Free Are We There Yet? by David Levithan

school. Everybody says they hate high school. The cliques, the insecurity, the pressure. But Elijah has somehow found a place that he loves. It is not childhood. It is not adulthood. It is now, and it too resides in the hourglass.
    He'd chosen a high school his brother had never been. Teachers who had never heard Danny's name. Hallways that wouldn't bear his echo. He hadn't been sent away, although maybe he'd made it sound that way to the friends he was leaving back home. But he had wanted to go. He had wanted to live there and sleep there and wake there. He had wanted to be somewhere entirely new. Not because of Danny or his parents, who were at first a little sad about him going away, but then felt better when he said it was about getting a different experience,not about escaping. Funny, but at the time it had seemed like a grown-up thing to do.
Planning for your future
, his father had said. Once he got there, though, the future was the last thing on his mind. When he went home to his parents and his old friends, that was the past. And Cal and Ivan and the others were the present. The future? Maybe Danny was the future. But less so. The avoidable future.
    Elijah lies awake for an hour before he rises from the hotel bed. He drifts from the past to the near past. He wishes memory could be as easy as breathing.
    Thoughts of Julia begin to blur within the air.
    The sound of small waves seems to bring on the daylight.

Danny has trouble waking up. The time zones have finally caught up with him. Reluctantly, he gets dressed and plods his way to breakfast with Elijah. He realizes he has become a full member of the Society of Temporary Expatriates—the dining area is filled with people from their flight or from the synagogue or from loud American conversations on the street. Danny feels a displaced sense of community. Even on the vaporetto ride to Murano, he spots a teenager from the plane, who was wearing a Wolverines T-shirt yesterday and now pledges sartorial allegiance to the Bulls.
    Murano is an island known throughout the world for its glass. Danny is surprised to find that most of its buildings are stone. With jet-lag weariness, he allows himself to be led to kilns and hammerings. He admires without touching. He is amazed when color appears from the wand of the glassblower. He expects to find the glass clear, but instead discovers it rimmed with red or blue.
    By the third stop, Danny is ready to leave. He feels very much like his reflection—worn out and only vaguely present. Elijah is kept awake by his wonder. Danny subsides.
    “A nap,” he says. But Elijah isn't listening. He is looking around, as if for someone else.
    “Who are you looking for?” Danny asks.
    “No one,” Elijah replies, focusing now.
    Yeah, right
, Danny thinks. He figures his brother is looking for some old lady he helped to cross the street. Ormaybe that girl from the plane who wouldn't shut up about herself.
    “Do you want to go back for a quick nap before we leave?” Danny asks, even though it's only eleven.
    Elijah nods. He wants to go back.
    But he doesn't have any intention of napping.

The laws of gravity vary from city to city. In Venice, the laws state that no matter where you want to go, you will always be drawn back to St. Mark's Square. Even though you know it will be immensely crowded, and even though you have nothing in particular to do there, you will still feel yourself drawn.
    Elijah diverges from Danny at the gates of the hotel and finds himself gravitating. He moves as if he knows the place. It is a spiritual familiarity.
    Past the coffee bars and through the crowds of pigeons, Elijah heads for the basilica. It is busy, as it always is. There are numerous signs prohibiting photography. Some tourists rankle at this and fail to put their cameras away. Others would never imagine taking a photograph in such a place. They stand solemnly before the statues and say prayers of thanks or pain.
    Elijah pays his admission and walks into