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“That’s not true,” Jane says. “You know how to do tons of things.”
“I know logistically how to perform some tasks,” August tells her, squeezing her eyes shut. That dynamite hot tub is starting to sound very appealing. “I don’t know how to have something that I do, every day, like as an adult who does a thing. It’s nuts that we all start out having these vague ideas of what we like to do, hobbies, interests, and then one day everybody has their thing, you know? They used to just be a person and now they’re a—an architect, or a banker, or a lawyer, or—or a serial killer who makes jewelry out of human teeth. Like, things. That they do. That they are. What if there’s not that thing for me, Jane, I mean, what if I’ve never wanted to be anything other than just an August? What if that’s all there is for me? What if Billy’s closes and nobody else will hire me? What if I get out there and end up realizing there’s not a dream for me, or a purpose, or anything—”
“Okay,” Jane says, cutting her off. “Okay, come on.”
When August opens her eyes, Jane’s standing in front of her, hand outstretched.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where?” August says, even as she grabs on. Immediately, she’s pulled toward the back of the car, tripping over her feet. “I’m trying to have a nervous breakdown here.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Jane says. They’re at the emergency exit, and Jane reaches for the door handle.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?”
“I’m gonna show you my favorite thing to do when I feel like I’m gonna lose it down here,” Jane says. “All you gotta do is keep up.”
“Why do I feel like I’m about to take my life into my own hands?”
“Because you should,” Jane says easily. She winks as if she’s sealing August’s fate in an envelope with a kiss. “But I promise you’ll be okay. Do you trust me?”
“What? What kind of question is that?”
“Can you turn that brain of yours off for a second and trust?”
August opens and shuts her mouth.
“I—I guess I can try.”
“Good enough for me,” Jane says, and she wrenches the door open.
There’s barely time to panic about the noise and wind and motion exploding through the open door before Jane’s stepping onto the tiny platform between trains, pulling August with her by one sweaty hand.
It’s chaos—the darkness of the tunnel, the blue and yellow flashes of train lights and flickering wall fixtures, the deafening rattle of the tracks flying past, dirt and concrete rushing out from underneath them. August makes the absolutely terrible mistake of looking down and feels like she’s going to throw up.
“Oh my God, what the fuck,” she says, but she can’t hear her own voice.
The tracks are right there. One wrong step and a few inches of air between staying alive and being scraped off the rails. This is the worst possible idea anyone could ever have, and it’s what Jane does for fun.
“It makes you feel alive, right?” Jane shouts, and before August can yank them both back into the car, Jane steps across the gap to the platform of the next car.
“It makes me feel like I’m gonna die!” August yells back.
“That’s the same thing!”
August is clinging to the car, back pressed against the door, nails scrabbling. Jane grabs the handle of the next door with one hand and reaches out the other to her. “Come on! You can do this!”
“I really can’t!”
“August, you can!”
“I can’t!”
“Don’t look at the tracks!” she yells. “Eyes up, Landry!”
Everything in August’s brain is screaming at her not to, but she drags her eyes up from the rails and to the car in front of her, the tiny platform, Jane standing there with one hand out, the wind whipping her hair around her face.
August realizes, suddenly, it’s the first time she’s ever seen Jane outside of the train.
