Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

and I were on the paper with Mitchell before he graduated. That’s why we were at his party.”
    I was guessing that she wasn’t that close to Peter, or she would’ve known to stay far away from me.
    “Look,” Claire said. “I know it’s almost midnight, and you probably have to get back to Brooklyn, but do you want to walk for a little? I should be home, too, but if I go home now, I’m going to be up half the night. If we talk, I’ll probably be able to clear my head enough to go to bed.”
    I found myself saying, “Sure,” not really knowing why.
    As we headed off, a tourist asked Claire if she’d take a picture of him and his wife in front of the wreckage.
    “Sorry, no,” she said, and moved on.
    We were silent for a couple of minutes, and I wondered what the point was, if we were going to be silent. Yes, it felt different than wandering alone. But it only added awkwardness. It was like I’d agreed to go on a blind date and found out that we were going to only interact using cue cards.
    “Where are you taking me?” I asked.
    “Battery Park?”
    “Sounds good.”
    “Isn’t it amazing how Century 21 is still here?” she said as we passed by the department store. “I mean, it was right across from the towers—isn’t it incredible how the building could collapse without hitting the building right across the street? Of course, if it had been damaged, maybe they would have rebuilt it with dressing rooms. A store like that should have dressing rooms. Anyway—sorry—that was totally uncalled for. What’s your story? I mean, where were you that day?”
    So we shared our stories—me at home, her at school, looking for her mother. By the time we were done, we were at the water, on the edge of Battery Park. The Statue of Liberty gleamed at us, putting her green-metal stamp on the lights and darkness. I tried again to remember Claire from Mitchell’s party, but couldn’t. This was probably because I definitely look at boys more than girls. But it wasn’t just that. I imagined that while I was busy flitting around, she had stayed solidly in one place. I would never remember someone like that.
    But here we were, and as she talked, I found myself liking her. She reminded me of people I liked—friends at school who were unafraid to meander, who never did the mean things I expected from other people. In New York City, where openness can be offered so pretentiously, so deliberately, there was something unplanned about Claire’s voluntary kindness, her need to walk and talk. I usually avoided people like this, because I didn’t feel I could give them what they needed. But something about this night, this time, made me want to stay. It made me want to play my part, and not have it be playing a part at all.
    “What happened when you got back to your apartment?” I asked. “I mean, was it okay?”
    Claire nodded. “The only thing wrong, really, was the air. On the first day, we lasted an hour, and then my mom said we had to go back uptown for the night, that we couldn’t be breathing it in. I couldn’t believe her—but then I thought about my little brother, and him breathing in whatever was in the air, and Ihad to give in. They said it wasn’t poisonous, but it smelled poisonous. So we waited a few more days, and when we moved back in, Mom put in all these air purifiers.”
    “God, I can’t imagine. It was bad enough in Brooklyn.”
    “And what did you do during the day?”
    “I did nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
    “I can’t imagine that,” Claire said. And it wasn’t like she was disputing the fact that I had done nothing. It was just that it was the opposite of what she’d been doing and feeling.
    She went on. “There’s the drown of things and the swim of things, I guess. I’ve been going back and forth, back and forth. I feel the weight of it. And this bewilderment—how can something that doesn’t have a form, doesn’t have a definition, doesn’t have words—how can it have such