Another night, we visited an art gallery called Framed because Brooklyn Boy had heard there was a really cool photography exhibition on there. The theme of the exhibition was hope and all of the photographers had interpreted it in totally different ways. My favorite was a picture of a little girl with her face pressed up against a toy-shop window. But the best thing about the exhibition was going with Brooklyn Boy: because he’s friends with the gallery owner, we got to go in at night when it was shut to everyone else. (This was doubly good for me because it meant that no one else saw when I tripped over some rope on the ground. It turned out that the rope was a piece of modern art called The Snake. Personally, I think it should be renamed The Health & Safety Hazard.)
So my dad was definitely right—it’s the people you see a place with that really matters. Brooklyn Boy has shown me a really private and personal side of New York I never would have found on my own.
How about you guys?
How have the people you’ve been with made a place really fun and exciting?
Wishing you all a super-fun New Year’s Eve—with super-fun people!
Girl Online, going offline xxx
Chapter Thirty-Three
In the olden days, people used to talk about time as if it were a person. They used to call him Father Time. According to Elliot, Father Time was an old man with a long white beard who carried an hourglass everywhere. I’ve decided that he also had a really mean sense of humor. Think about it. Whenever something horrible happens to you—like you’re stuck in an algebra exam, or you’re having a filling, or you fall over onstage and show your underwear—time goes by so slowly that every second feels like an hour, but whenever something really amazing happens to you—like you might actually be falling in love for the very first time—time goes by so fast you blink and an entire week has gone.
It’s New Year’s Eve morning. We’re leaving tomorrow. We’re leaving tomorrow and I’ll be leaving the person I think I’ve fallen in love with. In the days since Christmas my list of evidence that Noah is my soul mate has grown and grown. I haven’t put any more about it on my blog, though—there’s no way I want to upset Elliot again. But, in my head, the list now includes things like:
• we both love to read books with killer twists at the end
• he takes me to special places I’d never find on my own
• I know exactly where I’d take him if he were ever to come to Brighton
• he loves my photographs and thinks I could exhibit in a gallery
• when he says this he makes me feel talented and confident and strong
• he hates selfies too
• we both love crunchy peanut butter
• he makes me say things like “we both love crunchy peanut butter”!
And tomorrow I’m going to have to leave him, fly across an entire ocean away from him, back to my phoney so-called friends and my barely-talking-to-me best friend. As I lie in my bunk and stare up at the ceiling, I feel hollowed out with sadness.
Unable to stand it anymore, I get out of bed and head downstairs. As I cross the hallway, I hear Sadie Lee’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Don’t you think you should tell her?”
“No!” Noah’s voice is so insistent it makes me stop dead. “I don’t want to ruin it. It’s been so cool—”
“Morning, Penny!” I jump and turn to see Dad at the top of the stairs. Argh! I hear the scraping back of a chair in the kitchen and Noah appears in the archway to the kitchen.
“Hey, Penny. Hey, Rob. You guys want some pancakes?”
“Is the Pope a Catholic?” Dad says, bounding downstairs.
I force myself to smile at Noah but as I go to join him in the kitchen, I can’t stop thinking about what I overheard. What were they talking about? Am I the “her” that Sadie Lee mentioned and, if so, what did she think Noah should tell me?
All day long the question bugs me, not helping my growing tension about leaving tomorrow. As I set about the horrible job of packing my suitcase, I start going over everything in my head, searching for clues that Noah might have been keeping something from me. In the whole time I’ve been staying in his house I haven’t seen a single one of his friends. He hasn’t seemed to have heard from anyone either, but then he is on his cell-phone detox. I’m still not entirely sure what he’s been doing on his gap year either. He mentioned something about a part-time job in a store downtown but it was in the past tense. I sit down on my case with a sigh. Here I go again, searching for negative things instead of focusing on the positive. Noah took me to the art gallery. He introduced me to his friends there. He wouldn’t have done that if he had something to hide. I don’t even know that it was me Sadie Lee was talking about. The fact is, I only have a few hours left in New York. I can’t ruin them with my stupid fears.
In the afternoon we all sit down at the kitchen table to play American Monopoly—well, all apart from Bella, who sits under the table playing with her dolls.
“Are you looking forward to Times Square tonight, Pen?” Dad asks as he hands out everyone’s money. Dad’s always the banker whenever we play Monopoly. He always wins too. I’m not entirely sure these two facts aren’t related.
“Yes,” I reply, but the truth is I’m not looking forward to it at all. We’re going to Times Square to see in the new year, but as soon as the clock strikes midnight it will turn from the year I met Noah to the year I have to leave him. I feel the overwhelming urge to cry, and begin studying the differences in the American Monopoly board to stop myself. But it’s hard to be riveted by the fact that the stations are all called “railroads” when it feels as if your heart is breaking. Noah takes hold of my hand under the table. I look at him and smile.