But then she thinks of what Pop said about how she has more living to do, and what Garrett said about making great art, and the way this town has always felt like a pair of jeans that’s a size too small, and she realizes she’s exactly that kind of person.
She leans back in her desk chair and sees a small blue car parked in the driveway. Confused, she hurries downstairs and out the front door, bounding over to where Priyanka is sitting in the driver’s seat, the engine idling. Her long dark hair is pulled into a low ponytail, and she’s wearing the Cornell sweatshirt that her parents gave her when she found out she got in. She looks up in surprise when Mae appears at the window.
“I thought we were meeting in town,” Mae says, and Priyanka adjusts her grip on the wheel.
“We are.”
Mae frowns. “Then why are you picking me up?”
“I’m not,” Priyanka says, looking a little sheepish. “I just wanted to do this one last time.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know. Drive from my house to your house. Wait in your driveway because you’re always late. I mean, how many times have we done this?”
“I’m not always late,” Mae says with mock indignation. “But yeah. A lot.”
“And this is the last time.”
“It’s not the last time ever. We’ll be back at Thanksgiving.”
“I know,” Priyanka says. “But still.”
“Well, as long as you’re here, you may as well give me a ride.” Mae grins as she climbs into the car. “Lucky for you, that means you’ll have to drop me off, too, so you don’t have to say a tearful goodbye to my driveway just yet.”
Priyanka rolls her eyes. “How can you be so entirely unemotional about all this?”
“I’m sad to be saying goodbye to you,” Mae tells her. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll survive without seeing my garage door for a few months.”
At the pizza place, they sit at their usual table. Just after they order, Priyanka’s phone buzzes, and even before she checks to see who it is, her whole face lights up.
“Alex?” Mae asks, taking a sip from her straw.
Priyanka nods, still smiling. Her boyfriend left last week for a pre-orientation camping trip and hasn’t had much cell service. “Only a couple more days till he’s out of the woods.”
“I can’t believe you guys are actually attempting to do this.”
“What?”
“Stay together.”
Priyanka looks up from her phone with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Because you’re going to be in two different states for the next four years.”
“Yeah, but I love him,” she says, as if it’s just that simple. “And he loves me.”
Mae sips her soda loudly while Priyanka finishes her conversation with Alex. It’s not until the waiter brings their pizza—half veggie, half pepperoni—that she sets the phone down and they watch the steam rise off the cheese.
“Love is like this pizza,” Mae says, sweeping her hand over the table. “It’s warm and gooey and delicious, but it doesn’t last.”
Priyanka laughs. “Are we talking about Garrett now?”
“I wasn’t in love with Garrett,” she says. “That was just fun.”
“Did he know that?”
Mae takes a defiant bite of her slice, which is still too hot. She winces and downs half a glass of water in one go. Priyanka shakes her head.
“If you weren’t so careful—”
“I’m not careful,” Mae says, practically spitting the word.
Priyanka looks like she wants to laugh, but she manages to bite it back. “I don’t mean in life,” she says more gently. “I mean with your heart.”
Mae—who was all set to argue—is stopped short by this.
“You’re the least guarded person I know,” Priyanka continues, pressing forward. “To a fault, sometimes. But when it really counts, you play it safe. The minute any guy starts to fall for you, there’s a Mae-shaped hole in the wall.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” Priyanka insists, gesturing at the pizza. “You’re afraid of the warm, gooey parts. You think I’m nuts for trying to stay together with Alex, but I’d rather take a chance and end up with someone I love than protect myself and end up—”
Mae scowls. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because,” Priyanka says, more softly now, “sometimes I think you’re more interested in making movies than living your life. Not everything is supposed to be material. It’s like you go out into the world with a camera and leave your heart behind on a shelf. But if you don’t ever truly risk anything—”
“I do,” Mae says quickly, trying not to show how stung she is. “In fact, I was going to tell you—”
“No,” Priyanka says, “I do not mean that kind of risk.”
“What? You don’t even know what I was going to say—”
“Mae,” she says, already exasperated. “Only you would hear that and take away that you should sign up to be murdered by some guy on a train.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“I sent that post as a joke, not a suggestion. Honestly, tell me you’re not actually thinking of going.”
“I’m not actually thinking of going.”
“Really?”
“No, not really,” she says with a grin. “Come on. It would be amazing.”
Priyanka shakes her head. “I literally just watched this show where a girl gets stalked by someone on a train, and—”
“You watch too much TV.”
“Well, you watch too many movies.”
Mae laughs. “So what happened in the show?”
“It was all a big mix-up,” Priyanka says, picking up a slice of pizza. “The guy turned out to be great and they fell in love and lived happily ever after.”
“Really?”
“No,” she says. “She got murdered. What do you think?”
After lunch, Priyanka drives Mae home, steering her car into that familiar circle at the top of the driveway. For a moment, they just sit there staring at the blank face of the garage.
“Okay, you’re right,” Mae says, tipping her head back against the seat. “Now I’m kind of sad.”
Priyanka laughs. “See?”
“We’ll talk all the time, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Promise you’ll call me more than you call Alex?”
“Only if you promise you won’t get on that train.”
“Let’s just agree to play it all by ear,” Mae says cheerfully. As she starts to unbuckle her seat belt, Priyanka puts a hand on her elbow.
“Listen,” she says, her brown eyes searching Mae’s. “I don’t want you going off to college thinking that love is like a pizza.”
“Would it be better if I thought it was like a calzone?”
Priyanka ignores this. “Love is…I don’t know. Something bigger than that. It’s like the sun.”
“In that you can get burnt by it?”
“No,” she says wearily, but already her eyes have that starry quality they get whenever she’s thinking of Alex. “In that it makes everything brighter and happier. And it warms you from the inside out.”
“So does pizza,” Mae says, and this time Priyanka swats at her.
“You know what I’m saying. Just promise me you’ll be open to the possibilities.”
Without quite meaning to, Mae finds herself thinking of the video she sent to Hugo W., and how easy it had been to answer his questions. She takes a deep breath and nods. “I promise.”
Priyanka seems satisfied by this. She reaches for the door handle and gets out of the car, and Mae does the same. They hurry around the front to give each other a hug.
“I love you like a pizza,” Priyanka whispers in her ear, and Mae laughs.
“Safe travels.”
Priyanka steps back and gives her a long look. “You too,” she says finally.
Up until that moment, Mae wasn’t completely sure. But right then, she realizes they both know exactly what she’s going to do.
Afterward, she walks around the side of the house and finds Nana out on the porch, her favorite spot to nap these days. Her eyes flicker open as Mae jogs up the old wooden steps.
“And then there were two,” Nana says with a melodramatic sigh. “I can’t believe Priyanka busted out of here before us.”
Mae laughs. “Won’t be long now.”
“Five days,” she says. “But who’s counting?”
They tried to persuade Nana to stay permanently, arguing that the country would be more relaxing for her. But she made it clear she has no interest in relaxing, and now that she’s got a clean bill of health, she insists on moving back to her own apartment in the city.
“You know what I will miss about living here?”
“Giving my dads a hard time?”