I press the button for the elevator, and it’s empty when it arrives. I step inside, then seconds later, I hear a voice. A sexy, sultry voice.
It’s like I’m being tested, but then that’s the point. I want the test. I’m here to prove to myself I can do this. I can make it across the alligator-strewn waters of my parent’s apartment building.
A gorgeous blond with impossibly long legs and a red dress that looks as if it’s been painted on waggles her fingers at me. “Hold the elevator.”
I swallow, my throat dry. I push the open button.
She walks inside. “Hello there.” The words are a purr from her cherry lips.
I grab the brass bar behind me, holding on for dear fucking life as the elevator shoots up.
Her stop is before mine, and she casts a quick glance before she leaves. I heave a sigh as the doors close.
I passed the first test. I picture some army dude, a colonel maybe, in a room with one-way glass, barking out orders. “Cue the cougar in the elevator. Next, roll out the MILF.”
But seconds later, I’m at my parent’s floor. This is the real test. The assault rifles, the grenades–-the army commander is preparing to launch them all at me as I head to Antarctica.
I take out the earbuds and turn off the music. I know this hallway in the dark, without a flashlight. I could find my way in and out of this building blindfolded. This is where I grew up, became fucked up, and then was told to shut up.
I stop at the door, then take a beat. Gritting my teeth, drawing a breath, steeling myself.
I knock.
My mother answers, and even though it’s late, she’s up because she rarely sleeps. She’s still dressed too. She’s wearing jeans and a button-down blouse. Her hair is in a neat ponytail. She holds a medical journal in her hand.
“Trey, is everything okay? What are you doing here at midnight? Come in.” She gestures to the apartment, every surface perfectly and pristinely cleaned.
I shake my head. I don’t want to go in. I don’t even want to be here. This place is a vacuum seal on feelings. I’d enter and they’d duct tape my mouth and tell me not to say a word.
“That’s okay. I don’t need to come in.”
“Did you want to talk more about school? Your studies?” she asks, because these are the only acceptable topics.
“No, I don’t want to talk about school. I wanted to show you something,” I say, and this is when I see if I can do what Michele has been urging me to do all along. To say it. Because if I can say something to my mom, I can say it to Harley. I’m at the edge of a cliff, I’m jumping off without a parachute, and I’m hoping for a soft landing, even though I know I could crash and break every bone in my body.
I turn to my side, pull up my shirt, and show her my new ink. The bandage has been removed.
“These are three trees. And they’re for Will, Jake and Drew,” I say, and she stumbles when I breathe their names aloud for the first time in years. Like she’s been punched in the gut and is winded. “And you might not ever say their names or acknowledge they existed, but I have and I will. Because I don’t want to forget them. I want to remember.”
And that’s all. I don’t wait for a response. I don’t need a response, and I don’t warrant a response. Because even after I turn around and wait endless minutes for the elevator to arrive, she doesn’t call after me, she doesn’t try to tell me she remembers too. She’s stuck to her guns, to her orders from when I was fifteen. Don’t talk about it.
The doors open and I’m inside now. I’d like to say I feel like a new man, like my life is unfurling before me. But that would be bullshit. Instead, my heart is frantic, and my skin is crawling, and I want to go jump into the ocean and swim out into the night, the stars my only companions. But there’s no ocean nearby, there’s only this claustrophobic, sticky, sweaty, smelly, muggy city that I want to escape from, that I’ve lived in my whole life, that’s made everything I’ve done possible.
But I am also buzzing with adrenaline, because I can’t fucking believe I did that. And if I can do that, I can do something that’s more important. I can tear down the fucking walls I have built with this girl I am crazy for.
I’m ready to find her. Ready to tell her. Ready to let her know everything. Damn the consequences. Screw the costs. Telling her everything is like inking my body. I have to go into it with no regrets.
When the elevator opens into the lobby, my heart stops because she is walking toward me.
I don’t freeze. I don’t run to her like in the movies. I just keep moving, one foot in front of the other, and this is the real walking of the plank. This is the true blind dive. I have no clue why she’s here. All I know is she’s not dressed for work. She’s dressed for me. She’s wearing her skinny hipster jeans, all tight and dark, and a t-shirt with a cat smoking a pipe and the words No Smoking under it. She doesn’t even have Converse on now. She has on combat boots, and I’ve never seen a girl in anything hotter than Harley in combat boots. Her hair is loose, and she has on pink lipgloss, and I want to taste it.
Then I give myself a mental slap for automatically going to the physical. I should focus on everything else. Like why she’s here.
“Welcome to the lion’s den,” I say, because I don’t know what the hell to say and humor seems as reasonable as falling at her feet and telling her how I feel for her.
She’s not having it. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
She furrows her brows like I’m crazy. “Um, hello? You haven’t answered your phone, except once and then you hung up. And you haven’t responded to a text or anything for days.”
“I think it was two days. You know, if you’re counting.”
She parks her hands on her hips. “Well, I am counting. And I went to your apartment to find you, and now I’m here.” Her voice echoes across the rose-colored marble lobby with brass trim. The doorman in a dark maroon uniform fixes his focus on something unseen across the street, probably doing his best to pretend he can’t hear everything we’re saying. He’s good at his job – see no evil, hear no evil.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say and grab her elbow, gently leading her out of the building and onto the street. We walk several feet because I need space and distance from my parents. We stop near the end of the block and I lean against the stoop of a brownstone. She stands next to me, and we’re the only ones on the quiet street at this late hour. Somewhere, in the distance, a horn honks and someone shouts. But here, the space between us is carved with silence.
I turn to her. She looks back at me. Who will make the first move? But that’s not really a question. She came to me. She found me. She hunted me down. But even if she hadn’t done those things, I still have unfinished business.
“I’m sorry I kinda disappeared the last few days,” I say softly.
“Why did you disappear?”
“I had to figure some things out. Get my shit together.”
She inches away from me. “What did you figure out? That you don’t want to be friends with me?”
I laugh, shake my head. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Jordan said you got a new tattoo. Are you going to tell me now why you keep getting them? What this obsession is? Because I think what you told me when you were drunk was true. Was it?”
She meets my eyes without hostility, without anger, without fear. I’m struck dumb by how masterful the two of us can be at playing people, juggling men and women, reeling off lies with vigor and abandon. But then, in quiet moments, she can strip that away and ask me for all my truths.
I lick my lips, part them, and I feel mute again, like when she called. For the briefest moment, I have the sensation that my entire world can smother me, that the buildings on the other side of the block will break free, topple over and crush me. That I will die. But then I tested that hypothesis a few minutes ago outside my parent’s door, and I’m still standing.