Tiny opened her eyes.

Her face was wet, her clothes and hair were soaked through. It was morning and she was standing on the Brooklyn Bridge.

She raised her arm over her eyes and blinked.

It took her a second or two to remember what today was.

The SATs.

The wind was still blowing, and it was raining. But the world hadn’t ended.

The last time she had stood here was three years ago, with Tobias. But now she saw she was with her three childhood best friends. They hadn’t been together like this since that night.

No—they’d been together last night, on Will’s roof. It had been just last night, hadn’t it?

How had they gotten here?

  *  *  *  

Lu looked around at Tiny, Will, and Nathaniel. The last thing she remembered was fighting with Will on his roof. A door slamming shut in the wind. The big orange moon rising above them. And then—

And then, nothing.

She couldn’t remember the last eleven hours. But she had the weirdest memory of a taxi driving down empty streets. Of life, all across the city, suspending because of the threat of water. She had heard music. She—

Owen! Had she made it to his show? She took out her phone and then wondered something. Did she care? She texted him.

I DESERVE BETTER THAN YOU.

That was all it said.

Lu felt a familiar restlessness well up in her. Some force of emotion pushing up through her chest like the trunk of a tree. The roots wrapped around her heart, gripping tight. But for once it didn’t feel like too much. It just felt.

She looked up, and there was Will.

  *  *  *  

Will was confused. “Either the party took an unexpected turn, or the studying did,” Will said. He remembered the party getting loud and out of control. His apartment had been full of people he hardly knew. He had been wondering who they were, and why he had invited them.

He had been wondering who he was.

And there, across the crowded room, there was Lu. And suddenly he remembered himself again.

Now, the rain blew into his face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He looked at Nathaniel. “I don’t think we got much studying done,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He meant it too.

Not that he was super pumped about studying or anything. But maybe because standing here, on the Brooklyn Bridge with his three oldest friends and the rain pouring down around them, just felt right.

He had known all along that the world wasn’t going to end.

  *  *  *  

“You know,” Nathaniel said, “I think I need a break from all the studying anyway.” For some reason, a Carl Sagan quote popped into his head. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. He thought about eating his lunch alone, and the Anders Almquist Earth Science Scholarship that was folded into quarters in his back pocket, and oversleeping for his future. And he thought about how many years of his life he’d spent working toward a dream that was never his. But maybe it was time to find out what else there was out there in the universe.

He took out the application, crunched it into a ball, and then threw it over the edge into the gray river below.

  *  *  *  

Tiny smiled as Nathaniel pushed his glasses farther up his nose, and turned to look at her. She had missed him. She couldn’t help but notice that his hair was curly and unruly, and looked more and more like Einstein’s every day. And then she said something to Nathaniel that she’d never said before.

“I miss him.”

Nathaniel wiped the water out of his eyes.

“Me too,” he said.

“But I miss being friends with you more.”

Nathaniel took her hand, and they stared out together over the city and the first reaches of sunlight rising above it.

  *  *  *  

Lu felt a shoulder bump against hers.

“Keebler,” Will said. “I have to tell you something.”

“Me too,” Lu said. “I had this dream, or something. It was about you. I think. I wanted to say—”

“I’m sorry,” they said at the same time. “You are?” they said at the same time.

And at the same time, they laughed.

  *  *  *  

Nathaniel looked at his watch. “Crap, you guys, the SATs. We have to go. The test starts in less than an hour.”

  *  *  *  

“The test,” said Will. He looked up hopefully. He hadn’t gotten any studying done. “Do you think it’s—”

  *  *  *  

“Canceled?” Lu answered. “I doubt it.” She realized, in that moment, that she didn’t want it to be. It was the weirdest feeling. She actually wanted to make her mother proud.

No, it was more than that, she realized. It was so much more than that. She wanted to make herself proud.

  *  *  *  

“After all that,” said Tiny. “It was just a big thunderstorm after all.” She felt like she was standing on the edge of something. It was raining outside, and even though the news had predicted that the world would end that night, there she was. Still living. And there was the world. Still spinning.

Lu grinned and flung her arm around her. “Hey, Talulah,” she said. “Do you think maybe it’s time to start some new traditions?”

Will nudged Lu with his elbow. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe one that doesn’t involve mushroom-flavored gelato.”

“Or the SATs,” said Nathaniel. “Or partying. Or thunderstorms.”

Tiny smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it’s time.” Something floated past her on the wind, and she reached out and grabbed it. A sheet of notebook paper with handwriting on it. Her handwriting.

Suddenly she had a memory of being at the top of the Empire State Building, throwing sheets of paper into the night sky.

  *  *  *  

As Lu turned to go, she could have sworn she had the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet stuck in her head.

  *  *  *  

Will went to scratch his beard. But wait. He had never had a beard—had he?

  *  *  *  

Nathaniel took one last look at the view from the bridge. The view his brother had once looked out on. For a minute he felt super. He felt like he could fly.

And then he let it go.

  *  *  *  

“Guys,” Tiny said. “What happened last night?”

Something passed between the four of them. A glimmer. Of the past. Or maybe it was the future.

Maybe she would mess things up. Maybe they all would. Or maybe, maybe, they wouldn’t. Maybe, just maybe, they were holding on to something real, struggling against the current not to let it slip away.

“I have no idea,” Lu said. “But come on. We’re going to be late.”

Nothing traumatic had to happen for Tiny to grow up. It could happen just like that, on a cold, rainy morning in October. All those little things would change her, though. Just the act of living in this world was enough to do it.

She wanted to be seen. And remembered. There was so much energy inside her, and it wanted out.

The four of them turned and started walking.

Maybe nothing was wrong with her. Maybe everything was. Maybe there was a whole life ahead of her, waiting to be lived. And she was going to be okay.