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"I think I knohere they ht be," he says He tells Avery to pull out and hts When a red light stops them at the third intersection and Ryan says to take another left, Avery decides he’s neither going to give in or give up Instead he’s going to give Ryan one last chance
Ryan’s confused when Avery shifts to the right lane and ht turn Evenlot of a law office
"What are you doing?" he asks Avery
And Avery says, "You’re ruining it You have to stop now before you ruin it cohway He is leaving his town for good He doesn’t give it a second thought He doesn’t feel anyone there deserves a goodbye
Only two hours to go
More camera crews, more protestors More heat,wants sleep as badly as he wants to sit down He tries to keep hisinto the bad questions, but at this point, he’s soainst the this are falling away Didn’t he think it would bring his faether around hiht--didn’t he think this would get Harry back, ain? And what about what happened to Tariq--did he really think this would sos fro it worse, giving a reason for the camera crews to sell the other side’s hate into the airwaves?
Why are you doing this? he asks hi away, he’s not sure what’s left We could tell hiure it out for hiainst despair Hethe W sign for water, has been drinking what feels to be so much of it (It’s really just half a bottle) And now he has to pee so badly But all these people are watching All of these people are here He can’t i a pee break in front of them This is the ultimate pee shy He tries to hold it in It’s painful
The police are blocking off the street now The whole force is out, but there aren’t really thatin Any fool could bring a gun Anyone anted to stop the kiss could
Most of the people who are co at this point are like the tho step out of Peter’s e of protestors,so because they feel so and Harry are saying the thing that they want to say So they find the into cars They find themselves at the Millburn train station, where a helpful old woh school, and not to confuse it with the middle school, which is much closer Now that there are less than two hours left, there’s an exciteet there They’re astonished to see all the people, to see the wall of friends that is protecting Craig and Harry fro, Craig and Harry are just two bodies curving into an A They are the steady center of a wider celebration, the first and tightest ripple
Peter and Neil pause at the outskirts to get the lay of the land Or at least that’s why Peter pauses, to get a sense of where everyone else is and to see if he knows anyone there Neil pauses to look at Peter--to really look at him and ask himself what he wants He knows he loves Peter, and also knows he’s not sure what that means There is no one else in the world that he wants to kiss or screw or talk to or share his life with So why, he wonders, does a part of it still feel ee of it--we can tell He is on the verge of finding that very hard truth--that it will never be co you only have to learn once--that just like there is no such thing as forever, there is no such thing as total When you’re in the thrall of your first love, this discovery feels like the breaking of allof all promise For the past year, Neil has assu into a vessel, and that the longer you loved, the more full the vessel became, until it was entirely full The truth is that over tirow Your life widens And you can’t expect your partner’s love alone to fill you There will always be space for other things And that space isn’t eh the liquid is easier to see, you have to learn to appreciate the air
We didn’t learn this all at once Soot it as things became really bad But for all of us, there was a moment like this--the record skips, and you have the chance to either switch away froh, a little more flawed than before
"Look at all these people," Peter says to Neil "Look at this!"
Neil looks at hioofball He looks at him and sees someone whose mom would drive him here and will pick them up later He looks at him and sees maybe not his future, but definitely his present
When Neil tells Peter what happened at his house this , as he will in about forty seconds, Peter will at first be confused and hurt that Neil didn’t tell hiize Within another five minutes, Peter won’t really care, because he’ll want to know everything that happened, ant to be there with Neil, even after the fact, to give support He’ll hug Neil into hiht back, and more love will flow into each of the vessels, and each of the vessels will expand a little bitit?" Ryan says When he starts the first word, he genuinely doesn’t understand what Avery means, but by the time he hits the question mark, he does So before Avery can answer he says, "Oh Yeah"
"I want to get the day back," Avery says
And Ryan, defensive, replies, "I wasn’t the one who took it away"
As soon as he says this, we know Ryan has to make a decision, and that it’s an i decision here, the odds are good that he will keep nize the pattern It is unfair that Ryan needs to make this choice--he is absolutely correct that the day was taken away froet it back Only he’ll need to get past his anger in order to do so
Avery doesn’t know the stakes are this high All he knows is that if Ryan’s going to stay like this, Avery’s not going to stay in Kindling er He knows this is a shame, but also knows it’s true
"Please," he says To Ryan To the universe
Ryan knocks the back of his head into the passenger seat’s headrest Then he turns and looks Avery in the eye
"I’m sorry," he says "Truly, I’m sorry I’m such a dick"
"It’s okay We haven’t passed the point of no return"