CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jake
I take the stairs leading down into the tunnels beneath the street two at a time and hit the subway platform at a sprint, but I’m too late. The train is already pulling away, the rumble of the wheels turning thunderous as I burst from the stairwell.
My tight muscles give up the fight as I slow to a walk, my hands falling to my hips and my chin dropping to my chest. “Shit.”
I’m already late, and now I’m going to be even later. The trains on this line are always at least fifteen minutes apart, no matter what the monitor announcing the next incoming train says.
I glance up, but the screen hanging from the ceiling above the platform is blank except for a line of dots that stream across the bottom like a never-ending ellipsis, indicating the Metro Transit Authority has no fucking idea when the next train is coming.
It doesn’t bode well for me getting to Shane in time to make our reservation.
Cursing rush hour and construction on the L, I pull my phone from my pocket and shoot Shane a text—
Missed the last train, princess, and there’s nothing coming any time soon. Looks like I’m going to be late.
I’m sorry.
And I am sorry. Way more sorry than I would usually be for something beyond my control. Time and tide and the express train wait for no man, but for some reason I hate that I didn’t make it down the stairs in time.
Really fucking hate it.
My throat is tight and my chest aches as I pace back and forth on the empty platform, growing increasingly anxious and unsettled.
I curse again and type out another text to Shane—
You want to order for me? That way you won’t have to wait. You know I’ll eat anything that’s seen fire for more than a few minutes.
No oysters, don’t even ask, I add with a smile.
I continue to pace, watching the screen, waiting for a text, or even just bubbles to indicate that Shane is writing back.
But there’s only silence.
Silence from the phone, silence on the platform, silence from the city above, though I’m not that deep underground. I should be able to hear traffic noise, the honk of horns, the shout of the homeless guy at the top of the stairs doing his best to sell copies of the free weekly papers he collects from around town.
But there’s nothing, and not another soul in sight.
I glance back and forth, but I am really, truly alone, something that hasn’t happened in all my years in the city. I’ve never been on a platform by myself, or at least not for long.
I turn my phone over, checking to make sure I have bars, and then hit Shane’s number. Maybe she didn’t hear the ping as the texts came through. She’ll hear her phone ring, though, especially since she programmed a punk rock cover of “Puff the Magic Dragon” as my ring tone.
The thought makes me smile as the phone begins to ring.
And ring.
And ring—fifteen or sixteen rings without the call going to voicemail or Shane picking up.
I tap the red circle, ending the call, and type out another text—
You might just be away from your phone, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Text me, okay?
Or call. I’d love to hear your voice.
I wait a minute and add—
Shane, please, text me as soon as you can.
Thirty seconds, then I send out—
I need to hear from you, princess. I need to know that you’re okay. I’m worried.
I’m on the verge of being flat out scared, in fact. I don’t know why she wouldn’t be okay—I can’t remember exactly where we’re meeting, but I know it’s somewhere in Midtown, where there’s a cop on every corner and—
My thoughts stutter.
A cop on every corner…
A cop… The police…
Why do I have this crazy feeling that I just…
I thumb over to my call list. The last call I placed was to 911.
911 emergency…
What’s your emergency?
My mouth goes dry, and a chill goes down my back like ice water coursing through the hollow of my spine.
What’s your emergency?
My girlfriend’s been kidnapped. I can hear myself speaking as if from far away, my voice muffled. The woman who took her has a gun. I just saw her at the following address in Dumbo. Four two five west…
It’s all coming back, clicking into place…
Riding the subway to Brooklyn and spotting Keri loading bags into a car alone. Calling 911 to beg the police to come as fast as they can, and then running up the stairs to the loft. Hearing Shane’s voice and feeling hope rip a hole in my chest as I realized she was still alive.
But it wasn’t hope ripping that hole, was it?
And now I’m cold—so cold it feels like I’ve stepped into the ice bath in the locker room after a particularly vicious game. My fingers go numb and my phone falls to the ground, but it doesn’t shatter on the tile.
It doesn’t shatter because it’s gone.
I glance down, and the phone has vanished.
For a second I panic—now I’ll have no way to contact Shane—but deep down I know it’s already too late.
I’m never going to see Shane again. I’m never going to make love to her, or tell her that she’s the best thing that ever happened to me, or find out if we could have made it. If we were meant to be, the way it felt we were every time we touched.
All that is dream stuff now because I’m on this platform waiting for a train.
And once I get on the train, I’m never coming back.
“No,” I say, forcing the word out as my throat goes tight. “No, I can’t go!” But there’s no answer except my own voice echoing off the tiled walls of the tunnel.
I drive my hands into my hair and hold on, fighting for my next breath. I’m not scared; I’m just not ready. Not like this, with so much unfinished, without even knowing if Shane’s okay.
Did I stop the bullet? Did I take it for her, or did it cut through me and hit her, too?
The thought makes me press my freezing fists to my closed eyes, but that doesn’t stop the images from flashing in the darkness. I can see it all play out—red blossoming across the front of Shane’s pale blue shirt, her eyes going wide and then empty as she slumps forward in the chair she was tied to.
I’m seeing it happen, again and again, seeing Shane die and knowing I’ve failed, when there is a sharp crackle and a robotic voice over the loudspeaker announces—
“Train incoming. Incoming.”
I look up at the monitor, sucking in a desperate breath. But instead of the time of the train’s arrival in bright red numbers, the screen is filled with a grainy black and white image. The image of a man—me—lying on a dirty floor with blood all over my chest and Shane holding my hand and crying like her heart is breaking. Like it’s already broken because I’m gone and she’s alone.
She’s alone there and I’m alone here and the train is coming and everything is wrong. So fucking wrong.
The floor rumbles beneath my feet and the air stirs, signaling the train is close.
Closer…
But it’s not here yet, and this isn’t over until I step through those sliding doors. Holding tight to the thought, and to the all-encompassing need to get to Shane, I turn and bolt for the stairs.
Inside the stairwell, it’s darker than I remember, dark and shadowed, and as I race up the stairs, numbness tingling through my thighs, I can feel eyes watching me. Eyes from the rafters, from the floor, from the dark pockets behind the motion-activated lights that take no notice of the man fighting gravity and cold and the strange muffling sensation pressing down on his shoulders as he tries to go back the way he came. Back up stairs that are usually one-way only, past the disinterested gaze of other things that have become stuck between here and whatever else there is.
And in the thick, close air of the stairwell, which does nothing to stop the cold brittling my bones, I know that nothing here cares if I make it up the stairs, or if I board the train, or if I sit down in a dark corner and decide to stay awhile.
In the grand scope of time, I am nothing. Nothing…but not in a sad way.
In a way that means there are always second chances. Third chances. Tenth and eleventh and one-hundredth chances. I am energy, raw and eternal, already on my way to being recycled.
And it’s okay.
It’s okay to sit down and rest, or to find a seat on the train and let it do the work for a little while.
As I strain upward, the boundary of my Self blurs, growing slick and slippery, unsure. But I hold tight to Shane, to the need to see her, to touch her, to tell her all the things I was too stupid to say when I had the chance.
There might always be another chance, but I don’t want to wait another lifetime or two to find her again. I need her now, and she needs me. We didn’t have enough time, not nearly enough.
And so I keep running, struggling toward the light at the top of the stairs, even as the wind picks up and the dirt on the floor swirls into my eyes, making my vision swell and my lungs ache.
I run the last few steps blind.
Blind, and barely able to feel my feet making contact with the floor, but I keep going, battling forward through the dust and the dark and the cold, knowing she’ll be there to catch me when I come out on the other side.