Before We Were Strangers by Renee Carlino Page A

turnstile-hopping in the subways, but we managed to see the city inside and out.
    New York has an energy that takes root inside of you. Even a transplant like me gets to know the different boroughs, like they’re living, breathing organisms. There’s nowhere else like it. The city becomes a character in your life, a love you can’ttake out of you. The mysteriously human element about this place can make you fall in love and break your heart at the same time. When you hear her sound, when you breathe in her scent, you share it with all the people walking beside you on the street, in the subway, or gazing from a tall building across Central Park. You know at once that you are alive, and that life is beautiful, precious, and fleeting. I think that’s why people in New York feel so connected to each other; the city harnesses this collective love and admiration. Grace and I were falling in love with her together.
    Almost every afternoon for the next couple of months, I would find Grace studying in the lounge, waiting for me. Our friendship had become so comfortable that brushing up against her, twirling her around, grabbing her hand, and giving her piggyback rides felt totally normal. Sometimes there would be quieter moments when it seemed like she wanted me to kiss her—and Lord knows I wanted to, but she would always break the silence or look away. I didn’t care, I just wanted to be around her. I found myself less interested in dating or even looking at other girls.
    “It’s late, huh?” she remarked on one of many nights we spent together, just hanging out.
    “It’s two,” I said, glancing at the clock.
    “I should go back to my room.” Grace was lying across my bed horizontally, on her stomach, with her head hanging over the edge. She was in sweats and a Sex Pistols T-shirt, with her hair twirled up in a messy bun. I knew she didn’t really want to leave, even though we were both exhausted.
    “Wait, let’s play Never Have I Ever.”
    “Sure. You go first,” she mumbled.
    “Never have I ever stolen something.”
    She looked sad for a moment and then put a finger on her hand down.
    “What did you steal?” I asked.
    “Well, there have been a few things. The worst, I’m too embarrassed to tell you about.” She rolled over and buried her face in the comforter.
    “Come on, tell me. I won’t judge you.”
    “I stole forty dollars from my neighbor,” she mumbled into the blankets.
    “For what? Come on, tell me. It’s part of the game.”
    “I don’t like this game anymore.”
    I rolled her over to face me. “What was it?”
    She looked up into my eyes. “I stole it to buy my senior yearbook, okay? I feel like a total asshole and I have every intention of paying her back.”
    My heart ached for her. I had no idea what it was like not to be able to ask my parents for forty dollars. She had stolen money to buy herself a yearbook, of all things—something most kids take for granted. How sad. “Let’s play something else,” I said. “How about Fuck, Marry, Kill?”
    She perked up. “Okay. Yours are . . . let me think, um . . . Courtney Love, Pamela Anderson, and Jennifer Aniston.”
    “Ugh, kill, kill, kill.”
    “Seriously, you psychopath, you have to answer.” She bonked me on the head with her palm.
    “All right, kill Courtney—that’s a given—fuck Pamela, and marry Jennifer. There! Your turn. Bill Clinton, Spike Lee, and me.”
    “Ha! That’s easy. Fuck Bill, marry Spike, and kill you.”
    “You’re a terrible, mean girl.”
    “You love me.” She sat up to leave.
    “Grace?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Nothing.” I wanted to ask her what was going on with us. I wanted to know if we could be more than friends. I turned back and looked out the window.
    She plopped down onto my bed and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “I guess I’d marry you.”
    “Really? I was hoping it would go more like, kill Bill, marry Spike . . .”
    “Ha!” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.