Chapter 2 Neil

"PLEASE STOW YOURtray tables and return your seats to their upright positions," says a flight attendant over the intercom, and despite my grogginess, I'm quick to comply. An ardent rule-follower, even 2,415 miles away from home, according to the flight tracker on the screen in front of me.

Out the window, swaths of blue sky paint the horizon, barely a cloud in sight. I crane my neck to get a better view of the city taking shape beneath me, the island jutting into the East River—or is it the Hudson?—and buildings stacked like child's toys. A topographical map come to life.

"It's my first time in New York," I explain to the middle-aged woman sitting next to me when I accidentally jostle her armrest, if my eagerness hasn't already given me away. First time on a plane, too, but somehow that seems embarrassing to admit to a stranger. She just gives me a lift of her eyebrows and a mumbled "congratulations."

I try to imagine taking this flight so frequently that the views cease to impress. Even if I make this trip one hundred times, I am somehow certain I'll remain the overexcited passenger with his face pressed to the window, dying for a first glimpse of the destination.

Ever since I learned of its existence, I have dreamed of New York. My mom grew up outside Philadelphia and spent long weekends there in the summer as a teenager, and I've always wished we still had family on the East Coast so we'd have had a reason to visit. She talked about it like it was an amusement park, a one-of-a-kind sensory experience—the food and the energy and all the different languages she heard on the street, how you could never feel truly alone, no matter the time of day. I couldn't get enough of those stories. I pictured it the way it's shown in movies, with that famous, now-cliché shot of a New York City sidewalk: everyone in their own worlds as they bustle down the street to wherever they're going. Because everyone is always going somewhere, somewhere important, and I loved the idea of being caught in that tidal wave of determination. Of ambition.

Anytime I felt lonely, I simply reminded myself that one day I'd be swept up in that same tidal wave.

As I grew older, I set my sights specifically on NYU. We couldn't afford a visit, but that didn't matter—its top-tier linguistics program seemed a perfect match. I was certain I was meant to be there.

The only thing New York doesn't have going for it is the fact that Rowan Roth isn't in it.

Last night, I told her I missed her already, but the truth is that I have missed her all summer. Every moment she smiled, laughed, gazed at me in a way that made my heart swell—so, approximately 99 percent of the time we spent together—felt like something to stow in a secret pocket of my suitcase and take back out when we were deep in winter.

If we last that long, a tiny voice always reminded me, but it's been easy enough to ignore.

Now, as the plane's wheels strike the ground and we hurtle toward a stop, that voice is a little louder.

I text both Rowan and my mom that I've landed, adjusting my watch to Eastern time while waiting my turn to wrestle my carry-on down from the overhead bin. While I'm sure a digital watch would be more practical, this one belonged to my grandpa on my mom's side, who gave it to me as a sixteenth-birthday gift. The silver has dulled and the band is worn, but it ticks like a champ.

My sister Natalie's already sent me a picture of Lucy, our nine-year-old golden retriever, curled up on my bed. Make sure she doesn't forget me, I message Natalie, and she replies on it, with a photo of Lucy posed with one of our old family albums.

The flight was smoother than I imagined, my motion sickness kept at bay with some Dramamine tablets and a series adaptation of one of my favorite books, War and Peace, that I'd always meant to get around to watching and Rowan loved to tease me about.

"You're a nineteenth-century nobleman trapped in an eighteen-year-old's body," she said last month before giving me another one of those looks. Deep brown eyes, one side of her mouth curving upward, pure mischief. "Guess I have a thing for older guys."

I navigate JFK with my shoulders high, masquerading as a seasoned traveler as I follow the signs to baggage claim. My mom initially planned to help me move in, but Natalie falling off her skateboard and breaking her wrist earlier this summer necessitated a hospital bill we couldn't have budgeted for. Over and over, I assured her that it was okay, that I would be fine on my own, but I could see the guilt on her face as I packed my suitcases and then as she spent most of last night's picnic talking to Rowan's mom, who's probably getting off the plane in Boston with her right now.

I spot my bags right away, which instills in me a sense of false hope that the rest of this transition will be just as easy. It's only after I haul them off the belt that I realize traversing the New York City subway system for the first time with two massive suitcases and an overstuffed backpack may be a bit of a challenge.

My eyes snag on the signs for rideshares and taxis, and the mental calculations begin. I worked through high school, and combined with loans and work-study and a generous financial aid package, I should be able to get through freshman year comfortably enough, while allowing myself the occasional splurge on meals out and other activities. Plus, there's the prize money from winning Howl with Rowan—our school's senior class game that also happened to bring us together, although she insists I was the true winner because I happened to be the one who crossed the finish line—most of which I haven't touched. I already have alerts set to notify me of the lowest prices for my trip home in December.

