Tonight the Streets Are Ours

Bianca’s eyes widen. “That’s even worse,” she says. “You’re like a groupie. A groupie for some sad-sack, self-absorbed eighteen-year-old who has delusions that he’s famous.”


“That’s not what he’s like,” Arden says, shocked and offended on Peter’s behalf. This is the love of his life? This is how she talks about him?

“I think I would be the judge of that,” Bianca shoots back. “Better than you, anyway. And where is he?”

“I don’t know. I just woke up when you came in the room. He didn’t let you in?”

Bianca blinks a few times. “No. The doorman did. I didn’t see Peter anywhere else in the apartment, so I came in. I assumed he was holed up in here.”

“So he just … left me here?” Arden asks, glancing around the room for a note from Peter. He might have texted her to say where he’d gone. Only no, he didn’t, because even if her phone weren’t dead, they’d never exchanged numbers.

Bianca sneers. “Get used to it.”

Arden takes a step toward her. “Why are you being like this? Peter always made you sound like a really nice person.”

This seems to give Bianca pause. “He told you about me?” she asks, her voice quieter.

“Bianca. He talks about you constantly.” It occurs to Arden that perhaps she could help Peter win back Bianca’s heart. She could convey how obsessed with Bianca Peter is, how much Bianca means to him. And maybe just by being here now, Arden seems like enough of a threat that Bianca will want to take him back, to get him away from other girls. This actually would not be a bad plan. Peter would be grateful to her forever.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t want to win over Bianca. What she wants is for Peter to come back. To her. To whatever it is that they started here in his bed a few hours ago. She wants him to come back with a reasonable explanation for why he left her here. She wants to be the girl that people come back for.

“Let me be clear with you,” Arden says. “I have been reading Peter’s writing online, and I think he’s incredibly talented. I live hundreds of miles away, and I have never met him in person before last night. I didn’t have a place to sleep, because my best friend and I got in a huge fight and my car broke down and everything went to hell, and Peter gave me a place to crash because he’s a good guy. So please stop acting like I’m swooping in here to steal your man, when A, I didn’t steal him, and B, as far as I can tell, he is not even your man anymore, since you dumped him.”

Bianca is silent for a moment as she seems to weigh Arden’s words. “So you definitely didn’t hook up with him?” she asks at last.

Arden thinks about that one kiss with Peter last night—this morning, rather—how good it felt, how wrong it was.

It was only one kiss, though. And it wasn’t even Peter’s choice.

“I’m just a fan,” Arden says. “That’s all.”

Bianca sighs noisily.

“What’s your problem with that?” Arden demands. “He’s a great writer.”

“He has a way with words,” Bianca concedes, “but personally I’m not a big fan of the bit where he makes it sound like I randomly broke up with him a week after his brother disappeared. You know, just to make him suffer. And then he heroically won me back, because we’re ‘soul mates.’ And then I broke up with him again, right after he achieved his life-long dream, because I am so selfish that I’m incapable of supporting anyone else’s happiness.”

Arden raises her eyebrows. “Well, didn’t you do all of that?”

Bianca smiles grimly. “Look, Arden, you read one version of the story. Peter’s. If you asked me, I’d tell you a different version. But nobody does ask me. Yes, I broke up with him—yes, twice. I have done things in the interest of self-preservation. And I have done some things that were stupid—really, really stupid—because I really, really wanted to. But I’ve never set out to hurt anybody, including Peter. Especially Peter.”