The Odds of Lightning (29 page)

They could take the future in their hands and change things. She could make her life what she wanted it to be. Every second, as it unfolded from now until forever, was just a question mark. A whole series of them.

The impossible really could happen. And if it happened once, it could happen again. It could keep happening, every day, as long as they believed it could.

“We'll go to the Brooklyn Bridge. That's a surefire place to get struck by lightning.”

“Getting struck by lightning twice in one night,” Lu said. “Pretty impossible odds, if you think about it.”

“So,” Tiny said. “Let's defy the odds.”

Someone grabbed her hand.

“Come on!”

She ran with Tiny down the hall in the dark, Nathaniel and Will right behind them, toward the glowing red exit sign.

Instead of rolling her eyes, Lu couldn't help but smile. Tiny always said Lu was the brave one, that Lu was the optimist who went for the things she wanted. But Tiny was the optimistic one. Lu didn't know how she could think she didn't matter. She mattered to Lu. She mattered so much. She was the most important person in Lu's life, and Lu had taken her for granted. Tiny always made Lu feel lighter, happier, better about everything. She couldn't believe she couldn't see how awesome she was. She would do everything she could from now on to let Tiny know it.

And that was how Lu ended up running down the twelfth-floor hallway at six in the morning, with only the red glow of the exit sign to guide her, screaming into the void of the school.

Their voices bounced off the lockers twice as loud.

Downstairs in the lobby was a stack of boxes labeled
COLLEGE BOARD: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 10/15.

“You guys, stop!” Will said. They came crashing to a stop. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Holy shit,” said Lu. “It is. That's the SATs.”

Nathaniel walked over and placed a reverent hand on one of the boxes. He placed his cheek up against it and whispered something.

“Dude,” Will said. “Are you communing with the boxes?”

“Shhh,” Nathaniel said.

Lu put a hand on her hip. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Tiny said. “He's having a moment.”

“Should we open it? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at the answers without anyone knowing it was us.”

“
Open
it?” Nathaniel was aghast. He stroked the box. “Don't listen to her, girl. We wouldn't do that to you.” To the group he said, “Some things are sacred. You can't just go opening every box of SAT booklets you find.”

“I don't know,” said Will. “I kind of want to open it.”

“Me too,” said Lu. “I didn't study a whole lot.”

“Guys,” Tiny interrupted. “If we don't leave now, it won't even matter if you've studied or not, because we won't
make
it to the test.” Nathaniel was whispering to the boxes again. “Nathaniel!”

“Fine.” He pulled himself away. “See you in a few hours,” he said to the boxes. “I hope.”

“Come ooon.” Tiny dragged them with her. “It's more fun to make the answers up as you go along, anyway.”

Lu led them back out through the theater, the way they came in.

The four of them ran down the street. Lightning slashed against the sidewalk just behind them, and the sirens bellowed after. Thunder shook the concrete, set off car alarms along the street, but they kept running. Somewhere along the way, Lu heard a police siren.

“Do you guys think that's for us?” Lu said, her heart pounding hard. “For breaking into the school?” She made a face. “Do you think they know we almost opened the SATs?”

“I don't know,” said Will, grabbing her hand and running faster. “But let's not find out.”

In the midst of everything, Nathaniel turned to Tiny and grinned. She grinned back. He grabbed her hand, and they ran faster.

Eventually, the sirens receded into the background of the city, blending into the howling of the wind and the car alarms and their feet pounding against the pavement and the beating of their hearts that was the soundtrack to the night. It was like music. One great, big, fucking gorgeous mess of sound. A mad symphony. But somehow it made sense.

“Hey.” Lu put a feeler hand out in the darkness as she ran. “Tiny. Where are you?”

“Here,” said her friend's voice. A hand slipped into hers. After getting Gus to take them to school, after making them all run to the Brooklyn Bridge and become human lightning rods, Lu could have sworn Tiny was beginning to come back. Not a lot. But bit by bit. It really was in their hands. The lightning would take them the rest of the way.

