Towering

the Statue of Liberty,” I said, “on any one of five field trips with five different teachers who thought I needed to learn—yet again—about how they dewormed the immigrants at Ellis Island. As far as Times Square, if it means getting felt up by street people in twenty-degree weather, I’d seriously rather eat glass.”
    “Not me,” Tyler said. “It’s on my bucket list.”
    I shrugged. “You’ve got time.”
    But he just kept pushing, pushing, pushing, and finally, when he said his sister, Nikki, would go with us, I gave in.
    In fact, it hadn’t been cold. Far from it. Millions of pressing bodies had taken care of that. But everything else had pretty much come true. We were shoulder to shoulder with sweaty strangers, no bathrooms, no food. People who got there after us tried to shove in front.
    “Really,” a nasal-voiced woman said, “we’re meeting friends.”
    “Yeah?” Tyler said. “Call them on your cell phone and have them raise their hands.”
    The woman called Tyler a word I don’t even say.
    “Happy New Year,” I told her.
    Tyler and I were tall, so at least we could see and stuff, but his sister, Nikki, was smaller. “I can’t even breathe,” she said.
    “Like that’s important.” Tyler rolled his eyes.
    But I said, “Are you okay? You want me to put you on my shoulders?”
    “I can’t ask you to do that. There’s still an hour until midnight.” Around us, people were gyrating to music we couldn’t hear over the talking. Someone jostled me, separating me from Nikki.
    “Wyatt!” Her voice sounded panicked, yelling for me, not her brother. I reached through the crowd. I’d taken off my gloves because of the heat, and I felt for her nubby wool coat. My hand brushed another hand. “Is that you?”
    I felt her fingers grip around mine. She squeezed hard.
    I couldn’t see Tyler. There was someone separating us. I moved closer to Nikki. Finally, I shoved past and found her. “You want to leave?” I asked.
    “How can we? Besides, Tyler really wants to stay, but all these people are making me dizzy. Can you just . . . hold my hand? It makes it easier to breathe.”
    “Maybe if you closed your eyes,” I said, “or looked up? Maybe if you didn’t see everyone.”
    “I’ll try that.” She tilted her head back and looked straight up. I did too, so I could see what she saw. The sky was clear but starless. The buildings cast too much light. She squeezed my hand harder, then looked me in the eyes. “That’s way better. Thanks.”
    I squeezed her hand back, and in that moment, I knew something had changed. She wasn’t the girl I’d grown up with. She was someone else.
    But the next day, when I’d asked her out, she’d said no.
    “I don’t want to complicate things. I like what we have. I don’t want to ruin it.”
    It made sense, of course. I was friends with Tyler, and Nikki was his sister. Awkward didn’t begin to describe it. Still, it felt like a rejection.
    Not that it mattered now.
    Josh was picking me up, good since no way could Mrs. G’s car navigate the hills in the dark and snow. Still, I figured I should clear it with her. I mean, maybe she’d wanted to watch New Year’s Rocking Eve together.
    But when I asked her, she said, “Oh, no. You get to a point, at my age, where one year seems pretty much like any other. I’ll probably just go to bed early.”
    For some reason, rather than making me feel better about ditching her, I felt worse, like I should be the thing that made this year different. She’d been alone so long. Of course, I wasn’t her kid anyway. I said, “You know, I was thinking, if you wanted to get a dog, I could walk it or something.”
    “Oh, you’ll only be here a bit longer.”
    “I guess. I don’t know. I sort of like it. Maybe I’d go to college up here.” It was the first time I’d thought about it. A lot of my friends would go to the same college, room together, make college more like thirteenth grade. I wasn’t sure I’d want that.
    The old woman smiled. “You must miss your mother, or maybe your friends.” She stopped. She knew about Tyler.
    I shook my head no. The only friend I missed was Tyler, and he wasn’t on Long Island. I wondered if she felt that way about Danielle. “Sometimes, it’s good to make a fresh start.”
    Josh picked me up around ten. I was the eighth person in a car that would have been crowded with seven. “I don’t see how we’re going to get up the hill with all these people,”