu snapped.

“Then I guess we”—he gestured between them—“are at an impasse.”

Lu's breath hitched. She had never seen him look this way before. Like someone possessed. He didn't look like himself, not like the Will she used to know at all. But then, that was years ago. Before . . . everything.

“I hate you so, so much,” Lu said.

Will sighed. “Wait—listen.”

She felt tears spring to her eyes, and she forced them with all her might to stay deep down where they belonged. A deep rage began to bubble up inside her. At the tears, and at Will for making them come.

And then she was running past him, down the hall, to the stairs.

Luella.

They didn't talk anymore, but that didn't mean Will didn't notice her. He'd seen every one of her plays, hunched in the back row to avoid someone seeing him and loudly calling his name. He laughed to himself sometimes, in the cafeteria, watching her fill her bowl with Rice Krispies and make a mess over by the cereal dispensers, earning her nickname all over again.

She was some figment of the past who lived in his memory and did dorky things that reminded him of a different time. But she wasn't, like, real. Sometimes he thought he had made her up to feel better about the asshole he'd become.

Then she just showed up at his party like . . . like all that hard work pretending didn't even matter. How could she do that? Get at the heart of it all, the truth of something, so quickly? So effortlessly?

She could find the old Will just by looking at him across a stupid crowded room. In his own goddamn house.

He'd fucked up again. Twice in two days. He was going for a new record. Maybe before the end of the night, he'd be three for three.

He was suddenly dizzy. Luella was his last tie to his old self. If he snapped it for good, he'd be done for. He'd go floating off into the darkness of outer space, where he wouldn't know anyone, least of all himself.

And if he screamed for help, no one would hear him.

“Shit,” said Will. Without Lu, he really did have nothing left to lose. She made him crazy. And now, she was gone. “Lu, wait!”

Gloriously crazy.

He ran down the hall after her.

All he could think about was finding Lu and making things right, and he had already forgotten about the insanity waiting for him downstairs, and Lu was running fast up the stairs that led to the top floor and he caught her arm and then they were standing there, facing each other in the narrow staircase. He could feel her pulse racing through her wrist.

“Just tell me this,” Will said, quietly. “Why did you come to a party at my house if you never wanted to talk to me again?”

Lu fidgeted. “I was hoping to find a way to get back at you for yesterday. Maybe spike your beer with laxatives or something.”

Will looked stricken.

“I
didn't
,” Lu said. She looked him hard in the eyes.

Will sighed. “I'm . . . just so tired of everything.” He rubbed his face and pressed his palms into his eyes.

“You made your own bed.”

“You still care about me.” He took his hands away and looked at her, a challenge. “Admit it.”

“No.”

“You made a mistake that night three years ago, Lu. You know you did.”

“I did?
I
did? What about you? You just . . . you just . . .
let
me. You walked away.” She looked away.

Will tried to get her to look at him again, but she wasn't having it. “And it was the biggest mistake of my life. I wish I could take it back. You have no idea how much I wish I could make things right. I think about it every day.”

Lu crossed her arms and looked away. “You do?”

Will nodded.

“You want to be friends again? You want things to be okay between us?”

“Yes,” Will said simply.

Lu looked up, looked him right in the eye.

“Then prove it.”

When they were kids, the only person who could cheer Tiny up was Tobias. He would sit with her, sometimes talking and sometimes in silence, until she was smiling again. She always did eventually. Nathaniel used to watch and wish it were him who could make Tiny smile again.

In the kitchen, he watched that stupid scruffy hipster guy leave Tiny standing there bewildered and sad. He felt the same familiar pull to make her smile. He hadn't felt it in so long—he'd pushed it away with everything else he'd felt that summer—but the muscle memory was there. It snapped right back into place.

Tiny ran through the door on the other side of the kitchen. And so Nathaniel followed her.

By the time he made it across the kitchen, winding his way between people, and through the door, he could see a red Converse sneaker turning left at the second-floor landing. And by the time he'd made it to the landing, a door was closing at the end of the hall. On the other side of
that
door was some kind of rec room–type lounge. Across the room, another door hadn't been closed all the way, and it was squeaking back and forth on its hinges in the wind, banging into something, so that the swath of moonlight splicing through the crack winked on and off, like disco lights. There was a couple making out on the couch, and a coffee table with a bong resting on it. A cool wind ruffled his hair. He walked toward the light, and pushed open the door.