“Tiny.” Lu squeezed. “I'm so sorry. About everything. If I had any part in making you feel ignored. I know”—she gulped—“I know I can be bad at the whole feelings thing. I should have tried to talk to you more about Tobias, about everything after. Looking back, I don't really know why I didn't, except for that I didn't know how, which doesn't feel like a good enough reason, but that's the truth.”

“Thanks, Lu,” Tiny said. “But it wasn't only you. I have to get better at trusting myself. I ignored myself too. But . . .”

Lu swallowed. “Yeah?”

“You do keep a lot of secrets from me. If you keep doing it, I feel like we're not going to be best friends for much longer. We're not going to be best friends at all. And the idea of life without you as my best friend is—is—
lonely
!”

“And you're not keeping things from me?” Lu said softly. “You could have come to me back then. You could have said you needed me. You could have said you needed someone.”

“I know.”

“I'm here, you know,” Lu said. “Now. It's a little late, but—”

Tiny looked around. The boys were out of earshot.

“We kissed,” she blurted.

“What?”

“We kissed that night.”

“Are you kidding?” Lu was trying so hard to keep it together. “That counts more than anything! Why did you go along with my Josh Herrera plan if you'd already had a first kiss with the guy you really wanted to have your first kiss with? I was just trying to make you feel better!”

“I don't know,” Tiny said. “I wanted to believe it, I guess. I wanted to try to move on. It didn't work, though. Josh Herrera is kind of a jerk.”

“What! No. But those soulful eyes! And that hair!”

“I know!”

“What a waste of good hair.”

“I missed you so much, Lu. I felt so alone.”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but so did I. There was so much I wanted to tell you!”

“We can start now. Right?”

“Okay, here's the truth,” Lu said, and then the rest just came pouring out. “That summer before high school, Will and I . . . I think we were kind of in love, or whatever. That last night, instead of coming to meet you, I went over to his place and I guess we kind of ended up . . .”

Tiny's jaw dropped about five feet. “You and Will? I knew it!”

Lu rolled her eyes. “Yeah. And it was really weird and embarrassing.”

“Lu.” Tiny gasped. “Did you have sex?”

“No! But almost. Like, really almost. I freaked out.”

Tiny's mouth opened involuntarily. “What happened?”

Lu sniffed. “It was sooo awkward. I wanted to talk to you about it, but, Tiny, I felt
so
guilty for ditching you. And with everything else that happened that night, I just felt like it wasn't as important. I was afraid he didn't like me as much as I liked him. So I told him it was a mistake. We never spoke again. Until tonight.”

“Oh, Lu. I'm so sorry.”

Lu smeared black mascara gunk across her cheek with the back of her hand. “It was a bad summer. The worst of my life, maybe. There was my dad, and then Will, and then Tobias—and then after that, you and I . . . I mean, it's never really been the same. I never wanted to feel so torn on the inside again. I promised myself I would never get so attached again. To anyone. So I would never let myself get that hurt ever again. . . .” She trailed off and looked at her shoes. “Or whatever.”

“How could you not tell me any of this? There's this whole gaping backstory of your life I didn't know. I'm your best friend. Or at least, I was.”

“No,” Lu said. “You still are. You'll always be.”

They walked along the dark sidewalks, punctuated every now and then by the orange halo of light from the streetlamp. The boys were still up ahead. “I don't know why I brought us to the party tonight. I just felt like it was calling me. Like it was time. Maybe it was the lightning. Maybe I just had things I needed to say and I finally couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore. I don't know.”

“Do you need a reason?”

“I guess not.”

And then Lu threw her arms around Tiny's neck and hugged her so hard, Tiny almost couldn't breathe.

“You're the best fucking friend in the world. I love you, Tine.”

“I love you too, Loozles.”

They crossed under a streetlamp, into the light.

