Someone grabbed her hand.
“Come on!”
She ran with Tiny down the hall in the dark, Nathaniel and Will right behind them, toward the glowing red exit sign.
Instead of rolling her eyes, Lu couldn’t help but smile. Tiny always said Lu was the brave one, that Lu was the optimist who went for the things she wanted. But Tiny was the optimistic one. Lu didn’t know how she could think she didn’t matter. She mattered to Lu. She mattered so much. She was the most important person in Lu’s life, and Lu had taken her for granted. Tiny always made Lu feel lighter, happier, better about everything. She couldn’t believe she couldn’t see how awesome she was. She would do everything she could from now on to let Tiny know it.
And that was how Lu ended up running down the twelfth-floor hallway at six in the morning, with only the red glow of the exit sign to guide her, screaming into the void of the school.
Their voices bounced off the lockers twice as loud.
Downstairs in the lobby was a stack of boxes labeled COLLEGE BOARD: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 10/15.
“You guys, stop!” Will said. They came crashing to a stop. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Holy shit,” said Lu. “It is. That’s the SATs.”
Nathaniel walked over and placed a reverent hand on one of the boxes. He placed his cheek up against it and whispered something.
“Dude,” Will said. “Are you communing with the boxes?”
“Shhh,” Nathaniel said.
Lu put a hand on her hip. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Tiny said. “He’s having a moment.”
“Should we open it? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at the answers without anyone knowing it was us.”
“Open it?” Nathaniel was aghast. He stroked the box. “Don’t listen to her, girl. We wouldn’t do that to you.” To the group he said, “Some things are sacred. You can’t just go opening every box of SAT booklets you find.”
“I don’t know,” said Will. “I kind of want to open it.”
“Me too,” said Lu. “I didn’t study a whole lot.”
“Guys,” Tiny interrupted. “If we don’t leave now, it won’t even matter if you’ve studied or not, because we won’t make it to the test.” Nathaniel was whispering to the boxes again. “Nathaniel!”
“Fine.” He pulled himself away. “See you in a few hours,” he said to the boxes. “I hope.”
“Come ooon.” Tiny dragged them with her. “It’s more fun to make the answers up as you go along, anyway.”
Lu led them back out through the theater, the way they came in.
The four of them ran down the street. Lightning slashed against the sidewalk just behind them, and the sirens bellowed after. Thunder shook the concrete, set off car alarms along the street, but they kept running. Somewhere along the way, Lu heard a police siren.
“Do you guys think that’s for us?” Lu said, her heart pounding hard. “For breaking into the school?” She made a face. “Do you think they know we almost opened the SATs?”
“I don’t know,” said Will, grabbing her hand and running faster. “But let’s not find out.”
In the midst of everything, Nathaniel turned to Tiny and grinned. She grinned back. He grabbed her hand, and they ran faster.
Eventually, the sirens receded into the background of the city, blending into the howling of the wind and the car alarms and their feet pounding against the pavement and the beating of their hearts that was the soundtrack to the night. It was like music. One great, big, fucking gorgeous mess of sound. A mad symphony. But somehow it made sense.
“Hey.” Lu put a feeler hand out in the darkness as she ran. “Tiny. Where are you?”
“Here,” said her friend’s voice. A hand slipped into hers. After getting Gus to take them to school, after making them all run to the Brooklyn Bridge and become human lightning rods, Lu could have sworn Tiny was beginning to come back. Not a lot. But bit by bit. It really was in their hands. The lightning would take them the rest of the way.
“Tiny.” Lu squeezed. “I’m so sorry. About everything. If I had any part in making you feel ignored. I know”—she gulped—“I know I can be bad at the whole feelings thing. I should have tried to talk to you more about Tobias, about everything after. Looking back, I don’t really know why I didn’t, except for that I didn’t know how, which doesn’t feel like a good enough reason, but that’s the truth.”
“Thanks, Lu,” Tiny said. “But it wasn’t only you. I have to get better at trusting myself. I ignored myself too. But . . .”
Lu swallowed. “Yeah?”
“You do keep a lot of secrets from me. If you keep doing it, I feel like we’re not going to be best friends for much longer. We’re not going to be best friends at all. And the idea of life without you as my best friend is—is—lonely!”
“And you’re not keeping things from me?” Lu said softly. “You could have come to me back then. You could have said you needed me. You could have said you needed someone.”
“I know.”
“I’m here, you know,” Lu said. “Now. It’s a little late, but—”
Tiny looked around. The boys were out of earshot.
“We kissed,” she blurted.
“What?”
“We kissed that night.”
“Are you kidding?” Lu was trying so hard to keep it together. “That counts more than anything! Why did you go along with my Josh Herrera plan if you’d already had a first kiss with the guy you really wanted to have your first kiss with? I was just trying to make you feel better!”
“I don’t know,” Tiny said. “I wanted to believe it, I guess. I wanted to try to move on. It didn’t work, though. Josh Herrera is kind of a jerk.”
“What! No. But those soulful eyes! And that hair!”
“I know!”
“What a waste of good hair.”
“I missed you so much, Lu. I felt so alone.”
“I know this is going to sound weird, but so did I. There was so much I wanted to tell you!”
“We can start now. Right?”
“Okay, here’s the truth,” Lu said, and then the rest just came pouring out. “That summer before high school, Will and I . . . I think we were kind of in love, or whatever. That last night, instead of coming to meet you, I went over to his place and I guess we kind of ended up . . .”
Tiny’s jaw dropped about five feet. “You and Will? I knew it!”
Lu rolled her eyes. “Yeah. And it was really weird and embarrassing.”
“Lu.” Tiny gasped. “Did you have sex?”
“No! But almost. Like, really almost. I freaked out.”
Tiny’s mouth opened involuntarily. “What happened?”
Lu sniffed. “It was sooo awkward. I wanted to talk to you about it, but, Tiny, I felt so guilty for ditching you. And with everything else that happened that night, I just felt like it wasn’t as important. I was afraid he didn’t like me as much as I liked him. So I told him it was a mistake. We never spoke again. Until tonight.”
“Oh, Lu. I’m so sorry.”
Lu smeared black mascara gunk across her cheek with the back of her hand. “It was a bad summer. The worst of my life, maybe. There was my dad, and then Will, and then Tobias—and then after that, you and I . . . I mean, it’s never really been the same. I never wanted to feel so torn on the inside again. I promised myself I would never get so attached again. To anyone. So I would never let myself get that hurt ever again. . . .” She trailed off and looked at her shoes. “Or whatever.”
“How could you not tell me any of this? There’s this whole gaping backstory of your life I didn’t know. I’m your best friend. Or at least, I was.”
“No,” Lu said. “You still are. You’ll always be.”
They walked along the dark sidewalks, punctuated every now and then by the orange halo of light from the streetlamp. The boys were still up ahead. “I don’t know why I brought us to the party tonight. I just felt like it was calling me. Like it was time. Maybe it was the lightning. Maybe I just had things I needed to say and I finally couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. I don’t know.”
“Do you need a reason?”
“I guess not.”
And then Lu threw her arms around Tiny’s neck and hugged her so hard, Tiny almost couldn’t breathe.
“You’re the best fucking friend in the world. I love you, Tine.”
“I love you too, Loozles.”
They crossed under a streetlamp, into the light.