The cab pulls away, windshield wipers beating time while the city blurs into streaks of light and shadow. Sage stares out the window, chewing on her lower lip, fingers twisted together in her lap.
I watch the meter tick up and feel something in my chest tighten.
When the cab finally slows, it’s not a brownstone. We stop in front of a narrow building squeezed between a nail salon and a Chinese takeout place. Neon flickers in the window below. A hand-painted menu taped crookedly to the glass.
Third floor. Walk-up.
The driver pops the locks. Rain drums harder now.
She doesn’t move right away.
Then, quietly, like she’s confessing something small but fatal, she says, “It was Chloe’s place. I brought you there because I was embarrassed.”
I turn toward her.
“All summer,” she adds, eyes fixed on the rain-slicked sidewalk. “I didn’t want you to see this.”
Something in her voice dares me to make it matter.
I shake my head once. “Sh… it doesn’t matter now.”
And I mean it — mostly.
But it’s still a lie.
Because itdoesmatter.
Not the apartment. Not the stairs. Not the flickering neon or the smell of lo mein drifting up through the rain.
It’s the pattern.
Another omission.
Another version of the truth held back until it’s unavoidable.
Another layer peeled away too late.
She bites her lip again, harder this time, like she’s waiting for me to say more.
I don’t.
I pay the driver. Step out into the rain. Walk her to the door without touching her, the space between us heavy and deliberate.
She looks up at me under the awning, eyes searching, hopeful in that way that still guts me.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For the cab,” I reply.
She nods, like she hears everything I’m not saying.
When the door closes behind her and the lock clicks, I stand there a moment longer than necessary, rain soaking through to my skin.
This is how it happens, I think.
Not with screaming.
Not with betrayal you can point to.
