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I don’t care if I’m twenty stories up. I have to get away. I have to put space between them and me before I break and turn back and beg them for their forgiveness. They’d give it because that’s the type of people they are.
I don’t deserve it.
I take the steps two at a time, using my arms on the wall and railing to hurl myself down the winding space at a pace so dangerous I’ll break my leg if I’m not careful. I’m not. Their ring, which I meant to leave next to my key, still encircles my finger.
Freudian slip? Or when push comes to shove, can I ever take it off, now that it’s on my hand? Justin has never removed his. Why should I remove mine? Even if I’ll never be with them again.
When my legs are aching and my lungs are burning, I slow to a stop and collapse onto the stairs, my head in my hands.
It’s not that I think my father is right. I don’t. I hate the bastard for doing this to me. But he is right, at least about the lives I hold in my hands. It isn’t only my life I’m fucking with. This had to be done. It had to be. It isn’t about me, or them, or the way they make my blood sing and my heart soar. It’s about stock prices and mortgages—that simple.
Only it’s not simple at all. If it were that simple, I wouldn’t be hiding in the emergency stairwell of a million-dollar high-rise, crying into my hands.
I shake my head in a senseless attempt to clear it from the heartbreak burning a line from my chest. I haven’t cried this hard since I was a child.
The sign on the wall tells me I’m on the eleventh floor. Fair enough, I suppose, when nothing will ever feel far enough to stop the burn for them in my blood. I shove open the next door available and turn to wait for the elevator. There’s a couple there, and they double take at the state of me. Suit half off and wrinkled, sweat covering my skin, tears roughly wiped from my face. Not to mention, I’m black. I see the couple discreetly move closer together, the woman tightening her grip on her purse.
Fuckers.
I turn back around and finish the trek down the stairs.
No one is waiting for me, and I can’t decide whether I’m relieved or devastated. The doorman gives me a bemused look and asks me if I’m okay, but I ignore him, letting the chilly air of New York at the end of October slap against my face.
It’s soothing, cooling my heated blood and my clammy skin. The windbreaks against my hard edges—sharpened to make me bleed because of grief. Even though I know this area as well as I know the back of my hand, I feel lost. Unmoored. I didn’t just break up with my lovers. My fiancées?
I left behind my only real friends in the world. I’m alone, truly alone, for the first time since I met Justin. No wonder I’m weeping like a baby. I was alone before him too. I suppose it’s destiny. Part of my legacy. To be at the top means to be by yourself.
I pick a direction and start to walk, not caring where I end up. I don’t even have my phone anymore, which is probably a good thing. I can’t call them and ask them to get me and bring me back home.
I knew all those months ago that climbing into bed with them would be a bad idea. I hate being right.
New York in the evening time is loud. Cars honk and taxi drivers scream at pedestrians that jump into the road uncaring of traffic signals. Three days from Halloween, and it’s even louder. People are walking around in costumes. Parties are lined up for days before and after the big event so you can fit as much flirting and alcohol in as possible before the celebratory atmosphere transforms to one of God and family.
Neither of which I have any faith in at the moment.
I finally focus on my surroundings, coming to a stop in front of a bar.
Perfect. That’s exactly what I need.
It’s dark and crowded, but I don’t give a fuck. The surround sound blasts pop music, and I want to find the closest speaker and rip it from the wall. I don’t need Beyoncé telling me everything is going to be okay. I go to the bar, and when all of the seats are taken, I stand over a skinny college kid—probably here with a fake ID—until he takes the hint and slides from the stool. Grabbing his beer bottle, he skitters to the side, trying not to make physical contact with the ghost that was Remington Lancaster the Third.
“What’ll it be?” the barkeep asks, looking amused at the way the kid only gives me attitude when he’s far enough away to be out of my reach.
“Whiskey,” I tell him. “Top shelf.” I pull my wallet out and hand him a hundred-dollar bill, trying not to hear Julia’s voice scolding me for carrying cash of that denomination. “Just leave me the bottle and a glass.”
He gives me a sad smile, placing a mostly full bottle of Crown Royal in front of me with a tumbler containing a ball of ice.
“That bad, huh?” he asks, and I ignore him, filling two fingers of the amber liquid into the glass before throwing it back. It burns going down, and I welcome the pain, closing my eyes and enjoying the sear down my throat and pooling in my belly. It’s not enough. I don’t think all the alcohol in the world would be enough at this point in my life. When the liquor hits my bloodstream, the muscles in my neck begin to unknot, and I hate it because I don’t deserve relief. I deserve to suffer for the damage I just caused to the people I claim to love most in the world.
The bartender tries to get my attention. His forties-hipster persona of tight jeans and a flannel shirt reminds me of Justin when he’s dressing for a day around the house, not to put on a show for our audience outside the door.
“You know, it would be cheaper if you went to a liquor store. Especially because, even if you pay for it, I’m going to take it away from you if you get too drunk.”
Looking him in the eye, I give him a bland expression. I turn and, keeping him in my peripheral vision, pour another two fingers and bring it to my mouth. The bartender rolls his eyes and grumbles under his breath, then moves on to another patron. The next time he comes by, he drops a receipt and my change back on the bar top beside me and whispers, “Go in peace,” before he leaves me to myself again.
There’s a line of liquor bottles lined up against the wall behind the bar, shelves with bright colors and different concoctions to drink your worries away. Beyond that is a mirror, and my reflection seems to crack and distort until the old me is gone, and the new me shows clear.
I see the devil there—broken and miserable, uncaring about the pain he leaves in his wake so long as everyone feels as shitty as he does. I take the ring from my finger and sense it burning a hole into my palm. It’s heavy. Heavier than it should be. The weight of broken promises and whispered declarations, lost to the blowing of the wind.
