Tonight the Streets Are Ours (23 page)

“Nah.” She waved it off.

“You don’t drink?”

“Is that a problem?” she asked, her words a challenge.

He shook his head. “Just wondering why.”

“Well, I’m seventeen years old, so it’s illegal. For a start.”

“You don’t know any seventeen-year-olds who drink?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Do you have a history of alcoholism in your family? Is that why?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Maybe I have a great-uncle or second cousin somewhere with a drinking problem, but no one I know of. I’m usually the designated driver, though,” she explained. “I’m old for my grade, so I got my license before most of my friends—and I’d saved up enough money from tutoring to buy the Heart of Gold—so I just got in the habit of being the one to drive. Plus…” She shrugged. “Lindsey gets into a lot of trouble. Somebody has to stay sober.”

Peter laughed. “She’s that much of a handful? I wouldn’t have guessed that from looking at her. She seemed pretty meek, actually. Out of the two of you, I would have pegged you as the troublemaker.”

“Me?” Arden asked. “Why?”

He stared at her, like he was searching her face for the answer. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “You just seem like trouble.”

They both leaned back against the chair, rocking back and forth. The party swirled on below them.

“You asked what happened to my brother,” Peter said.

Arden gave a brief nod, not wanting to scare him off.

“I’ll tell you the story. We assumed he was at Cornell, where he was supposed to be. We hadn’t heard from him for a few days, but nobody thought anything about that except for my mother. Dad and I were like, ‘He’s a freshman in college, he’s not going to call home every couple hours.’

“Then we got a call from his resident advisor. His roommate had gone to her, saying that my brother hadn’t been in the room for a few days and he was just wondering if anything was going on. They started looking into it, and it turned out
no one
had seen him for days. Not any of his professors or classmates. Not anyone at the frat he was pledging or the other guys on the football team. They sent out an all-campus e-mail, and heard back exactly nothing.

“So we started reaching out to everyone he knew in the city. High school friends, teachers, ex-girlfriends. Nobody had seen so much as a text message from him. That’s when my parents got the cops involved.”

“Maybe he was kidnapped?” Arden thought aloud.

“He’s not a kid.”

“You know what I mean. Abducted. Being held for ransom. No offense, but it sounds like your family has a lot of money.”

“I’m not offended by that.” The corners of Peter’s mouth lifted slightly. “And that’s good thinking, but it’s not what happened. For one thing, if there were kidnappers, they would have told us their demands, right? And that didn’t happen. For another thing, before he left, he sent us an e-mail.”

“An e-mail?” Arden’s eyes opened wider. “Saying what?”

“That he didn’t want to stay with people who would treat him this poorly. That he was through with us. That he’d never really felt like he belonged in our family, and now he knew for sure that he didn’t. That we should just let him live his own life and stop messing it up.”

“Wow. That’s intense. Did you have any idea that he felt that way?” Arden asked.

Peter scratched the back of his head and shifted uncomfortably. “We didn’t grow up in the easiest of households. Our parents screwed us both. But that doesn’t mean that the right answer would have been for them to never adopt him. Then he’d probably just be messed up in some different but equally delightful way.”

“So where do you think he is? How do you think he’s surviving?” Arden asked, trying to picture a brother of Peter’s, fresh off the Cornell football team, living deep in the woods somewhere, off the grid.

“I can’t really say.” Peter buried his face in his hands. Arden resisted the urge to stroke his back, to hold him.

She considered saying she was sorry for Peter’s loss, but that wasn’t so much what she was thinking about. “It’s so selfish,” she said instead.

“What?” Peter looked up, and she realized that probably most people just said they were sorry, and that was the correct answer, and she should have stuck with that.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said. “I take it back.”

“No. Tell me what you meant.”

“Well,” she said, “he just … left you. He was thinking about himself, and where he was going, but he obviously didn’t give a damn thought to who he was leaving behind to worry about him and to pick up the pieces. Okay, so his life was hard. Big deal. Life is hard for you, too. And I’m sorry if he’s out there begging on the street or dealing drugs somewhere, truly, I am. But he’s not the only victim here. You are, too. And that’s what makes him selfish.” Arden shrugged. “That’s what I think, anyway.”

