“It makes me feel small,” he muses, eyes lost in another memory.
“No!” I turn back to the city skyline and press my hands on the cool glass. My heart is pounding in my ears in the very best way. When Fitz plays his games with me, I’m forced to focus on my immediate surroundings to keep from spinning out, so that I can’t obsess over a million what-ifs. That’s how I feel now. I’m 850 feet in the air, but my feet feel solidly tethered to the ground. I’m here, and solely here. It makes me feel alive.
We’re quiet while I stare hungrily at the skyline. It’s borderline ridiculous, the way I’m living for this view. Harrison can tell too. “For what it’s worth, there’s this kid down the hall from me—”
“Wait, what?”
“In the dorm. I live on campus. Or at least, I did until my dad’s diagnosis. I’m not sure what I’m doing next semester. Anyway, Naveen lives in the dorms now, but he spent the entire last year traveling around the world, living out of a backpack, sleeping in hostels. He did it for something like two dollars a day. You could do something like that.”
“Believe me, I’ve looked. I’ve tried.”
“You’ve tried?” His voice is sardonic.
“I mean—no. It’s not like I’ve sold all my belongings and hopped on a plane. But that’s my point. You can’t even get anywhere for that cheap. Let alone food and transportation and shelter.” The fact is this. If my family had money, my wanderlust would be charming. As it is, Mom works herself half to death and money is always a factor. Down in the most hidden parts of myself, I’m convinced that I won’t make it anywhere at all. I’ll live and die in Gilbert, and that thought is so heartbreaking I almost can’t breathe.
“Okay. Maybe he’s lying. Or maybe you’re wrong.” His face is indifferent, as if he couldn’t be bothered either way.
I keep my hands on the glass as I wander the perimeter of the deck. Harrison doesn’t join me. He stays with his hands in his pockets, his face in a near-permanent grimace, and I begin to wonder about the emotional cost for him to be here. “Do you regret dating her?”
His face clears. “What’s the point of regret?”
I shrug. Seems easier than explaining how the fear of regret rules almost every aspect of my life.
“There’s a philosopher named Kierkegaard. He fell deeply in love with a woman named Regine Olsen, who loved him back. He proposed, and she agreed.”
“And the movie adaptation of their love plays every Christmas on the Hallmark Channel,” I quip. His tone makes it obvious this isn’t that kind of story.
“On Lifetime, maybe. He broke it off a month later. Rings were returned, and they were both devastated. He cried himself to sleep; she threatened suicide.”
“Get to the good part, Harrison.”
“He did it because he was worried that he couldn’t be everything at once: a good husband, a writer, and a faithful Christian. He chose writing over her.”
“This story sucks.”
“It’s said he regretted it for the rest of his life.”
“He was disappointed over all the lives he wasn’t living,” I say, hating how deeply I understand his actions.
“He later wrote, ‘If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or do not marry, you will regret both.’ ”
“So, you’re saying no matter what I do, I’ll have regrets?”
“Kierkegaard is saying that, not me.”
“But you’re telling me for a reason.”
“The way I see it, if all roads lead to regret, you may as well do what you want.”
I sigh, fogging the glass with a lifetime of fear and worry and doubt, clouding the city from my view. I swipe my fingers through the haze and turn my back on the skyline.
With Harrison standing in front of me, all dark and brooding, I have no idea what I want anymore.
“See?” Harrison nudges me. “I quote Kierkegaard when I’m trying to impress a girl, not Chaucer.”
All my focus zeroes in on the spot where the elbow of his coat touched the elbow of mine, and I’m hit with the most ridiculous desire to touch him again. Instead, I lean back against the glass (that hopefully won’t crack and send me crashing to my death) and cross my arms over my chest. “Consider me impressed.”
Harrison turns his face, hiding the smile I know is there. A bubby, warm feeling starts in my stomach and spreads from there. Are we flirting? I haven’t flirted with anyone—haven’t been interested in flirting with anyone—in so long. It’s an injection of fizzy energy straight into my veins. I glance sideways at him, noticing the mole below the corner of his mouth. He’s not Fitz. And maybe that’s a good thing.
“You hungry?” he asks.
“Starved.”
“Lunch and then Santaland at Macy’s,” he says as we leave the observation deck.
“We don’t have to do that,” I say, suddenly self-conscious. He already thinks I’m the quaint, hot-chocolate-swigging farm girl who says freaking instead of the actual f-word. And if we’ve moved into the territory of flirting, I don’t need him to see me sit on Santa’s lap.
“No backing out now. I still need that mended heart.” He holds the elevator door open for me with one hand. Inside, we stand closer than the space requires, both of us pretending like we haven’t naturally been drifting together since we got off the carriage.
We grab hot dogs from a cart on the street and eat them on our way to Macy’s. Santaland is aptly named; it’s an explosion of color, fake snow, twinkle lights, Christmas trees, and employees dressed as elves. Too bad the line to see Santa is stupid long.
“This will take hours. Let’s leave,” I say.
“We walked all this way to cross it off your list,” he accuses me with a stare. The line shuffles forward and he snags a place at the end. I sigh and stand next to him, but after a few minutes, I feel incurably foolish for wasting our Christmas Eve this way.
“Let’s leave. I’m seventeen, I don’t need to—”
“Spare me the angst. Do you want to wait or not?”
I sigh and pull out my phone. I ask Magic 8 for permission to leave, hating that I haven’t yet turned into the kind of person who doesn’t need it. Two days in New York, and I’m exactly the same as I was.
Permission denied. My shoulders sag. Every thirty seconds, we shuffle forward. By the time we reach the front of the snaking line and I find myself perched lightly on Santa’s lap, I’m feeling hopelessly sorry for myself.
“Merry Christmas, young lady!” His twinkly blue eyes shine and I get the feeling that if I tug on his beard it won’t budge. “Have you been good this year?”
“Um—”
In the traditional sense, I guess I have. I’ve gotten good grades and never missed curfew and generally been a “good girl.” But sitting here, it suddenly feels like I haven’t been anything this year. Not especially good, not even a little bit bad. Nonexistent.
“What do you want for Christmas?” Santa prompts, eager to move the line along. “That’s a handsome young man waiting for you. Perhaps you want some mistletoe?”