Page 55 of 72 Hours of You

I stop and raise my eyebrow at him. “Come on.”

He lets out a sigh and runs his hand through his hair, his waves flopping back down on his forehead. “I don’t know. Sometimes he can get … too obsessed with making memories or something. Like he puts all this pressure on us to enjoy our time together. And I mean, I love my dad. He really is great. But sometimes I wish he’d just relax, you know?”

“Not really,” I say, my eyes on the buildings ahead. “I mean, my dad is excessively relaxed about parenting. Sometimes I swear he wishes he could just leave Jules and me behind.” I try to stop myself, but the words just keep coming like a pileup car crash. “Sometimes he looks at me and I can tell, you know? That he’s seeing my mom’s face. And it doesn’t make him happy like Oh wow, it’s so beautiful that Beth is living on in my daughter’s smile, or whatever bullshit. It’s the opposite. He can hardly stand to look at me.” Shit. That was a lot of words. Now I’m going to have to look at Peter.

I expect to see his face all steely and furrowed with that fix-it boy energy. But that’s not it at all. In fact, he looks sort of … soft. “I didn’t know your mom’s name was Beth.”

“My grandma had a thing for Little Women.”

“Who doesn’t?” Peter says. “I mean. The book. Not like little women in general. I mean, Louisa May Alcott knew how to write a book. You know what I mean.”

I laugh. “Yeah. I know what you mean.” We stop to let a cyclist aggressively push his way onto the sidewalk, and then keep walking. “It’s kind of messed up, though. Like she named her after the one who dies young. Maybe she hexed her or something.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in any of that,” Peter says.

“I don’t,” I say. “It’s just … sometimes things feel destined, you know?”

“I do.” Peter stops and looks me in the eyes. All of a sudden there’s this buzzing between us—this electric force—and I get the urge to lean toward him. But I don’t. I just clear my throat, and take a step back, and squint up at the buildings next to us.

“Listen, Sydney, if today gets weird for you, we can always go home. Seriously, no pressure.” His face is open and warm but I can also feel this wanting emanating from him.

“I don’t want to go home,” I say, a little too quickly.

The trace of a smile slides onto Peter’s face. “That’s good because … we’re here.”

I have no idea where “here” is—I kind of thought we were just wandering around—but then we turn the corner and I see it.

Dylan’s Candy Bar.

It’s just as bright and obnoxious as I imagined it would be. All giant candy sculptures and rainbow colors and neon lights and—

A clock.

Twenty-Eight

A FLASH OF PINK BLURS IN MY PERIPHERY. It’s not just some takeout light or ridiculous SUV tire LEDs. I’d know that light anywhere. There’s a Clocker down the street. I go to say something to Peter and realize I’ve got his arm in a death grip. I slowly uncurl my fingers.

“Sorry,” Peter says, looking from my hands to my face. “Was Dylan’s a bad idea? Maybe it’s a little much for our first …”

“Deadly hot-dog dispensation event?”

“Yeah. That.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not too much. It’s just … I saw one.”

Peter’s face goes white. “Shit. It’s not a kid, is it?” He glances back at the candy store overflowing with grubby little munchkins in various states of manic euphoria and complete distress. Peter starts rubbing the back of his neck. “Damn, I really didn’t think this through.”

“No, no. It’s not a kid,” I say, resisting the urge to reach up and take his hand from his neck. “At least I don’t think so. The Clocker’s not in there. They went that way.”

“Oh, okay. Good,” Peter says, visibly relieved. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know? Chase them?”

I’m kind of joking but then Peter cracks a tiny smile and says, “Okay.”

We start walking, and then kind of speed-walking, and then full-on jogging down the street, dodging half-hardened gum, an errant piece of dog shit, and puddles left over from last night’s rain. And I know that we’re basically hunting down an almost-dead person, but it’s just so ridiculous and hysterical that I can’t help but laugh. And then Peter laughs too. And there’s this moment where we’re laughing and jogging and looking at each other and I think to myself, This is kind of okay.

And then I stop short, Peter nearly knocking into me, because the Clocker is right there.