Even so, all of it sits heavy on my chest, not unlike the pressure I lived with throughout high school. Do more. Work harder. It'll all pay off soon. I've been able to ignore it most of the summer, but now that I'm surrounded by the unfamiliar, it pushes against my lungs, winds its way up my throat.

I've only been in New York for forty-five minutes. If I'm already worrying about money, I'll barely last a week.

With a determined set of my jaw, I grab the handles of my suitcases and make my way toward the AirTrain to Jamaica Station. Once I get out, though, I'm expecting the subway to be right there—and it's not. I blink back and forth between the signs that lead back to JFK and the ones pointing toward the street, with symbols for the E, J, and Z trains. Still, I don't entirely trust Google Maps and want to make sure I'm going to the right place.

"Excuse me, is this the—"

The guy blazes past before I can even get the sentence out. Face flaming, I approach someone else. "Sorry, hi, does this train go to Washington Square Park?"

The woman yanks an earbud out of her ear. "What?" she asks, and I repeat the question. "You'll want to take the E to West Fourth and Washington Square. Can't miss it."

"Thank you so much."

Eventually I find the platform, huffing from the effort, my T-shirt pasted to my back. A few minutes to catch my breath.

Neil: Is it dorky if I'm not even in the city yet and already taking photos of the subway station?

Rowan's response is immediate.

yes, but the dorkiness is part of why I love you so much.

I still can't believe this is something we do, casual texting that isn't laced with barbs or taunts. When I confessed my feelings in her yearbook, I never anticipated she'd do anything but laugh in my face. Or maybe she'd pity me—that would have been worse. But school was over, I rationalized, and I'd only have to live with the humiliation for a short time. I could probably get over her by the end of the summer, especially if I wasn't seeing her every day.

Then we danced together in that darkened library. Fought with frosting at Two Birds One Scone. She wore my hoodie and read her writing at an open mic and met me at the Museum of Mysteries for Howl's final clue. We argued—because of course we did—before she kissed me for the first time, a kiss that may have permanently rerouted my neurons, tattooed ROWAN FUCKING ROTH all over my prefrontal cortex. And then a handful of other things for the first time, too.

Twenty-four hours, and our relationship had completely changed.

Her text is enough to soothe some of the remaining tension in my chest as the E train roars into the station, everyone on the platform seemingly unaffected by the noise. I drag my suitcases inside and claim an empty seat, my whole body still pulsing with adrenaline.

A sudden grin takes over my face, a broad and ridiculous thing I don't even try to contain. I'm on the subway going into Manhattan, where I'll be a freshman at my dream school. New York has always meant freedom, and now here I am.

Then a guy stumbles into my car, flings out an arm to catch one of the poles, and promptly throws up on the seat next to me.

New York may be eager to humble me, but I manage to get into the city without any additional catastrophes.

My dorm is a magnificent brick building on the western edge of Washington Square Park, somehow both imposing and welcoming, though the latter may be due to the violet NYU flags waving in the breeze. One of the things I loved most about NYU from my research is that there is no actual campus, technically. There's no tree-lined quad like other schools have, no central square. The city is the campus, dozens of buildings spread across blocks and blocks, most of them here in Greenwich Village.

"You're going to get kicked out if anyone hears you saying ‘Green-witch' instead of ‘Gren-itch,'?" my mom warned before I left, and I promised her I wouldn't dare. Besides, like any good aspiring lexicographer, I'd already looked up the etymology of it years ago, learning it had come from the Old English word Grenevic and had most likely never been pronounced "Green-witch."

Somehow I'm not sure this fun fact will make me any instant friends—but if it ever would, this is certainly the place.

After I check in and get my keys, I wait for the elevator to take me to the sixth floor. The dorm is a flurry of move-in commotion, most doors thrown wide open and the hallways crammed with more cardboard boxes than I've ever seen. And one detail I hadn't anticipated but probably should have: everyone is here with their parents.

Fighting off a too-early pang of homesickness, I make a vow to myself. Whatever it takes, I'm getting my mom back out here.

The hall is decorated with construction-paper cutouts of New York landmarks: the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge. And there's my name on the door to room 608: NEIL MCNAIR.

Over the summer, I'd made an appointment to legally change my last name but backed out before paying the fee. I hadn't been ready, even after I spent so long convincing myself I was. The idea of having a different last name from my sister when she'd been too young to remember everything that happened with our father—it held me back.

