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Okay, I write.I’m ready. Let’s go out. I don’t care where. You said you knew a place?
She responds almost immediately.
Finally!!! Yes, I know a great place. We can’t drink but we can get in and dance. It’s going to be so great.
I don’t know about “so great,” but it’ll be necessary, at least for me. I let Mia gush about how cool the place is, how awesome the music is, how great this night is going to be. I don’t voice any of my fears, don’t tell her this adventure is more to get someone out of my system than to go out and have fun. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll do both.
We set a date and time. I put a reminder on my phone so I can’t lose track of it among the billion other things I’m supposed to be doing. I’m already stressing out about losing a night of studying for this, but if I don’t get Diego off my mind, no amount of studying will save me.
Chapter Fourteen
Diego
AFTER THE INCIDENT in the library, I start avoiding campus again. So when Leo bursts through the door to our apartment, he finds me hunched on the floor with books all around me and my laptop sitting on the coffee table.
“This is the absolute saddest thing I’ve ever witnessed,” he says.
“A grad student studying?”
“A grad student studying onSaturday night, which is what he doesevery Saturday night.”
Leo throws his keys at our kitchen counter and strides in, plopping onto the couch and sprawling in the way only a straight man can.
“Come on,” he says. “Time to shut the books for the night. I’m taking you out.”
I shoot him a skeptical look. “I’m not sure you and I are interested in the same establishments.”
“That’s why we’re going to this queer bar I know of over in Newark.”
“What? Newark? Queer bar?”
“Those are the words I said, yes,” Leo says. He stands and slaps me on the shoulder. “Finish what you’re doing. I’m claiming first shower, but when I’m done I better find you out here pre-gaming.”
“Leo, I can’t. I have too much to do.”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” he cuts in. “You’ve been here an entire month and I’ve never once seen you have fun. This is non-negotiable.”
I do shut up then, because he doesn’t know about the drag show, he doesn’t know just how much “fun” I had that night, and I’m not eager to tell him.
Against my better judgment, I let Leo boss me around. Within an hour, we’ve both showered and changed. I even down a couple drinks of cheap whiskey. Leo abstains so he can drive, and it only hits me to regret this when I’m in his car and we’re leaving Montridge behind. The lights feel even more voluminous with my head faintly swimming. We’re heading toward New York City, toward a place that seems more like something out of a story than a real location to me. So many millions of people in one spot. It’s unfathomable. It’sterrifying.
It’s exciting.
The thought arrives in Avery’s voice, bright and enthusiastic, and I shake it away.
“You doing okay there?” Leo says. “Don’t get sick in my car.”
“It was a couple drinks,” I say. “I’m not sick.”
“Hey, I don’t know how you do it in those small towns. Maybe that was a lot for you.”
“If you think we don’t drink far, far harder than that in small towns then you know nothing about small towns.”
Leo laughs and drops the subject. We leave the highway, but the roads we turn onto seem just as busy and chaotic. We’re in some sort of city, or would Leo call this a “town” too? It seems too large and sprawling for that. When Leo parks, we exit onto a sidewalk crammed between buildings along a four-lane road.
“The bar is this way,” Leo says, taking the lead.
The dark is liquid around us, a writhing, inky thing, like a snake slipping between my hands. It’s vast and terrifying and full of possibilities.