Nathaniel blinked. He was standing on the roof, and beyond him, the expansive twinkling lights of the city breathed in and out like stars. The moon was huge and full and orange.

You had to be crazy to sit on a high open point like a roof in the middle of a lightning storm. You didn't have to be a geophysicist to know that. What was Tiny thinking? Nathaniel should have just gone back downstairs. Maybe even walked straight out the door and made his way back home.

But he couldn't do that. Now, if something happened to her, he'd blame himself.

So he stayed.

Tiny was sitting, her back against the side of the roof, her knees pulled up to her chest. Nathaniel took a step forward, but his sneaker hit something solid and he tripped and went sprawling. The door slammed shut behind him. Her head snapped up.

“Sorry!” Nathaniel shouted. “Uh, sorry.”

“Are you okay?” said Tiny.

“Me? Oh yeah. Fine.” He brushed himself off and grinned. “Ow, though.”

She laughed, and he breathed out.

“Are, um. Are
you
okay?” He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “Because you seem maybe”—he tried to think of the right word—“not.”

She looked down, and a swath of brown hair fell across her face like a curtain. He felt a hiccup in his heart. She angrily wiped away a tear.

“I'm okay,” she said.

“Do you want some company?” He took a step forward. “For old time's sake?”

Tiny didn't say anything. But she nodded. Nathaniel sat down next to her and crossed his legs.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her a little with his elbow. “Want to know why the moon's like that?”

She looked at him like maybe he was a little crazy. But she said: “Yeah. Why?”

“It's the atmospheric pressure. From all the wind and the storm clouds.”

“Cool,” she said. She smiled, wiping away another tear. “Tell me more cool earth science facts.”

“Really?” He sat up straighter. “You really want to know more weird arcana?”

She laughed. “Yes. I really want to know more weird arcana.” She looked at him. “That is a total SAT word, by the way. You've been studying, too.”

“Busted.”

“Totally busted.”

Nathaniel glanced over at her, but he didn't say anything.

Lightning flashed. One Mississippi . . .

Thunder rumbled.

“Whoa,” she said. “It's getting
really
close.”

“Well,” Nathaniel said slowly. “Do you want to know why there's thunder and lightning but no rain?”

“I don't know,” Tiny said. “Do I?”

“It's probably better that you know. In case it comes up on the test tomorrow, or something.”

“Right,” Tiny said. “I should be prepared.”

“Yeah. You could use the extra studying, since you're at a party tonight and everything.”

“Ugh, don't remind me.”

“Sorry,” said Nathaniel. “Well, it's a dry storm. They get them all the time out west, but they're really rare on the East Coast because of the climate. It's because we've been having an Indian summer.”

“What's that?”

“An unseasonably hot, dry fall.”

“Oh, Nathaniel.” Tiny patted him on the knee. “You really did grow up to be a scientist.”

He grinned and hoped she couldn't see the back of his neck turn pink in the dark. “We haven't had rain in months, right? It's why everyone's freaking out about all the rain we're supposed to get tonight.” Nathaniel paused and tugged at his sweater sleeves. Was he rambling? Did he sound dumb? She wasn't telling him to stop. “That, and the lightning. There are some powerful electrical currents in the air tonight.”

“Aren't the odds of getting struck by lightning really small, though?”

“Oh yeah,” said Nathaniel. “They're, like, this big.” He held up two fingers. “You have a greater chance of dying from getting hit in the head with a falling coconut.”

Tiny laughed. “Is that a real statistic, Bill Nye?”

“Totally real. Besides, when lightning is grounding a foot in front of you, you run like hell or else—”

“You're forked?”

Nathaniel looked at her. She was smiling. Her cheeks were dry.

“Sitting on this roof probably isn't doing much to decrease our chances, though.”

Another bolt of lightning zigzagged between the buildings. Nathaniel felt the muscles in his chest clench. He pushed away the memories; he was sure she was doing the same. He turned to her and grinned.

“One more?”

She nodded.

“Okay, this one's cool. Lightning follows the path of least resistance. It forks because it's finding its way through the spaces in the atmosphere that allow it to pass.”

Tiny stared at the sky, so he looked up too, and together they watched as the beautiful bright forks found their way in the night.

“I know how that feels,” she whispered. She shifted to face him. “So why are
you
at Will's party tonight, if the SATs are so important to you?”

“Will invited me over to study,” Nathaniel said sheepishly. “So everything is really going according to plan.”