telling me the truth. You didn’t want to celebrate my birthday. You weren’t going to be there for me when my dad bailed on me. I was just the excuse you needed because you were too afraid to do this alone.”
“No.” I shook my head, trying to fight back the tears that were threatening to spill over. “I didn’t—”
“Well I’m done,” Stevie said, and angrily wiped a tear off her cheek. “We can get the keys and drop the dog off, but then I’m going home.”
“But Stevie—”
“And you can do whatever you want—not that you weren’t going to do that anyway. God forbid someone get in the way of you getting to do whatever you want, at the precise moment you want to do it.”
I tried to think of something to say just as I felt a rumble and heard the whine of a train.
The B train pulled up, and unlike the other train, it slowed down as it reached us. It came to a somewhat jerky stop and the doors slid open, the automated subway voice telling everyone to please let all passengers off before boarding.
When the exiting crowd thinned out, Stevie stepped onto the train with Brad, and I went to follow—but crashed right into a man in a hoodie, who was barreling off the train and not looking where he was going. I fell backward, hitting the platform hard. The man didn’t even stop, just kept on running up the stairs, not looking back at me.
“You okay there?” A woman who looked like she was in her thirties held out a hand to me and I took it as I hoisted myself up, tried to get my bearings. She shook her head as she glared in the direction the guy had gone. “What an asshole, probably some brogrammer who thinks he can just—”
“Stand clear of the closing doors,” the automated MTA voice said. I rushed toward the train, but the subway doors slid closed in my face before I could make it on. I looked around, wondering if there was a conductor I could signal to, someone who could help—but there didn’t seem to be anyone.
Through the window, I could see Stevie looking around like she was wondering where I was. Then she looked out, and our eyes locked. I could always tell what Stevie was thinking, but right now, her expression was unreadable as she looked back at me.
And before I could say anything, or do anything else, the train started to move and a few seconds later it had sped away, leaving me standing on the platform.
With no best friend, and no phone.
At night, in New York City.
By myself.
PART THREE 5:25 p.m.–9:25 p.m.
Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.
—Dorothy Parker
CHAPTER 9
Stevie
For a moment, I didn’t understand what had happened.
Like how they say that in trauma, your brain blocks the pain receptors. As though something in your mind understands you’re not up for knowing the full story just yet. That was what it felt like for a few seconds, like I was getting a little mini vacation from reality.
I could see my reflection in the subway window, my eyes with way more eye makeup than I normally wore staring back at me. Nobody else on the train seemed to be aware that the world had just ended. People were hunched over their phones or books, yawning and reading magazines, or staring up at the ads that ran along the top of the subway—Dr. Zizmor, Arecibo Car Service, 1-800-BANKRUPTCY, period underwear, meal-delivery kits.
For a second, I was just like all those people. But then, at my feet, Brad whined, and everything came flooding back. There’s only so long, after all, that your brain can block the reality of your situation. And mine was hitting me, full force.
I was in New York City with no phone, practically no money, and no friend.
And somehow I was the one who had ended up with the dog.
I closed my eyes, trying to fight down the waves of panic.
You don’t have a phone! You don’t have a phone! What are you going to dooooo? This was the fun chant my brain had come up with, and it was going round and round in my head to the tune of something that sounded a lot like “Baby Shark.”
Rather than actually face my situation, I decided instead to let myself feel just how mad I was at Kat.