“I think you’re right,” Peter said. “And I don’t want to feel sad tonight.” Peter jumped off the rocking chair. “Screw that. I’m going to be a best-selling author, and you’re only in New York City for one night. And if my girlfriend or my brother or anyone else isn’t here to appreciate all that, then
screw them
. This is
our
celebration. From here on out, let’s have no more talk of death and heartbreak. Tonight, let’s have only happy things.”

“Tonight, the streets are ours,” Arden said, and she jumped to the ground.

Lindsey and Arden don’t see eye to eye

Arden and Peter were playing on one of the rooftop seesaws, Arden shrieking with laughter every time her butt hit the ground, when she heard a voice call, “Peter!” She turned around to see a girl in an ethereal pink slip dress stumble-running toward them.

“Hey, cutie!” Peter climbed off the seesaw and kissed both the girl’s cheeks. Without his weight to lift her, Arden thudded to the ground.

“I’m
so
glad you came,” the girl said, her voice a little too loud, like she couldn’t quite hear herself. She tilted to the side and balanced herself on Peter’s shoulder. “Oh my
God
it’s been forever! How
are
you, kiddo?”

He nodded. “I’m great. I’m doing great.”

“Oh, that’s so good. So where’s Bianca tonight?” She looked all around without lowering her eyes the few inches it would take to notice Arden. Arden sighed and clambered to her feet, pulling her skirt around her.

The girl raised her eyebrows dramatically as she suddenly took in Arden’s presence. “
Oh.
I see what’s going on here. Peter, you are
such
a ladies’ man. Like brother, like brother, am I right?”

“Oh, no,” Arden protested, noticing Peter’s hands clench. “It’s not like that—”

“’Sokay,” the girl said, leaning in close enough that Arden could smell the alcohol on her breath. “Your secret’s safe with me. Just between us girls. What Bianca doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?”

“Honestly,” Arden said, “I’d never even met Peter before tonight—”

But the girl was squinting at her cell phone now and had already stopped paying attention. “Oh, yay, Leo’s coming!” she squealed.

Peter startled, his whole body going rigid. “Here?” he asked, his voice strangled. “Leo’s coming
here
?”

“That’s what he says.” The girl held up her phone as proof.

“Did you tell him I’m here?”

“Nuh-uh. I can tell him now…”

She started typing, but Peter said, “No, no, that’s okay. We need to go anyway.”

“We need to go,” Arden echoed. She was curious, desperately curious, to see Bianca’s ex-boyfriend in person. What did he look like? What had Bianca seen in him? Could he have ever really been a match for Peter? But she also understood why Peter wouldn’t want to see him—maybe not at
any
point, but certainly not three days after losing Bianca.

“Do you want to do shots first?” the girl asked, but Peter was already rushing toward the ladder that led back into the building.

“Peter!” Arden shouted.

He turned back, wide-eyed. “I need to go,” he said again.

“I know that. But give me one minute. We need to get Lindsey first.”

“Okay,” he said. “Fine. But be quick.” He checked his watch and his phone and followed Arden back to the cage with the disembodied mannequin head.

Arden’s adrenaline spiked as she realized that she hadn’t even thought to worry about her friend in the whole time she’d been gone. Thank God, Lindsey was sitting right where she’d left her. She was deep in discussion with the pierced-nose girl who had complimented Lindsey’s aura when they’d first arrived. But she was holding a joint in her hand.

“What the hell, Lindsey?” Arden said by way of greeting. “Whatever happened to you being scared straight and not trying any sort of drugs until college? Remember that?”

“Hey, look,” muttered one of the guys in the cage. “
Mom
is back.”

“I wasn’t really smoking it,” Lindsey said quickly. “This is Jamie’s. Oh, right: Arden, meet Jamie.”

The girl with the uncomfortable-looking nose ring stuck out her palm and said, without a trace of a smile, “Pleasure.”

They shook, Jamie almost crushing Arden’s hand in her own. Arden extracted her hand and pulled it into her chest for safety. She didn’t give a shit who Jamie was, or who technically had ownership of that joint in Lindsey’s hand, because none of that made up for Lindsey’s complete inability to keep a promise, or to think about how her actions might affect anybody other than herself. “Peter needs to go,” she said to Lindsey.

