Corrie’s leg bounces along with the constant click clacking of the train tracks as we hurtle towards the sunrise at break neck speeds. The sun is an angry fire on the horizon, casting strange shadows on her face and staining everything in a sickly shade of orange. 

We’ve made this trip before, a hundred times, from Long Island to the city. My eyes glaze over, and the blurry light makes Corrie look sixteen again. I (have no idea what the hell i’m doing here) blink away the sunspots that cloud Corrie’s face.  

Two days ago I was going through the motions, eating dollar pizza on my kitchen floor and drinking vodka that tasted more akin to nail polish remover than alcohol. I don’t know how Corrie got my number, but at three in the morning my phone vibrating hard against the tile floor and then it was her voice tumbling through invisible phone lines. And here we are. Nearing the city, both sipping on iced coffees from Louie’s Diner.

I am twenty-five and seven months. 

She is (delusional) twenty-six. 

“Where are we going?” 

I’ve asked the question approximately five thousand times (give or take) since we boarded the train. Corrie looks up from picking at a scab on her arm and rolls her eyes with such intensity I’m convinced they’re going to get stuck facing the back of her head.

“If you ask me one more time,” she sets up the sentence but winces as she scratches too hard at her arm. Nose crinkled, and a small drop of blood blooming by her elbow, she volleys the threat: “I will skin you alive and leave you in the train tracks.” 

The middle aged women sitting in the aisle next to ours gasps and glares (with angry age lines that i’m scared i have already) at Corrie like she has fourteen heads. I laugh so hard that coffee comes out my nose, and I don’t even mind the burning scent of caffeine in my nostrils.  

. . .

“Wait here, and don’t move.” 

It’s been half an hour since Corrie left me standing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

“Sahara desert, fire, volcanos, saunas,” I murmur through what I can only imagine are blue lips. I’m kicking myself, feeling naive all over again for thinking that jeans and a t-shirt were appropriate attire for New York in March; I will my body to be warm. “Hot coffee, nuclear radiation, the depth’s of hell. . .” 

“You know, I always heard that an office job is a gateway to onset psychosis.” I can hear the smirk in Corrie’s voice. 

“You could have warned me I would need a jacket.” 

I turn and my mouth flops open. Corrie is donned in a Northface coat, sweatpants, and is holding a pizza in one hand and a bag in the other. She shoves the pizza box into my arms and reveals the contents of the bag -- two cumbersome folding chairs. 

“What the hell. . .” 

“Here.” 

(two tokens of either apology or pity) 

A thick woolen blanket, draped over my shoulders 

A rinky-dink pair of binoculars, slapped into my palm. 

“Corrie- ” 

“Sausage and onion.” 

I stop short, a still from a Wes Anderson movie -- pizza in one arm, binoculars in the other, cloaked in a comforter so I resemble a holy man leading a pilgrimage in search of carb-loaded, goose-bumpy sainthood. 

“Sausage and onion?” 

Corrie flips open the pizza box and, even in my confused state, the wafting aroma of hot, fresh pizza is near orgasmic. 

The sun is down below the horizon now, and the world hangs in that fragile moment between night and day, where the sky is the purest blue and everything else seems far too dark. And yet, Corrie’s face is glowing with (some happiness that i must have lost when i sold my soul for a nine-to-fiver) the pale orange glow of the overhead street light. 

“Don’t you remember?” Her giggle is like wind chimes, sounds like our stuck up little rich kid school. The image comes to me (a rush of pepperoni and tomato sauce and the smoky cigarettes we stole from her dad my eyes are watering from the wind and my stupid naive coughing) and I smile.  

“Joey’s Pizza --” 

She beams. “Every friday night.”

“I told my mom we were at whatever sports game was going on.” 

“Meanwhile,” she leans back, eyes closed. “We were getting high and eating more pizza than is humanly possible.” 

I cannot speak for the life of me. Corrie just smiles at me and unfolds the chairs, placing them side by side towards the water. With a dramatic sweep of the arm, I sink gratefully into the seat. 

“This is really nice,” I find myself saying in a voice that used to belong to me (a voice i thought i lost years ago). 

Her only response is a quiet, content hum that fades into the rumble of traffic. The twilight world is gone, and everything is either dark, dark sky or the dappled lights of New York City. The air is cold off the East River, and the Brooklyn Bridge is strangely empty, as if the tourists and bikers have granted us temporary ownership for the night. I look to my left; Corrie is staring at the slate black water, the wind playing with her honey hair. (i need to say something, say something, say — 

“Something hit me a few days ago,” Corrie sighs. I jump, the voice of my inner monologue silenced. She’s quiet, and I realize she’s waiting for me to speak, waiting to be prodded (puff puff pass the thought bubble).  

“What?”

My vocal chords barely manage to scrape the word out. 

“You and Carson might be the only real friends I’ve had.” 

(why the hell is she bring him up, i can’t do this now, i — 

“Haven’t heard that name is a while.” 

And I haven’t. 

(say something, you idiot.)

“He liked sausage and onion too.” 

(why the fuck would you say that you — 

“Idiot,” Corrie snorts, a smile playing on her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes. Tide receding, scary sunny sky, still air. A drop of pizza sauce is a tangy beauty mark on the apple of her cheek. I battle internally, debating on whether or not rubbing it away would be crossing some invisible boundary (probably drawn after graduation), but before I can decide, she swipes it away, along with the shiny tears on her cheeks. 

(oh no)

“Corrie. . .” 

