One
Even before she saw the explosion of flashes at the far end of the block, Ellie knew somehow that he was there.
It had been exactly one year, two months, and twenty-one days since she’d last seen him, but he’d always been like a radio signal, scrambling her thoughts. Just being near him was enough to fill her head with static.
It was her first time in New York City—a weekend trip with her new roommate and a couple of other girls from their dorm—and standing beneath the towering buildings, the sky fading above them, she couldn’t help being shocked by the smallness of the place.
For more than a year, the world had felt too big.
And now here she was in the middle of Manhattan, one of the largest cities on the planet, surrounded by thick crowds of people hurrying home from work and out to dinner, carrying umbrellas and suitcases and shopping bags, wearing hats and sunglasses, staring at guidebooks and phones, many of them drifting in much the same direction, drawn like moths toward the huge, sweeping spotlights set up in front of the Ziegfeld Theater, where they stood on tiptoe and craned their necks and whispered to those who were next to them, trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.
And somehow, in the midst of all this, he was here too.
Ellie had known it even before she saw the police barricades, before she noticed the red carpet and the lights and the security guards, before she saw the glowing marquee.
There were a thousand reasons to dismiss that prickle up her spine. The odds of this happening were insane. To stumble across him here, of all places, after all this time—it was too improbable, too coincidental, too unbelievable.
But still, a part of her knew.
That radio static, that tingling, fizzy lightness that was clouding her head: It was the world shrinking again. It was the awful, lurching nearness of him.
It was the unexpected jolt of joy at the thought.
And that’s when she saw it: the name at the top of the marquee, laid out in black print across the white background so that, from a distance, it almost looked like a chain of letters typed across a too-bright computer screen, like an e-mail, like a message, like a memory:
GRAHAM LARKIN
Two
As it turned out, she’d been nervous about this weekend for all the wrong reasons.
When Lauren, her new roommate, had asked if she wanted to drive down to New York for the long weekend with her and some friends, Ellie’s first reaction had been panic. Her first response to most invitations was panic, but she’d been at Harvard for three weeks now, and she’d vowed to get better about this.
After all, college was her chance to leave the old Ellie behind. The one who preferred books to people and who had only ever really had one friend; who enjoyed hanging out with her mom more than with kids her own age and who scribbled poetry on napkins; who missed even the most obvious pop-culture references and worked three jobs.
The old Ellie was shy and quiet and a little bit awkward. She tried her best not to stand out, wore flats so she didn’t look too tall, tied her red hair back into a ponytail, and made an effort to go unnoticed whenever possible.
But she wanted college to be different.
She wanted to learn how to ignore her instincts.
She wanted to fit in.
So far, Harvard had already taught her a lot: that she should never be late to her Shakespeare section, or leave her toothpaste in the communal bathroom, or eat the tacos in the dining hall.
But she’d also learned this: that making new friends was not something that came easily to her.
Pretty much every night so far had been a struggle between the awareness that she should be going out and meeting people and having fun and the much more powerful temptation to put on her pajamas and burrow under the covers with a book.
“You’re welcome to come along,” Lauren always said as she finished getting ready, pinning her short, dark hair up on one side and putting on her bright red
Even before she saw the explosion of flashes at the far end of the block, Ellie knew somehow that he was there.
It had been exactly one year, two months, and twenty-one days since she’d last seen him, but he’d always been like a radio signal, scrambling her thoughts. Just being near him was enough to fill her head with static.
It was her first time in New York City—a weekend trip with her new roommate and a couple of other girls from their dorm—and standing beneath the towering buildings, the sky fading above them, she couldn’t help being shocked by the smallness of the place.
For more than a year, the world had felt too big.
And now here she was in the middle of Manhattan, one of the largest cities on the planet, surrounded by thick crowds of people hurrying home from work and out to dinner, carrying umbrellas and suitcases and shopping bags, wearing hats and sunglasses, staring at guidebooks and phones, many of them drifting in much the same direction, drawn like moths toward the huge, sweeping spotlights set up in front of the Ziegfeld Theater, where they stood on tiptoe and craned their necks and whispered to those who were next to them, trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.
And somehow, in the midst of all this, he was here too.
Ellie had known it even before she saw the police barricades, before she noticed the red carpet and the lights and the security guards, before she saw the glowing marquee.
There were a thousand reasons to dismiss that prickle up her spine. The odds of this happening were insane. To stumble across him here, of all places, after all this time—it was too improbable, too coincidental, too unbelievable.
But still, a part of her knew.
That radio static, that tingling, fizzy lightness that was clouding her head: It was the world shrinking again. It was the awful, lurching nearness of him.
It was the unexpected jolt of joy at the thought.
And that’s when she saw it: the name at the top of the marquee, laid out in black print across the white background so that, from a distance, it almost looked like a chain of letters typed across a too-bright computer screen, like an e-mail, like a message, like a memory:
GRAHAM LARKIN
Two
As it turned out, she’d been nervous about this weekend for all the wrong reasons.
When Lauren, her new roommate, had asked if she wanted to drive down to New York for the long weekend with her and some friends, Ellie’s first reaction had been panic. Her first response to most invitations was panic, but she’d been at Harvard for three weeks now, and she’d vowed to get better about this.
After all, college was her chance to leave the old Ellie behind. The one who preferred books to people and who had only ever really had one friend; who enjoyed hanging out with her mom more than with kids her own age and who scribbled poetry on napkins; who missed even the most obvious pop-culture references and worked three jobs.
The old Ellie was shy and quiet and a little bit awkward. She tried her best not to stand out, wore flats so she didn’t look too tall, tied her red hair back into a ponytail, and made an effort to go unnoticed whenever possible.
But she wanted college to be different.
She wanted to learn how to ignore her instincts.
She wanted to fit in.
So far, Harvard had already taught her a lot: that she should never be late to her Shakespeare section, or leave her toothpaste in the communal bathroom, or eat the tacos in the dining hall.
But she’d also learned this: that making new friends was not something that came easily to her.
Pretty much every night so far had been a struggle between the awareness that she should be going out and meeting people and having fun and the much more powerful temptation to put on her pajamas and burrow under the covers with a book.
“You’re welcome to come along,” Lauren always said as she finished getting ready, pinning her short, dark hair up on one side and putting on her bright red
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