Will and Nathaniel walked side by side. Will looked up at the sky, then down at his watch. The edges of the sky were beginning to fade. The sun would rise soon.

His phone chimed with a notification. He'd forgotten all about the video.

He opened the link.

There was a stream of comments on the video he'd posted. Not very nice ones. He couldn't blame them.

The last one was a video.

A door swung open; a vast dark living room stretched out before the camera, like the set of an abandoned movie.

It was
his
living room!

There were empty and half-empty red plastic cups scattered across the floor like grass seeds, flipped on their sides, perched on end tables, the mantelpiece, the coffee table, like they were struggling to grow. They were lined up along the hall credenza, single file. A sticky film covered the hardwood floors.

The place was
trashed.

On the wall above the couch, someone had written
LOSER
in something brown and sticky. Will was officially an outcast now. Everything he'd worked so hard for had been for nothing.

He didn't know whether to be angry or relieved.

“Gross,” Lu said over his shoulder.

“Wow,” said Tiny, on his other side. “I can't believe people would do that to you. They were supposed to be your friends.”

“People are the worst,” Nathaniel said.

“Wow,” said Will. “My parents are going to kill me dead.”

“They never have to know,” said Nathaniel. “I'll come over Sunday, help you clean. Just like I was going to come over tonight and help you study.”

“Let's hope Sunday goes better.”

Will started down the street again, then stopped, and turned around. “Thanks,” he said. “For coming over. Sorry things got so out of hand. Tonight, but also in life, too.”

“It wasn't your fault,” said Nathaniel. “We just went separate ways.”

“It
was
my fault. I should have been there for you after . . .”

Nathaniel looked down and didn't say anything.

“I just got so wrapped up in my own shit. I don't know why it was so important for me to join the soccer team. I just wanted to be . . . different than I was.”

“I get it. Trust me.”

Will looked up at Nathaniel. “You know, you're really brave.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. It's not just tonight, Nathaniel. You've always been braver than I am.”

Nathaniel let that sink in. “Huh.”

“You know,” Will said, huffing as they walked quickly down Chambers Street. “You were really good at explaining that science stuff.”

Nathaniel grinned. “I was really good, wasn't I? I've had a lot of time to study the last three years.”

“I bet you really could have won that same scholarship Tobias did. You deserve it. I think you do, anyway.”

“Thanks. But you know, I don't know. I've been thinking. Maybe it's a good thing I missed that deadline. Maybe it's time to find my own path. One thing I realized tonight is I have a choice in all this. I don't have to be the best just because my brother was. I'm going to be okay with just being myself.”

“Well, if you did apply, obviously you would win. It'd be some
bull
shit if you didn't.”

“If I do, just make sure your idiot friends don't talk too loud in assembly, okay?”

“Eh, I don't think they're going to be my friends after tonight. That video's going viral.”

“I'm glad you don't want to be someone different anymore,” Nathaniel said. “Welcome back, Will.”

Will was thinking about how Nathaniel was a good friend, and about how you don't know what the path will look like until you walk down it—or run down it, in the middle of the night. There's no way to know if the path you choose will be the wrong one. But sometimes you just have to choose, and trust that both paths will lead you back to where you're supposed to be, eventually.

A few blocks away, a row of Citi Bikes came into view, shiny and blue and locked firmly in place. “Nathaniel,” Tiny said. “Can you use your superstrength to steal us a couple of bikes? We'll get there faster.”

Nathaniel grinned.

They rode across town through the night, the four of them. The wind howled around them. It still hadn't rained, but the sky pressed down on them like a fist, making it hard to breathe.

Every few seconds thunder roared, angry, like a lion descending from the sky. And then the lightning would crack closer, closer, ever closer.

Nathaniel kept turning around to check on Tiny.

“I'm still here!” She would say. “Stop checking on me. I'm fine!”

“Good! Hang on! Don't disappear yet—we're almost there!”