Page 39 of So Thirsty

“You won’t believe the truth. Any of it,” he says, looking forlorn. “And I want you to stay.”

Ominous but intriguing. “I don’t think I can leave. The roads…”

“I don’t mean stay the night. Just tonight. I mean stay with me.”

“Oh,” I say. Of all the turns this night has taken, this might be the most unexpected. He’s a romantic. Or he’s messing with me. Probably that.

He stands, goes over to the wall, and presses a hand to the glass. “What you said, about feeling different. Lonely. Imagine that sustained over years. Lifetimes.”

He paces now, swaying from side to side, his cadence as measured and steady as a pendulum’s.

“I made decisions long ago, when I was someone else, that I cannot take back. I’ve made mistakes that I cannot erase. I live with the consequences every day. They’re a burden. One I deserve, I’m sure. But I’m tired, and I’ve been tired for so long. For so long tired of being tired.”

It’s happening again. That thing with his accent.

He laughs. Not his nerd laugh. A tricky laugh. “And then last night, when I saw you, I felt…if I could articulate it, I promise I would.”

He smiles sweetly at me, looking at me that way he does, with sincere affection. I do believe him. I do trust that he’s being honest.

I wish he weren’t.

“Last night?” I ask, a tremor I can’t disguise in my voice. “You were at the bar?”

I remember now. The man in the corner. Half in shadow, half in the red glow of the neon sign. The man I thought might be watching me.

“Yes, I was at the bar,” he says, his big eyes getting bigger. “And…and at your window.”

A bomb goes off in the dark pit of my gut.

He must be joking. How could he know about my nightmare? That I dreamt of a figure outside the cottage, two stories up? That I woke to find a handprint on the glass? How could he possibly know?

I clear my throat. “Right. Watching me sleep. How brooding.”

“You weren’t asleep,” he says, and my body goes numb, and I feel like I’m floating, like I’m a loose astronaut tumbling around in an inescapable doom.

“What?” I ask, hoping he’ll say something to reel me back in. That he’ll laugh. Admit he’s not serious.

“You weren’t asleep,” he repeats. “I want you to trust me. To know I will be honest with you. Always tell you the truth, even if that truth sounds like fiction. It is a cruel misfortune that I cannot hope to see you again without revealing what will almost certainly make you never want to see me again.”

“Right.” I look around the room. There’s the collection of sad, dying plants, the musty furniture, the magazines. The Power Broker. I clear my throat again. “Whose house is this?”

Henry sighs. “This house belongs to someone who calls himself Roger McLaren. Though that was not always his name.”

“Okay. And where is Roger now?”

Henry rubs his jaw, gives a hollow laugh, then says, “If there was a right way to go about this, this wasn’t it.”

“Where is he?”

“If you stay, I’ll explain it all. You told me your story. Your secrets. Only fair that I tell you mine. Every last one,” he says.

I thought the part of me that was susceptible to the charms of danger died when I hit the pavement on St. Marks, when I was still young. But I guess not, because I consider what it would be like to ignore every waving bright red flag and welcome Henry back to the love seat. Let him kiss my neck and pretend nothing else exists. Fall back into that vacuum of euphoria.

Admire the view before the zeppelin catches fire. Smile before screaming.

Instead, I ask again, “Where is he?”

“Sloane.”