Everyone applauds.
Then Tariq breaks out his second gift—an iPod with exactly thirty-two hours, twelve minutes, and ten seconds of music on it, each song chosen and sequenced with the same care a DJ would use. All of Harry’s and Craig’s favorite songs are on there, as well as hundreds of other songs “donated” by friends.
“Just tell me when to hit play,” Tariq says.
They are almost at the start.
In another town in the same state, Cooper realizes that a full tank of gas is only going to solve one of his problems, and a minor one at that.
He pulls into the parking lot of a Walmart. He takes out his phone and looks at the names in his contacts list. That’s what they feel like to him—contacts. People he has contact with. Contact in class. Contact in the hallways or at lunch. Not friends. Not really. Not if being someone’s friend means not being fake. He’s been fake with all of them. Are there some who’d let him come over if he asked? Sure. Are there even some who would listen to what happened, who would worry on his behalf? Probably. But when he tries to play out that scene with any of them, it falls flat. It doesn’t help. It only adds bystanders to what’s essentially his burden, and his alone.
So he closes his contacts. He opens an app. He decides to talk to some strangers instead.
There are ten messages on his phone, too. He ignores them.
Avery arrives in Kindling, and his nerves crescendo. He remembers everything about Ryan, but doesn’t really know much about him. What if last night was an aberration—what if, in the ordinary daylight of an ordinary day, the feeling of serendipity dissipates?
We called this hopegoggling. The fear that nighttime is really a rose-colored world, and that the morning will show that the things you hoped were happening weren’t really happening, that your heart got ahead of itself. And, let’s be honest, a lot of the time this was true—the force of loneliness was strong, and it swayed us. Or the euphoria of the helium hours was strong enough to lift us into the realm of improbability. The next day, the sugar rush had worn off. The next day, there was very little left to say to each other.
But sometimes—sometimes—it was there. The magic we’d created had remained. Maybe it even grew in the daylight. Because if it could be a part of our day, that meant it could be a part of our lives. And if it could be a part of our lives, it was a magic worth many risks and leaps.
We went through this so many times, but Avery has never felt like this before. He doesn’t know yet that doubt lingers around anticipation like bees hover around flowers. The trick is to not let the doubt intimidate you into walking away. Doubt is an acceptable risk for happiness.
We count down the minutes until Avery pulls into Ryan’s driveway. We count down the seconds until Ryan opens the door, comes stepping outside. Because we know that the best antidote for doubt is presence. Magic naturally fades over distance. But proximity—well, when it works, proximity amplifies magic.
The blue-haired boy smiles as he approaches the pink-haired boy. The pink-haired boy gets out of his car, finds the blue-haired boy waiting for him. They say their hellos. They teeter in an awkward moment. Then they teeter into a welcome hug, a reunion hug, a this-means-something hug.
Anticipation is no longer needed—because the moment is now.
Harry and Craig have taken their last proper bathroom breaks for the next thirty-two hours, twelve minutes, and ten seconds. The cameras are ready to go. Ms. Luna holds a stopwatch. Other friends have gathered. Harry’s parents give the two boys two thumbs up.
It’s time.
Harry leans over and whispers into Craig’s ear.
“I love you.”
And Craig leans over and whispers into Harry’s ear.
“I love you, too.”
Nobody hears them but us.
Then it’s here. Months of preparation, weeks of practice, and years of living have led up to this moment.
They kiss.
Harry has kissed Craig so many times, but this is different from all of the kisses that have come before. At first there were the excited dating kisses, the kisses used to punctuate their liking of each other, the kisses that were both proof and engine of their desire. Then the more serious kisses, the it’s-getting-serious kisses, followed by the relationship kisses—that variety pack, sometimes intense, sometimes resigned, sometimes playful, sometimes confused. Kisses that led to making out and kisses that led to saying goodbye. Kisses to mark territory, kisses meant only for private, kisses that lasted hours and kisses that were gone before they’d arrived. Kisses that said, I know you. Kisses that pleaded, Come back to me. Kisses that knew they weren’t working. Or at least Harry’s kisses knew they weren’t working. Craig’s kisses still believed. So the kissing had to stop. Harry had to tell Craig. And it was bad, but not as bad as he feared. They had built a friendship strong enough to withstand the disappearance of kisses. It was off balance at first, for sure—their bodies not knowing what to do, the magnetism toward kissing still there, because even when the mind shuts off the romance, it sometimes takes a while for the body to get the message. But they made it through that, and they never stopped hugging, never abandoned all contact. Then Craig had this idea, and Harry wanted to do it. Enough time had gone by that when they started kissing again, the electricity was gone, replaced by something closer to architecture. They were kissing with a purpose, but the purpose wasn’t them; it was the kiss itself. They weren’t using the kiss to keep their love alive, but were using their friendship to keep the kiss alive. First for minutes. Then for hours. The hardest thing, when kissing for hours, was staying awake. Focusing. To be connected to someone else, but to be retreating entirely into yourself. Because when you kiss someone, you can’t really see them. They become a blur. You must use touch as your touchstone, breath as your conversation. After many attempts, they found their rhythm. They made it to ten hours one Sunday. That was as far as they’d gotten. And now here they were, trying for more than three times as long. All to prove a point. And maybe it’s all of the hours and maybe it’s the point that’s making this kiss much more intense than Harry had thought it would be. Their lips make contact and Harry feels a charge. It doesn’t rise from the past as much as it’s created in the present. Even though it isn’t what they had planned, he finds himself putting his arm around Craig’s waist, finds himself drawing Craig a little closer, kissing him a little more than the rehearsal kisses. The small crowd cheers for them, and Harry can feel Craig smile underneath their contact. He can feel that smile in Craig’s breathing, in his lips, in his body. Harry wants to smile back, but is gripped by something more profound than a smile, something vast and inarticulate that fills his lungs, fills his head. He has no idea what he’s gotten into, no idea what this all means. He thought he knew. He’d thought it out so many times. But what use is abstraction when it comes to a kiss? What use is planning? Harry kisses Craig and feels there is something bigger than the two of them just outside the kiss. He doesn’t reach out to it—not yet. But he knows it’s there. And that makes this unlike any other kiss they’ve ever shared before. Immediately, he knows this.
Craig is still thrown by the I love you that Harry whispered to him. That is what he’s thinking about when the kiss begins.
Tariq makes sure all the cameras and the computers are working. He makes sure the live feed is working.
Right now, Tariq is the only viewer online.
We settle in. We watch.
Ryan doesn’t invite Avery inside his house, and Avery doesn’t ask why.