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I meet Richie Tozier in front of my dorm at NYU while my best friend is actively saying goodbye to her boyfriend like they’re being deployed to different wars.
Sandy is crying.
Richie is smiling.
That should have been my first warning.
“Okay,” Sandy says, wiping under her eyes, voice wobbling. “Text me when you land. Call me when you unpack. And don’t forget the charger I gave you.”
“I won’t,” Richie says, “I promise.”
She kisses him, quick and sad, and then turns to me. “You’re good with this, right?”
“With what?” I ask.
“With riding across the country with my boyfriend.”
Ah.
That.
I glance at Richie. He’s already looking at me, like I’m the interesting part of the scene.
“I don’t really have a choice,” I say.
Sandy laughs, sniffles, and hugs me. “You’ll be fine. He’s annoying, but harmless.”
“Rude,” Richie says.
“True,” I reply.
His smile widens.
The car is too nice for a college student. Black interior. Touchscreen everything. The kind of car that says I will never know financial struggle.
Richie throws my duffel into the trunk like it weighs nothing. “Shotgun’s yours,” he says. “I get carsick if I don’t drive.”
“I get carsick if you talk,” I mutter.
“I like you already.”
I get in the car and immediately regret it.
As we pull away, Sandy shrinks in the side mirror, still waving. Richie watches her until she’s gone, expression soft and sincere.
Then he turns to me.
“So,” he says. “Eddie, right?”
“Yes.”
“Eddie Eddie, or Edward?”
“Eddie.”
“Cool. I’m Richie.”
“I know.”
“Just checking.”
We drive in silence for approximately forty-seven seconds.
“So what’s your deal?” he asks.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has one.”
“I’m transferring schools,” I say. “That’s not a personality trait.”
“Disagree. It says mysterious. Possibly running from something.”
“I’m not.”
He hums. “You would say that.”
I stare straight ahead. New York blurs past the windows, the city I’ve lived in my whole life slipping away too fast for comfort.
“Why UCLA?” Richie asks.
“Why NYU?” I shoot back.
“I was born loud and needed an audience.”
“That tracks.”
He laughs, full and easy, and I hate that it does something to me.
An hour in, Richie has established himself as:
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A over-talker
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Allergic to silence
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Weirdly attentive
“So what are you studying?” he asks.
“Biology.”
“Oof. Pre-med?”
“Maybe.”
“Wow. Brains and brooding. Dangerous combo.”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“No,” he says. “Doctor says it’s terminal.”
I roll my eyes.
“And you?” I ask despite myself.
“Film. Comedy writing. Maybe stand up if I feel like being humbled publicly.”
“That also tracks.”
He grins like I complimented him.
“I like that you pretend not to like me,” he says casually.
I choke. “I’m not pretending.”
“Sure, Eds.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Noted,” he says. “Mentally ignored.”
I cross my arms and lean against the door. “You have a girlfriend.”
He blinks. “Yeah.”
“So maybe redirect whatever this is.”
“This?” He looks delighted. “We’re talking.”
“You’re flirting.”
“I flirt with everyone.”
“That’s worse.”
He shrugs. “Sandy knows who I am.”
That should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
We stop for gas somewhere in Pennsylvania. Richie stretches like he owns the road, then hands me a coffee without asking.
“I didn’t say I wanted—”
“Oat milk. One sugar. You look like you’d complain otherwise.”
I stare at the cup. “…Thanks.”
He watches me take a sip, like he’s waiting for approval.
I hate that he gets it right.
“You’re gonna hate LA,” he says suddenly.
“Why?”
“Too much sun. Too many happy people.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
“There it is,” he says. “I knew you had a sense of humor.”
“Don’t push it.”
He smiles anyway.
By the time we get back on the road, something has shifted.
I don’t know Richie Tozier. He’s someone else’s boyfriend. Someone I just met. Someone who will probably fade out of my life once we reach California.
And yet.
When he glances at me like he’s already memorizing the shape of my silence, I feel the strange, unsettling certainty that this is not a coincidence.
This is just the beginning.