Page 56 of Below the Shadow of the City

I brace my hands against the sides of the washing machine, legs still spread apart and thighs still trembling from what he was about to do to me moments before. “Do you think I like being this way? Don’t you think if I had a choice I wouldn’t freak out and run away every time I got scared of commitment? It’s a weird subconscious thing. I can’t help it, and it pains me every. Single. Time. It is utterly exhausting to live like this, to believe that someone is going to turn on you at any moment.”

“How can I make you stop feeling that?” He sounds like he’s poised for a fight against an imaginary opponent.

I need to run, my legs are itching for an escape after teetering too close to any true revelations. I hop off the washing machine and smooth out my dress, my hands track over the yellow fabric over and over again.

“I’m broken, ok? There’s nothing you can do. It’s not like I get some sick satisfaction out of making you pour your heart out over and over for me. There’s something disgusting and festering inside me that will infect you just like it’s infected everyone I’ve ever been with. I promise you. You will change your mind.”

“Oh my god, do you hear yourself? Do you know how wrong you are? Maybe, yes, other relationships fell apart. Maybe it was your fault, but have you considered that maybe it was theirs? Maybe, Sigrid, shit happens and people suck. You are not broken, you are not infected, or cursed, or any of the other bullshit things you claim to be. If you just let me love you, let me show you how to be loved just once, you would change your mind.”

I leave Maddox behind, scurrying up the stairs. Running away from him, from what I’m feeling, and from whatever future we could forge together. And I am incredibly sorry for it, but I can’t wrap my mind around an apology. We had fallen too hard and too fast and were careening towards disaster. I have to abandon ship, I can’t let us go down in flames.

“Sigrid, wait!” Maddox calls out after me. I keep going.

Breathing, heartbeat, and footsteps all sync together as I pad down the hallway. There are hundreds of variations on the “sincerity is scary” statement. I delved more into what made up the ragged collage that was Sigrid Larson and now I regretted being known.

For the last ten years, once anyone got too close and could see the jagged cracks through my smoothed over exterior they’d leave, so now I have to be the one to run first. Maddox bore witness to the most literal iteration of such. If I stayed down here a moment longer I’d completely combust.

Though the noisy sounds of cars on the street above are coursing through my every nerve, I turn on a dime the very second I notice a large presence from behind. Briefly relieved it is Maddox, I almost run towards him on autopilot. Heart and head are in conflict, and my rapid pulse and swirling thoughts don’t help.

We’re in the hallway outside the laundry room, feet from the stairs, the closest he’s been to above ground in this building. There’s the risk of him being spotted, but that’s hardly a concern now. Once I stopped moving, my heart catches up with me and I’m taking deep gasping breaths. He’s having his romantic lead moment, and it nearly makes me angry.

“Maddox, please leave me alone,” my chest rhythmically heaves. I haven’t run that quickly in a while. Truthfully, I don’t run. At all. “You don’t need to chase after me, ok?” Maddox furrows his brow at the remark, and takes a large step back.

“Fine, yes I will. I just want to apologize if I pressured you into feeling like you need to confess something you’re not ready for me to know. You’re right. Please, just stop running away from me like this.”

I study his quivering Cupid’s bow for a moment while we both shakily inhale. “I’ll go back to my place and leave you alone once I say this, I want to know you, I want to love you,” he continues. “More importantly I want you to feel safe enough around me that you can be your true self. I’ll leave you be for now, but I did not stutter with what I said. I love you, Sigrid Larson. And I’m not sorry about it.”

He turns to begin his walk back to the laundry room, I grab his arm. Maddox slowly turns back towards me. Sure, I’m a little twitchy and my eyes are damp, but I’m completely focused on him.

“Okay, fine. You want me to do the big romantic admission for you? I am so fucking in love with you, Maddox. So in love with you and still so fucking scared. I’m scared of the way I’m slowly releasing my grip on myself. I’m scared of you and how stupidly perfect you are. And yes, obviously I am scared of the way the world is going to react. I’m scared of the future of us because I can’t bring you to work Christmas parties or my parents’ house out of the blue. Honestly that hardly matters because above all of that, the one thing that keeps me up at night is that I’m scared of losing you one day. Because, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone as much as I love you. And losing you would actually be the thing that finally destroys me.” I grip harder onto his arm and pull him close, “I’m not used to being this vulnerable with anyone. I don’t know how to be.” I kiss him on the cheek.

Both his cheeks and mine are damp, I didn’t realize the tears had started flowing mid-confession. He’s pushed me to be more emotionally open than I ever have been, with anyone.

I thought that maybe saying it aloud would bring about some mystical end to this curse I’m under. My naivety pictured golden sparkles covering me or a whoosh of magic and suddenly all would be well. There are no sparkles or magic, only Maddox and I staring at one another in silence in this musty stairwell.

Grandiose emotional confessions of love were classic curse breakers in every fairytale imaginable, right? I got so swept up into believing that I was truly cursed just like those imaginary royals that I assumed it would be equally simple. Except, it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t.

Because emotions aren’t pawns to play with in hopes of making real life complexities magically disappear.

“You love me,” he says softly. My phone buzzes. Real life is interrupting this fairytale moment before we can get our happy ending.

“Fuck,” I utter. “I’m gonna be late.”

“Right,” he backs away and brushes himself off. “Me too.” He fixes the bent piece of paper pinned to his shirt and quickly disappears down the hallway and through the laundry room door.

CHAPTER 23

SATURDAY, EARLY NOVEMBER

I’d be lying if I said I went to Margo’s party that night and had a fun time as if nothing had happened.

I had shown up late to help Margo set up, and she hadn’t questioned my timing, or the remaining smudged mascara on my eyelids. She welcomed me inside and we got to work soundtracked by her “Halloween Bangers” playlist. Her apartment has the perfect layout for entertaining, wide openings between rooms, plenty of seating, and rooftop access. If the night weren’t another rainy one I’d likely have perched myself up there to get a few gulps of fresh air and look at the skyline of Manhattan across the water.

The lack of sufficient airflow is the worst attribute of her living space. The cheap polyester that made up everyone’s costumes generated a sticky, alcohol tinged, ever-present heat. I had run around and opened windows to avoid sweating to death in my costume, a fruitless task if the slick sheen of sweat pooling on my lower back had been any indicator.

I perched against the wall next to one of the open windows and fanned myself every few minutes. Three guys all in football jerseys pretending they’re actual costumes were gathered around a table playing flip cup, I watched them drunkenly knock cups off the table and all scramble at the same time to pick them up. It was mildly entertaining, and better than staring at the wall. I placed mental bets with myself as to whether or not they coordinated on the outfits.

Everyone else I knew at the party was preoccupied. Declan and Matthias were off making out somewhere, which considering they were dressed as sexy C-3P0 and R2-D2 their canoodling was a little…odd. Margo was chatting it up with anyone with a pulse, she’s a serial flirt, but never takes anyone home. And I was in the corner shifting my cup back and forth between my hands.