Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“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.