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Of course.
I was two blocks from home. From my aunt’s old apartment.
I’d ridden the train downtown, then gotten off and walked north. Walked the spine of Manhattan like a zombie. North through Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper West Side, past Columbia and City College. And I’d ended up here. Washington Heights.
It had taken hours and my feet throbbed. But that was nothing compared to the throbbing in my head. It felt like a tornado in there, pounding in my temples and raging at the base of my skull.
And then there it was. My old stoop. Achingly familiar and disconcertingly different at the same time. I couldn’t quite enumerate the differences but I knew they were there. Green paint on the railings instead of black, maybe? A chunk of concrete that wasn’t missing before? I couldn’t be sure.
And now, finally, I let myself sink down on the stoop I’d sat on so many times as a boy. It had been so long, and no time at all.
Maybe I’d been sitting on this stoop for years.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there when someone turned the corner. It was long gone full dark and I tensed instinctively, because it was a large man.
Rhys.
Fuck.
He heaved a sigh at the sight of me, and his face was tight with worry, his shoulders tensed. I scrambled to my feet, but he held out a hand to stop me and sank down beside me on the stoop.
He looked awful. He said nothing. The distance between us vibrated with a tension I felt in my whole body.
After a few minutes, he inched a little closer to me. Just close enough that he tipped his knee to rest against mine. The contact made my head spin, and I made a humiliating choking sound, so relieved that he still wanted to touch me. I wanted to reach for him but I was scared he’d pull away, and I thought if that happened I might crumble.
“You didn’t call.”
“I went home, but you weren’t there. Your phone was there.”
I fumbled at my pockets but didn’t find my phone.
“Shit, I don’t . . . I don’t remember.”
Rhys’s eyes looked swollen, his full mouth downturned. He handed me my phone.
“How’d you find me?” I asked, my voice raw.
“Grin.”
I blinked at him, wanting so badly to touch him and knowing I couldn’t.
“I’m so mad at you,” Rhys said. He sounded like he was about to cry. My stomach lurched, but at the same time it was such a Rhys thing to say. So honest and straightforward and fucking generous. No guessing with Rhys. No games.
“I know,” I said. Then, because I had nothing else to offer him, “I’m sorr—”
“Time to go now,” he cut me off.
He stood, and at the sight of him silhouetted against these buildings, worlds collided. I couldn’t make sense of him here. Or couldn’t make sense of here with him in it. He walked down the steps and kicked at the curb.
“I drove,” he said.
“Am I . . . do I come too?”
Pure pain flashed in Rhys’s eyes, and then he just looked exhausted.
“Yeah, you come too, Matty.”
I stood slowly, my feet protesting with pins and needles. Bed seemed nice. Sleeping forever seemed nice. But when I went to step off the stoop, I was frozen to the spot.
Finally I took a clumsy step onto the sidewalk. My head spun and there was a whooshing in my ears, like my cousins were yelling down the narrow hallway in the apartment.
I stumbled to a crouch at the curb and threw up. There was nothing left in my stomach, so it was just wrenching dry heaves.
“Oh, babe.”
Rhys’s voice. Rhys’s hand on my hair. Rhys was still there.
“I’m sorry,” I said miserably.
I wanted him to hold me, to tell me it was okay. That I hadn’t broken this thing between us beyond the point of repair. But he was mad, and I had no right to ask for comfort since it was all my fault, so I shoved my hands in my pockets and spat.
“I have gum in the truck.”
We drove home in silence. The water was black in the moonlight.
I made this journey ten times a week on the train. More, if we came into the city on the weekends. And every single time, I tried not to think. I tried not to think about the fact that the train skirted Washington Heights as we followed the Harlem River to the Hudson. That every day in my shiny new life, I rode past the ruins of my old one. If I ever did accidentally think, I turned the thoughts always to You’re driving away, not toward. You’re moving past it.
Now, I tried to think. I struggled to put my thoughts into some kind of order, but the harder I tried the more they slithered away. Until we stopped at a red light, and I looked over at Rhys. Usually he drove with an easy, casual hand on his leg, just the slightest lazy movement of his wrist to turn the wheel.