She looks at me, expecting more (what the fuck more is there to say?)

“Shit, Will, I’m sorry.” The words are gushing out now at a worrisome rate. “I didn’t know who else to call and it was five years ago today and I found you name in the yellow pages —” 

“Who the hell uses yellow pages anymore —” 

“Will!” 

“Sorry. You know I’m shit with this sort of thing — “

“I know, Will.” 

(a beat, a moment, the seconds here feel like hours and suddenly i want to scale the bridge’s steel supports and fling myself into the icy water). 

“I miss him too.” 

I look at her to see the impact of my words. They hit, crashing like bombs, sending dust-and-dirt fireworks up from the ground and her lips are pursed uncomfortably tight like she’s trying to hold the world inside her mouth. 

An (impossibly) warm hand covers my own, and instinctively (clearly instinct, not born, or my dad might have not been so fucking distant) I interlink my fingers with hers. We make a basket weave of the feelings and memories that no one ever spoke about (tasteless grieving). 

We marinate in the solemn silence we’ve expertly crafted for ourselves. The wind off the water smells fresh, energizing. At some point, Corrie hands me a slice of sausage and onion. Wordlessly, we make our ways through the pizza. It’s been months since I’ve had company like this (oh god, i’ve been so fucking lonely) and for the first time in a long while I feel a strange sense of calm. 

“Corrie?”
“Hmm?” 

“What are we doing here?” 

Corrie sighs (or is it just the wind?) and rummages through her bag. A moment later, she lugs a huge, worn looking book onto her lap. I scoot my folding chair so that it’s next to her, our bodies flush against each other, and look at the title. 

“Whale Watching On The Eastern Coast: A History.” 

Corrie looks out at the water, refusing to meet my eye. Her own are squinted against the cold, scanning the landscape. 

(We’re all sixteen and splayed out in the bed of Carson’s truck. The heat is oppressive, a thick blanket stifling the will to live from our adolescent brains. He turns over, the fabric of his t-shirt grating on the rusted truck bed. 

“Come to Alaska with me.” 

“What?” 

Corrie has her arm draped over her face. Her tanktop is blotted with sweat around her breasts, and I blush for noticing. 

“Alaska,” Carson repeats. 

“I heard you,” she sighs. The heat is making her pissy. “But why do you want to go to Alaska?” 

“Whale watching.” He says this as though it is the only explanation needed to convince us. “My dad and I used to look for them on Tobay when I was a kid. We never saw any though.” 

“I’m down,” I say. Corrie sits up. 

“Alaska?” 

“You can see the Northern Lights too,” Carson points out. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

She stares up at the dark sky. Stars shine in pinpricks, flooded out by the light from the nearby shopping center. 

“Let’s do it.” 

“Promise me,” Carson says. His voice has taken on a strange tone I’ve never heard before. A moment later I realise that it’s vulnerability. “When we’re older and we’ve got dumb jobs. We’ll go whale watching.” 

“I promise.” 

“Me too.”

Carson smiles, a rare, unbridled, little kid smile. He’s never looked this happy before.) 

Tears have welled up in my eyes, and mentally I curse myself. I try once to speak, but my throat is tight and the weight of the world sits stony in my stomach. 

“Will?” 

“M’fine,” I grunt moreso than say. I clear my throat with to much force, relish the burn I feel, relish any feeling at all (i’m so sick of feeling numb). 

Corrie is staring at me and (for the first time in god knows how long) she doesn’t know what to say. 

“So,” I heave myself back into the vague shape of a human being, “What are we looking for?” 

Corrie looks at me with wide eyes and a perplexed expression before realization dawns over her in a sunrise. 

“Humpbacks,” She smiles, her voice shaky but happy. “It’s no Alaska. . .” 

“He would love it,” I promise her. Impulse or instinct, once again, has me reach out and take her hand. She squeezes so tight it hurts (boa constricting comfort) and we turn towards the water, watching, waiting, stuck in a bubble of timelessness, of high school and car rides and stupid jokes. 

It’s two AM when we both succumb to the weight of our eyelids and the furnace of warmth we’ve both generated for ourselves. 

My dreamlessness is hazy and I wake to the sound of splashing. I jolt upright, drinking in the cold air. The first thing I notice is the pale yellow hue at the horizon, and the dewy wetness of dawn. The second thing is the flash of a very large something in the water. 

“Corrie,” I murmur. My voice is scratchy, and my eyes are crusted with sleep, but my mind is wide awake (more awake than i’ve been in ages). “Corrie!”
“Wassamatta?” She grumbled. A strand of her hair is stuck to her mouth, and the residue of her drool is evident by the dark spot on my t-shirt (wait, was she leaning on me?). 

“Corrie, look!” 

I point towards the water, but my heart deflates at the still of the water. Corrie stares tiredly. “There’s nothing there?” 

“Just,” I breath shallowly, nervously, “keep watching.” 

The horizon lightens with every passing second, but we both stare, blankets fallen and forgotten, our beings completely bare to the brackish water and the cold wind. 

And then it happens. 

A tail from the water, a back and a spout of spray that is so close it mists over us. Corrie screams, her smile brilliant, and suddenly I’m aware that I might be crying. 

“We did it,” I gasp. Corrie grips my hand in a vice, and together we settle into a bubble of something that feels like happy, feels like okay and good and this is how it should have been all along, and we watch the whales cross through the water, out towards the Atlantic Ocean, and away into the promise of the day.