3

The truth is that if you give any self-respecting high school student an opportunity to skip class, they will. Neither of them had gone to school with the intention of going somewhere else, but it wasn’t as though they were entirely attached to the prospect of sitting through another lecture on the inner workings of the cell. Stupid, they both thought—though neither dared to articulate it, how desperate people can be to make things more than they are. They could not exist of skin and bone and blood, there had to be more. They could not be as they were, there had to be a reason for it. 

​

Their hands were intertwined as they stepped onto the subway car, a display of public affection and multi-coloured nail polish. The catalyst was one party out of a hundred drunken gatherings. Four, tipsy off of cheap wine and the feeling of freedom—Three’s eyes on hers from across the room, dark and intent. The lingering smell of lavender; the first time in a long time that neither felt they didn’t belong. Orange flavoured lip gloss. Sparkling water and bloated strawberries.

​

Four was thirteen when she decided she could hear the subway. The low wheeze of breath when it pushed itself out of a station, the gasp just between the streets, the veins of the city underneath her feet. She loved the warmth, the breeze, however artificial. When walking in the city, she always walked over the metal grates; felt the metal breathe underneath her. It was a technological tightrope, a balancing act with no consequence or impact, something to teeter on.

​

She pressed her manicured thumb to the pulse of the city and pushed down, waited for the bruise to form; for her mark to be made. She was not gentle, and in many instances she could be cruel—crueler than she meant. Three never seemed to mind, and for that Four loved her, loved her more than any jewellery she had ever owned, more than she loved her parents—however disappointed they had been, however empty it made her house feel. She didn’t feel the way she felt towards them with Three. Which was to be expected. It wasn’t the same, it would never be the same. She didn’t want to go to class today, she wanted to go to the art gallery and stare at the stupid mediaeval faces and compare Three to them. She was more beautiful than any of those men could have dreamed up. Four was confident in that assertion, in her knowledge that no painting could ever measure up to the way Three smiled and things fell into place and something felt different, better. Better than she felt before, better than the ache of loneliness and her brother’s voice in her head saying she would never be better than she was now, that the person she was was not worth knowing.

​

The city whispered beneath her feet, the low rumble of an organism that happened to be alive, that was there whether it wanted to be or not. I do not think the city wanted to spread as it did, like a rock covered in moss, drenched in green. It kept growing, bigger and bigger as it got older, as times changed and people changed and the environment bent under the weight of a culture that always wanted more. 

​

It’s New York City, a taxi driver told me. He had been here 19 years and now was the most New York it had ever been, a city drenched in life and death and something in between, something that couldn’t be named, only felt. 

​

Three didn’t feel it. She had lived in the city since her tenth birthday, when her mother had won custody and the two of them had moved into a tiny apartment over a convenience store. The two of us are special, her mother said. We stick together, right?

​

Right, Three had replied. 

​

She didn’t quite understand then what together meant, only that her mother needed her and she was happy to be needed. It became more clear as she got older, when her mother took the role of friend rather than parent and she realised that ‘special’ was code for dysfunctional. She learned to be independent, to sit at home waiting for her mother to come back to make sure she was safe, and how to cook without burning the tips of her fingers on the stove. When her father called—which was rare—and asked how her mother was doing—which was rarer—Three got the opportunity to practise her storytelling, to spin a tale so unrealistic that it couldn’t possibly be a lie. 

​

She’s dating a millionaire, she’d say. 

​

It would build off of whatever stupid thing she had told him last, something about how her mother had gotten a job as a tutor for a kid in Richmond Hill with a widowed father and a house full of empty rooms. 

See how much better she’s doing without you? 

​

Everyone’s a millionaire now, her father had said. He always seemed to be two sentences behind. That’s hardly impressive. 

​

Every morning, when she took the subway exactly three stops to get to school, she watched the mothers ushering their children into the car, pushing them out of it when it was time to get off. Every morning, she wondered what was so different about her. What made her relationship with her mother so special. 

That day, she had looked at the hollow of her empty apartment and wondered if she should ask Four to run away with her. They could sell some of Four’s jewellery, rent an apartment in a town by the ocean. They’d barely be able to afford a month of living alone, but she’d get a job and they’d get a cat and maybe her mother would finally wake up one day realise that what her daughter needed wasn’t a roommate, it was a parent.

​

Probably not. It was the sort of thing you told yourself to fall asleep, a fantasy you would never attain. She told Four as much on their way to Biology, and Four had stopped in the middle of the hallway to stare at her. 

​

Let’s go, she said. Who the fuck is gonna stop us?

​

For how long?

​

Just today.

​

Okay, Three said. 

​

She felt no connection to the city. It was simply a place she was forced to exist in, somewhere to live while her mother went out and her father forgot about her. All it represented was what she had to become to survive. She had no affection towards the city, but she loved the way Four came alive in it, the way her eyes seemed to glow when the subway lights illuminated the walls of the tunnel. When they got on, their fingers intertwined, she entertained the possibility of staying here a while longer, even after graduation. Maybe she didn’t need to run away. Maybe it wasn’t about escaping. Maybe it was about acceptance. As the doors closed behind them, it occurred to Three that she was not sure she could tell the difference.