The Geography of You and Me(6)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“You two be careful,” George called back to them as he stepped into the stairwell behind the handyman. “I’ll be around if you need anything.”

The heavy door slammed shut behind them, and Lucy and Owen were left alone in the quiet hallway. Their gazes both landed on the gaping black hole of the empty elevator, and Lucy gave a little shrug.

“I kind of thought it’d be cooler on the outside,” she said, reaching back to twist her long brown hair into a loose ponytail, which quickly unraveled again.

Owen nodded. “And maybe a little brighter.”

“Well, at least we have our freedom,” she joked, and this made him smile.

“Right,” he said. “You know what they say about the inside of a cell.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “That it can drive a person mad.”

“I think that’s solitary confinement.”

“Oh,” he said. “I guess ours wasn’t solitary.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It definitely wasn’t.”

He leaned against the wall near the open elevator. “So what now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, glancing at her watch. “My parents are in Europe, and it’s already late there. I’m sure they’re out to dinner or at a party or something. They probably have no idea this is even happening.…”

“I’m sure they do,” Owen said. “If it’s the whole city, this has got to be pretty big news. They let you stay home by yourself?”

“They travel way too much to worry about always finding someone,” she explained. “It was usually me and my brothers, anyway.”

“And now?”

“Just me,” she said. “But it’s not like I’m not old enough to be left alone.”

“How old is that?”

“Almost seventeen.”

“So sixteen,” he said with a grin, and she rolled her eyes.

“Quite the math whiz. Why, how old are you?”

“Actually seventeen.”

“So you’re gonna be a senior?”

“If we have school tomorrow,” he said, glancing around. “Which I sort of doubt.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fixed by then. How hard is it to flip a power switch?”

He laughed. “Quite the science whiz.”

“Funny,” she said, but the word was hollow. Her smile fell as she regarded him, and Owen found himself straightening under her gaze.

“What?”

“You’ll be okay on your own?”

“You think I need a babysitter?” he asked, but the joke landed heavily between them. He lifted his chin. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “And I’m sure my dad’ll find a way to get back here soon. He’s probably worried about the building.”

“He’s probably worried about you,” Lucy said, and something tightened in Owen’s chest, though he wasn’t sure why. “Just be careful, okay?”

He nodded. “I will.”

“If you need a flashlight, I think we might have extras.”

“I’m fine,” he said as they started walking down the hall. “But thanks.”

“It’s only gonna get darker,” she warned him, waving a hand around. “You’ll need—”

“I’m fine,” he said again.

When he opened the door to the stairwell, the sealed-in heat came at them in a fog of stale air. From somewhere above, they could hear muddled voices, and then the slamming of a door, the sound of it crashing down flight after flight until it reached them.

They stepped inside, where the little white emergency lights along the edges of the stairs gave off a faint glow, and for the first time, Owen could see her face clearly: the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, and the deep brown of her eyes, so dark they almost looked black. She climbed the first step so that she was even with him, their eyes level, and they stood there for a long moment without saying anything. Above her, there was the seemingly endless spiral of stairs leading up to the twenty-fourth floor. Behind him, there was the long descent to his empty apartment in the basement.

“Well,” she said eventually, her eyes shining in the reflection of the lights. “Thanks for making the time pass, Elevator Boy.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll have to do it again the next time there’s a massive citywide blackout.”

“Deal,” she said, then turned to begin walking, her sandals loud against the concrete steps. Owen watched her go; her white sundress made her look like a ghost, like something out of a dream, and he waited until she’d disappeared around the corner before he began to walk himself, moving slowly from one step to the next.

Two flights down, he paused to listen to her footsteps above him, which were growing fainter as she climbed away, and he thought again of the dismal apartment below, and the chaotic city outside, the sense of possibility in a night like this, where everything was new and unwritten, the whole world gone dark like some great and terrible magic trick. He stood very still, one hand on the railing, breathing in the warm air and listening, and then, before he could think better of it, he spun around and went flying back up the stairs.

He made it only three flights before he had to pause, breathing hard, and when he lifted his head again, she was there on the landing, peering down at him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling up at her. “I just changed my mind about the flashlight.”

3

Upstairs, they spilled out into the darkened hallway—identical to the one thirteen floors below—both out of breath. Lucy had taken her sandals off somewhere around the eighteenth floor, and she let them dangle now from one hand as she used the other to feel her way along the wall, aware of Owen a few paces behind her, his footsteps light on the carpet. At the door to 24D, she fished the keys from the pocket of her dress, then fumbled with the lock as he leaned against the wall beside her, squinting.

“It’s not easy in the dark,” he said, but she didn’t respond. She’d been opening this door for nearly sixteen years. She knew the incremental movements by heart: the way the key stuck so that you had to jiggle it to the left and the noisy click of the bolt as it finally turned. She could have done this blindfolded. She could have done it in her sleep.

It wasn’t the dark. It was him.