“Totally.”
“Well then.” She says this like it wraps up our conversation entirely. “In bocca al lupo.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, you know—break a leg, rabbit rabbit. Hey, do you think they’re still out there?”
“Outside?” I frown, then stand. How many languages would I need to know to hang with Faust and his crew on a long-term basis? “I’ll go check.”
She throws me a little smile. “Cool, thanks.”
On my way to the front, I pass by a blond man who looks like Arthur—though he’s a bit hidden by the crowd, and if that was him, wouldn’t Lilah have seen him on his way back inside? I step outside, surveying the stragglers in front of the club. It’s a lot of sequins, bandage dresses, and men in clavicle-bearing shirts. No Faust. Did he leave? That would be weird, but not—I don’t know. Not totally out of the realm of possibility. It’s past midnight, he raced all weekend. He could leave.
I sit on the curb, tequila and emotions twisting in my stomach, making my eyes sting. And those words.Don’t go. Just stay.Isn’t that the hardest thing to do for everyone? Nobody stays, right? And then I’m thinking about Christine and her pink jacket, and Eddie and how he’d saluted Faust and me from the cab, and Mei’s fifteen thousand texts about Faust’s race, and him. Maybe people do stay, in this world, with each other. They don’t leave in a caustic blaze of glory, like I’m going to.
ButIcan’t stay.
“Are you okay?”
I look up. There’s Faust, because there isn’t anyone else it would be, standing there in his black slacks and black shirt and bright, crisp concern.
“I’m fine. Just—” I wave a hand. “Need a moment. Alcohol. I’m not actually a big drinker?”
Without so much as a noise, Faust sinks onto the bumpy curb next to me. “You need a water?”
“No, really. I’m okay.”
“You looked…” He stops. “You sort of looked like you might cry.”
“I wasn’t.”
He sets his elbows on his knees, as if he’s planning on sitting here until I decide to get up. “Is this about the breakup?”
“No. Not—not Bernard.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
He says that last word so, so softly, and I turn to meet his worried eyes.
“I think.” I hesitate. Lick my lips. “I think there’s something wrong with me. Like, I don’t know how to stay still.” He nods, listening, and that’s all the tequila inside me needs. “It’s like… there’s this hole inside me. And if I don’t keep moving, if I turnaround and look at it, I’m going to fall in. But sometimes I do anyway. Sometimes, after a good day, it just happens.”
“You fall into yourself?”
“Yeah. God, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
More than stupid. I’ve never said this to anyone. I hadn’t even put a name to the creeping-closer dread before now, the fear that’s kept my perpetual-motion machine spinning. Coffee. Running. Traveling. Working. No attachments, no strings, nothing to tie me down.
If I keep moving, I don’t fall in.
If I keep moving, the dark doesn’t find me.
Faust’s hand finds the curve of my back, instantly warming me through the thin fabric of my T-shirt. I stiffen. Then, relax.
“Made sense to me, Arcadia.”
There are a million things I could say to that.Why do you always listen to me? Why are you so accepting? Are you lying?“Why do you always use that name?”
“You mean, your name?”