“Okay,” said Lindsey. She didn’t move.

“So, let’s go,” Arden said, exasperated.

“You can go ahead,” Lindsey said. “I’ll just stay here.”

Arden’s laugh came out as a loud snort. Jamie raised her eyebrow. “Don’t be silly, Lindsey,” Arden said. “We’re going.”

Lindsey shrugged. “I’m not ready yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because. I’m having fun here.”

“You girls can totally stay here if you want,” Peter offered. “I’ll just see you around, Arden, ’kay?”

He made a move toward the cage door, and Arden felt a desperate contraction in her chest. If they stayed here and Peter left, then this would be where it ended. She would have driven three hundred miles and called every bookstore in New York City for this, only what she’d gotten already and not one bit more, and it would be over. Peter would walk out of her life and on to his next adventure, and she would go home with nothing.

It reminded her of that party almost two months ago, at Matt Washington’s house, the night she first discovered Peter. How she’d gone out expecting everything to change and come home exactly the same.

She wasn’t going to let that happen again.

“No,” she said to Peter, “we want to go with you.” She grabbed Lindsey’s hand and pulled. “Come on, Linds.”

Lindsey leaned her weight back against the couch, her hand limp in Arden’s. “I told you already,” she said, “I’m not ready to leave yet. Just go without me, if it’s so important to you to follow Peter.”

Arden cast her eyes toward Peter and blushed. “I’m not
following
him…”

“You know what I mean. If you want to go, go. I’m staying here.”

“That’s not an option, Lindsey. I’m not leaving you alone with a bunch of strangers—no offense,” she added to the cluster of onlookers.

“Why not?” Lindsey said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, please.” The words were out before Arden had even considered them. But even if she
had
thought it through, she would have said the same thing—surely Lindsey must know that she was completely unfit to take care of herself. Surely this could not come as news to her. The joint in her hand, the physical proof of her failed promise, was just driving home this truth that they both already knew.

But Lindsey acted like this was all some big surprise. “What do you mean, ‘oh, please’?” she demanded, standing up. “What makes you think I can’t stay here by myself?”

“Because, what if something happens?”

“Something … like
what
?” Lindsey threw her arms out. “Like I talk to some nice people and make some friends and have a beer?”

“Lindsey, you’re embarrassing yourself. Stop making this into a whole big deal, and just come with me.”

“Stop telling me what to do,” Lindsey said.

Arden’s eyes widened.

“You always act like you know what’s best for me. I’m sick of it. I told you I don’t want to go. So how about
you
stop making this into a whole big deal and just let me do what I want.”

“Oh, because things always go
so well
for you when you just do what you want?” Arden retorted.

“Sure,” Lindsey said. “Things go fine.”

“Right, I bet it does feel that way to
you
, because you just do whatever you want and you don’t think about the consequences. Because
I
get all the consequences, Lindsey.”

Arden was on a roll now. All of this had built up inside of her, because what she was getting from Lindsey now was basically the same thing she’d gotten from Chris twelve hours prior, and it was the same thing she got all the time, from everyone—people who didn’t even realize how much she did for them, who didn’t even appreciate how much they needed her. She was sick of it.

So even though Arden had planned never to say this to Lindsey, she found herself demanding, “Do you
know
what happened that time they found your pot in my locker?”

“Yes, of course! You got suspended and—”

“And it’s going on my permanent record,” Arden interrupted. “It’s going on the transcript they send to colleges. Not just that I was suspended once, but that I have a known history of drug use. My entire future will be different because of
your
dumb decision.”

Lindsey was silent as Arden’s words sunk in. She slowly sank back onto the couch. One of the guys sitting with her gave a long, low whistle.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Lindsey said at last.

“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to feel bad.
So why couldn’t you just return the favor?
You claim you love me, and oh, that’s so
sweet
, Lindsey, but I don’t think you have any idea what it actually means. Love means sometimes sacrificing the things you want in order to make someone else happy. It means being there for someone, even when maybe you don’t feel like it, because they need you.” Arden’s eyes felt hot as she added, “No wonder no girl wants to kiss you. You don’t know the first thing about love.”