I told myself I could wait until I was truly certain, and even now, seeing my full name on the door, it doesn't seem strange to me. I thought I wanted to start college with no ties to the man who gave me that name, but I've been Neil McNair for eighteen years. It's on the academic awards and certificates of achievement and high school diploma. Yes, it's his name. But it's mine, too.

Before I see anyone in the room, I hear two male voices with thick New York accents having a loud but not angry conversation about either baseball or football, I'm not sure. I'm exhausted and sweaty and in desperate need of a shower, and my adrenaline has given way to anxiety. I'll be sleeping next to a complete stranger for the better part of a year, which is obviously a very normal part of the college experience and yet suddenly seems like a hell of a lot to leave up to chance.

Gingerly, I knock on the door, despite having a key. I don't want to interrupt anyone. When it opens, I'm faced with two broad-shouldered guys nearly the spitting image of each other: brown hair and blue eyes, casual in jeans and T-shirts, though one is five inches taller and probably thirty years younger.

Skyler Benedetti is a Staten Island native I messaged on NYU's roommate app over the summer. I sent a paragraph; he sent back awesome man can't wait!!

"Hi, I'm Neil," I say with an awkward wave. I point to my name on the door, as though needing it to back me up.

"Hey!" Skyler straightens to his full height, so tall that I'm unsure these beds can contain him, and gives me a half handshake, half high five. He's in a New York Yankees T-shirt and has the most symmetrical face I have ever seen. "Skyler. Good to meet you!"

"Sorry, I hope I'm not interrupting—"

"Nah, my dad and I were just saying that I could handle living with a Giants fan but probably not a Mets fan." His face turns serious. "Don't tell me you're a Mets fan."

"I, uh, don't follow sports."

I take a moment to glance around the room. The two sides mirror each other: beds and wooden bookshelf-desk combos and two tiny closets. Plain white walls, except for where Skyler's tacking up an NYU pennant. A plain blue comforter is draped haphazardly across one bed, a suitcase spilling open on top of it. I haul my largest suitcase onto the other bed.

"Probably the safest answer. You'll avoid a lifetime of disappointment that way," Skyler's dad says with a chuckle. He extends a hand. "Marc Benedetti. Your parents around here somewhere?"

I clear my throat. Exhale. This isn't a test. "I just flew in from Seattle. My mom wanted to come, but she couldn't get the time off work." It sounds better than we couldn't afford it.

"Lucky," Skyler says, so brazen even in front of his dad. Finished with the pennant, he extracts a sweatshirt from the duffel bag on top of his bed, STATEN ISLAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL blazoned across it, along with an image of a seagull. It doesn't escape my notice that his school's name is abbreviated as SITHS, which makes my inner Star Wars nerd—and probably outer Star Wars nerd, let's be honest—wildly jealous I didn't go there. "My dad's obsessed with reliving his glory years. He went here too."

"Those were some good times." Marc props an arm on Skyler's desk chair, his eyes lighting up. "Did I ever tell you about when my friends and I dared each other to go streaking through Washington Square Park at midnight?"

A groan from Skyler, indicating he's probably heard this story many, many times. "Unfortunately."

His dad holds a hand to his heart. "I met your mother that night. The most romantic night of my life."

"We can stop there," Skyler says. "Dad. Please don't scare my roommate away."

I can't help laughing at all of this as I unzip my suitcase, pulling out towels, pillowcases, extra-long twin sheets. For a moment I wonder about my dad's glory years, whatever they might have been. I don't allow myself to think of him often, but being confronted with the Benedettis right here in the space in which I'm going to live for the next nine months makes it inevitable.

I do know that for a while, my parents were happy. They met at work in their early twenties as cashiers at a home improvement megastore, but my dad had dreams of starting his own smaller shop one day, and my mom got pregnant with me after they'd been dating for a year. Although she had hoped to go back to school once she saved enough, she put that on hold, working nights while my dad worked days and her sister helped take care of me. Neither of them had big extended families—my mom's parents, who moved the family from Philly to Seattle when my mom was sixteen, had been only children, and though my dad was rooted in the Northwest, his parents were much older and he didn't have any siblings. They didn't have a lot of money, but from everything my mom has told me about that time in their lives, it didn't matter. They had each other, and they were building a family together.

Then there was the hardware store my dad opened that struggled to turn a profit. The drinking. The angry outbursts.

The night he caught a couple kids stealing when he was about to close up, and the moment he grabbed a bat from behind the counter and changed our lives forever.

