Page 100 of 72 Hours of You

“She’ll be okay. Eventually,” I say, even though I have no idea if she ever will be. She might be fucked up for the rest of her life. She might not survive. “It might take a really long time, but I can tell your mom is kinda badass.” I put my hand on his. “She’ll be okay.” Lies, lies, lies.

Peter takes a breath and nods like he might actually believe me. “Will you do me a favor?”

I steel myself, waiting for him to ask me to look after his mom or something, but he just smiles and says, “Will you dance with me?”

I laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious.”

“Peter—”

He grabs his phone and opens the Spotify app and presses play on Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply.” “A romantic nineties playlist. Just for you.”

“Oh my god, this is the cheesiest thing that’s ever happened.”

“Yeah, and you better enjoy it.” Peter stands up on the bed and holds out his hand to me, and I take it and then I wrap my arms around his neck and he puts his hands around my waist. And we dance. He’s dying. And I’m living. And we’re dancing.

Sixty-One

I BOLT UP, MY HEART HAMMERING in my chest. “PETER!” His name comes out in a scream.

“I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay.”

Peter is next to me in the bed. Holding me.

14:22:22

Oh my god we fell asleep.

Tears burn my eyes. Stupid. Fucking stupid. I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep. I wasn’t supposed to waste all that time.

“It’s all right. We had to sleep. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” I say. He’s already sitting up. “Were you awake before me?”

“A little.”

“You let me sleep? Fuck, why didn’t you wake me up? This is your time. This is …” I’m such a bitch. It’s after six a.m. It’s already tomorrow. I get the urge to grab a lamp and throw it across the room.

“It’s okay, really,” Peter says. “We had to sleep.”

I throw the covers off me. “What should we do? What should we do?”

Peter takes my hand. “Sydney.”

And then I start crying.

Peter brushes my hair back. “It’s okay.”

I pull him into me, holding on. Fourteen hours. Fourteen hours with Peter. That’s all I have left. It’s nothing.

“You know what?” Peter says. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

“Leave the hotel?” Suddenly the idea sounds terrifying. Right now we’re in this little world of our own, but out there … who knows what’s out there? What if something happens? What if I get on a train and the doors close, and he doesn’t make it, and we’re apart and we can’t get back to each other?

“Come on,” Peter says. “Let’s go do something.”

Everything in me is screaming No no no no. But I have to say yes, so I do. “Where do you want to go?”