Free We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach Page B

with Bobo at the beginning of freshman year, she’d been on a downward slope: drinking, smoking, blowing off her homework, and God only knew what else. She and Peter barely ever talked to each other like friends anymore; he inevitably ended up sounding like some kind of third parent, or else a PSA about drugs.
    â€œWell, that was a weird night,” Cartier said when Peter dropped him off. “But it was worth it just to meet that Keira chick.”
    â€œYou’ll get her next time.”
    â€œNo doubt, brother. See you tomorrow.”
    Peter wished he could have just gone inside with Cartier, to watch some TV and maybe sneak a beer or two out of the fridge, but he had a date with an argument. At least Stacy was good enough to wait until they were standing alone at her front door before she started yelling.
    â€œSo what the hell was that?”
    â€œWhat was what?”
    â€œTaking me to that . . . place.”
    â€œI don’t know. Just a change of pace, I guess.”
    â€œWe already applied to college, Peter. We don’t need to do shit like that.”
    â€œI thought you might enjoy it.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t! I hated it!” Stacy’s cheekbones were all sharp and serious, and there was that familiar little cinder in her eyes. She was prettiest when she was angry, and that was saying something, because she was pretty all the time. Peter couldn’t believe it when they first got together, when they first touched, when he first saw her naked. What had he ever done to deserve something so beautiful? But his sense of gratitude had faded over the years, giving way to a constant low-grade irritation. That was the reason he’d kissed Eliza in the photo lab last year. Because for just a second there, he hadn’t wanted the beautiful social queen. He’d wanted something different. Something more peaceful or pensive. Or maybe just something more .
    â€œWhy?” he asked, and the exhale of that one syllable felt huge, like smashing through a window with his bare fist.
    â€œWhy what?”
    â€œWhy did you hate it? I mean, we did a good thing tonight, and you should feel good about that.”
    â€œI can’t even deal with how much of an asshole you’re being right now,” she said, then stalked into her house and slammed the door.
    Peter walked slowly back to the car.
    â€œShe looked pissed,” Misery said.
    â€œShe was.”
    â€œYeah. I’m sure she would have had a better time torturing puppies or something.”
    Peter didn’t have the energy to bother defending his girlfriend. “Did you have a good time at least?”
    Misery slouched down in her seat, pulled her black cap over her eyes. “Yeah. But only because ex-cons are badass.”
    Peter smiled. And totally unbidden, totally unfairly, a thought came to him: Eliza wouldn’t have been bothered by a night like this. He could picture himself working next to her at the vegetable station, quietly slicing up beets, then going out afterward to some foreign film or something. Sitting alone in the back row of the movie theater, their fingers interlocked, and then leaning over, turning her face to his . . .
    Peter knew that thinking about being with Eliza was a kind of cheating, but he couldn’t help it. The fantasies fell like dead leaves from somewhere above his conscious mind, more and more often every day. And no matter how often he swept them away, they always came back.
    That night, when he gasped awake sometime in the hours before sunrise to find Ardor framed perfectly in his bedroom window, gleaming like the eye of some sleepless demon, his defenses dropped away, and he allowed himself to imagine Eliza slipping into bed beside him, kissing him like she had that first time. The fantasy led him gently back down into his dreams.
    It was the last good night’s sleep he’d have for a long time.

A ndy
    THEY MET UP TO WATCH the speech at Andy’s place,