The felony conviction when I was just eleven years old, a mouthful of words that even a child who loved words could barely understand.

Assault in the first degree.

A fifteen-year sentence.

Our lives, entirely warped.

Most of it, I've compartmentalized. I've shrunk it and hidden it away until it's nothing more than a speck. Infinitesimal, and yet somehow always there. Even when I try to put it behind bars.

Marc leaves to get something from their car while Skyler continues unpacking, hanging up a few button-downs and lazily folding some T-shirts. One thing I've learned from years of altering my own Goodwill suits: those shirts are definitely going to wrinkle. But Skyler seems unbothered, humming to himself and every so often swiping a hand through his artfully floppy hair.

"So, you're from here?" I ask as I stretch a sheet over my bed, though the answer seems obvious.

"Staten Island born and raised. And proud of it." He says this last part as though worried I might fight him on it, and I'm getting the feeling that New York as a state is a crucial part of his personality.

"So I know who to ask if I get lost."

He waves a hand, casual. Everything about Skyler seems casual: the relaxed slope of his posture, the way he talks with his dad, how he decides to plug in his mini fridge instead of charging his laptop before I offer him one of the two surge protectors I packed. "New York's easy—most of Manhattan's on a grid. Avenues run north and south and streets run east and west. That'll help you out more than you might think."

He unfurls a piece of art designed like one of those old motivational posters, with a kitten poised on the edge of a table, trying to bat a fish out of its bowl. In lieu of something inspirational, HERE FOR A GOOD TIME, NOT A LONG TIME is printed across the top.

"I'm in the Gallatin school," Skyler says. "That's the one where you design your own concentration—they're really particular about not calling it a major. Pretty stoked about it, especially after I saw that someone last year graduated with a concentration in Orange. Literally just the color orange. What about you?"

"That's really cool." At NYU, you're admitted to a specific program; very few people start undecided. "I'm linguistics, which sounds a lot less thrilling than Orange."

"Oh shit. So I better watch my grammar around you, huh? Because if I'm being completely honest, I still have no idea when to use lie versus lay. Or laid." Then he lifts his eyebrows, his mouth forming a smirk. "Unless we're talking about very specific circumstances."

Here is the thing. I don't necessarily have low self-esteem, but there are some guys I can tell I'm going to have a difficult time bonding with, as though there is some kind of unspoken hierarchy and I am not exactly at the top. And it has nothing to do with the correct usage of "lie" and "lay." My closest friends from high school, Adrian Quinlan, Sean Yee, and Cyrus Grant-Hayes, are at UC Davis, UW, and Western. Last week, Sean sent a photo of his school's new computer lab to our group chat and we all geeked out over it. We were the presidents of the student council, chess club, robotics club, and Anime Appreciation Society. We even called ourselves "the Quad," short for quadrilateral, because—well, no big mystery, there were four of us. They're great guys, but none of us were under any delusions of popularity. We didn't talk about relationships and we very rarely made references to sex—largely because none of us were having it.

But even though Skyler Benedetti doesn't strike me as the kind of person who'd have seamlessly fit into my friend group back home, maybe here in New York, none of that matters.

"Getting late," Marc says when he returns with one last suitcase, peeking at his watch and then tapping the door. "You want to grab a bite with us, Neil?"

"I don't want to intrude." I glance at Skyler, waiting for some slight signal that maybe he wants this time with his dad to himself.

"Not intruding. By the end of the year, I'm sure we'll be like brothers."

I try to imagine myself integrating into this family of very tall, very confident men. I have no reason to say no, even if they're just being polite.

"Sure," I say after a beat. "Dinner sounds great." And then, worried about the kind of impression I might be making: "Do you mind if I hop in the shower first?"

After I've rinsed off the flight, we end up at a nearby pizza place, much to my delight, where Marc declares a little too loudly that it isn't as good as Staten Island pizza—though he and Skyler can't agree on which pizzeria is best. They argue and snip at each other in this practiced, loving way, and when Marc asks about my family, I mention only my mom and Natalie and Christopher, my mom's boyfriend, and no questions are asked about my dad. Marc even invites me to their house for Thanksgiving. I can't quite believe I'm having this conversation over pizza with two people who were strangers a few hours ago.

Four years of high school, and even earlier than that, I dreamed of going somewhere no one knew my past. A gorgeous city full of opportunity. A place I built up in my mind for so long that sometimes I worried it would never live up to the fantasy.

I have been enamored with words for much of my life, and yet no matter how deeply I root through my mental vocabulary, I cannot find the precise language to describe this feeling. So I settle for something simple:

Finally.