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“Yeah?” What else can I say? Then I laugh. “It doesn’t feel exciting when you’ve spent three weeks trying to locate the backdoor into a secure system and failed. What I do is all about failing, over and over.”
She nods. “Me too. And they carry on living with you, the failures. The beaten women who go back to their husbands, the homeless drifter you fixed up who was so lovely and grateful, who then turns up in the morgue …”
“Oh God, did that happen?”
A watery look creeps into her eyes. “Yeah. This old guy used to come into the ER every couple of weeks roughed up. The routine was to fix him up and give him a hot meal. He’s been doing this for years apparently. He died last week. Everyone was gutted.”
“Oh shit.”
“Someone on the unit told me. It was his heart. He’d been living rough for a long time.”
“The street is a fucking terrible place to be. I’ve slept there myself; I don’t know how anyone can do it long-term.” I realize what I’ve said when her eyes widen on me again.
“You’ve lived on the street? Why?”
A chill hits me. I wasn’t planning on telling her all this history. Even though she shared some of her family background with me on the phone, it’s nothing like what I experienced growing up.
“It was an experiment of sorts.”
She’s still staring.
“An experiment? Why? How long were you on the street for?”
“A couple of months, but it was years ago. I was determined to keep going that long. It taught me a lot, I have to say: about drugs and dealers, about how to find food when you don’t have any, about how to keep warm. I know all the sweet spots of Manhattan now.” I half-grin at Kate. She isn’t taking this the wrong way, is she? She leans forward, face soft.
Okay then.
I take a deep breath. “I also learned about crime, and about how people treat you when you’re at the bottom of the heap. But I know how lucky I am to have the choice of whether to be there or not. My brother Zach never did: He was a drug addict who lived and died on the street. I wanted to understand what his life was like.
“Zach and I used to do a lot of daft shit together when we were younger, and one night we were at a friend’s party, high as kites, when the cops bust in. I sprinted off over the backyard fences, only escaping because I was fast and I was good at parkour even then. When I got back to the room Zach and I shared, I expected a knock on the door any second, but it took them a while, and ultimately they had no proof I was at the party.
“It’s kind of why I got involved in computers. I realized I could go down the same road all those people were on, partying their lives away, or try to come up with something else. I looked at things where I could escape my upbringing and make money and started messing around with software, taught myself how to code, and eventually wangled a scholarship to college. After the party, Zach was caught and arrested. They were lenient as it was his first offence, but it left him with a record and he struggled to find work. He drifted, got more involved in that world despite everything I fucking did to keep him out of it, and when I moved to Manhattan he followed me, which was disastrous as he was already into cocaine and that’s so easy to buy here. He stayed with me for a while and I tried to help him, but he stole my kit and sold it to feed his habit. We had an argument, and he stormed out.”
I scrub my hands over my face. “It was my fault, what did the kit matter, really? And keeping tabs on him was hard after that. He didn’t want to speak to me. I knew where he was on and off for a couple of years. I got to know this guy, Steve, who runs one of the hostels and knows everyone and anyone on the streets here, but even he struggled to help me find Zach toward the end.”
The warm glow in the restaurant reflects off the wood and the glasses on the table. In the end, Zach was in a terrible place: addicted, ill, always tricking to get money from me, from anybody. God knows I tried to take care of him. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t remember his grinning mischievous face, the way he would grab my shoulder, shake me, and laugh. I told Janus this same whole sorry history one night after Zach turned up at our dorm looking for cash and we had a fight. I got stoned and threatened to fly off one of the school buildings: Janus talked me down.
A sudden loud crash in the kitchen, followed by excitable voices, jerks me out of my thoughts to Kate’s furrowed brow across the table.
“After Zach died, I wanted to see what he’d been through. If I’d slept out sooner, maybe I would have known how to find him, who to talk to.” I can’t meet Kate’s eyes, so I watch the waiter as he moves from table to table. “You’ve no idea how much I regret that. He OD’d, and no one was there. When they found him, they said he’d been lying dead for a couple of days.”
An ache tightens the back of my throat, and I stare at the serving hatch, trying to swallow down the elephant-load of feelings. I’ve been way too honest.
“I can’t even … I’m so sorry, Fabian. Sounds like you were really close to him.”
She’s not flinching away. I pick at some skin on my hand.
“We were as thick as thieves. At least until we argued and the last nine months when I couldn’t fucking find him. It ripped us apart, but I understand why he did it.” I shake my head. “Why am I telling you about such a depressing subject?”
Why am I dragging Kate through the misery that was my family?
In all the pressure her parents put her under, aretheyhonest with her? What’s their deal? I hate the idea that there’s this rivalry that her parents actively encourage. Why compete with people you’re supposed to be close to? I’m willing to bet it destroys a family, in a different way to mine for sure, but destruction nonetheless.
She stretches over and touches my hand. Her skin is cool, and something burns through me that I don’t quite understand. I curl my fingers around hers. I’m anchored here. Safe.
“I think I started it by talking about the homeless guy. And I like that you can talk to me honestly.” She stares at our hands as if she doesn’t know quite how that happened. “Some guys aren’t that open, and believe me, it’s”—her pale throat moves as she swallows—“great when they are.”
The light catches on the golden strands of her hair, and I shift in my chair. Am I honest? I play my cards close to my chest most of the time, but something about tonight has loosened my tongue.
