She lowered the camera, just by a few inches, taken aback by how well-spoken I was. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t the same polite, wide-smile bastard who wanted to please her. The penny had dropped, and with it, any type of sympathy I’d had for her. I realized that she was going to piss all over my future if I was going to let her have this hold on me.

“Put that fucking thing down, Nina.” I walked over to her nightstand and took out a blunt, lighting it casually, her camera still following me. “I won’t ask twice, and trust me when I say, you don’t want my dad to find out about this.”

Owl cried in pain on the floor, and I kicked him, the rolled blunt still between my lips. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

“Should I call an ambulance?” Tiff asked, biting her fingernails, still leaning against the doorframe. I cracked my neck and sighed.

“Owl brought this shit on himself by listening to his junkie, brain-dead wife. Let her take care of him. So, this is how you wanna play it?” I made the necessary steps to Nina, grabbed the recorder, took out the tape, and tore it to tiny shreds, before throwing the camera to the floor and smashing it into a fucking flatbread with my foot. “You wanna blackmail me with a stupid tape?”

Nina’s pupils were dancing in their sockets. Reality started to sink in for her, and it wasn’t pretty. I tipped the ash from the blunt on her sheets, exhaling smoke through my flared nostrils.

“Well?” I growled in her face. “You gonna talk, or what?”

Up until that point, I didn’t know about Walmart. I didn’t know she had abandoned me. I didn’t know she went to get fucking cigarettes and a beer right after she left me to die, naked and screaming, in a public restroom. My parents saved all the juicy parts for themselves, and I didn’t blame them. Their version of things was far easier to digest: Nina had a drug problem. She couldn’t take care of me. So she gave me to them, knowing that they would love me fiercely. Which they did.

“Like you were even going to miss this money!” she screamed in my face, pushing me away. “You got everything! They give you everything, goddammit!” Her Southern twang deepened.

“They do, because you didn’t.” It was my turn to raise my voice. I tried hard not to fling my arms around. To stay composed. But the need to kick something was intense. And Owl was right there, but he was starting to look a little purple so I didn’t want to push it. Nina shot up from her bed.

“That’s right. I didn’t. I threw your ass where you belong. In the toilet. Because you were nothing and a no one!”

The blunt almost fell out of my mouth.

“What?”

She repeated herself. Then shouted the rest of the story of my birth at me. Then she proceeded to cry and attend to her husband, mumbling to him that everything was going to be okay. Tiffany still stood at the door, watching me with a mixture of pity, pain, and horror.

“Get out of here.” I jerked my chin at Tiffany. “Now.”

“But, Dean…”

“OUT!” I yelled, pointing in the direction where the front door was. “I fucking mean it. It’s over.”

And it was. Every single thing about this part of my life was done.

I got on a plane back home the next day and never set foot in Alabama again. As far as I was concerned, the state ceased to exist on the U.S. map.

The fun-loving, happy guy I was died there, too.

And I was present at his funeral. It took place every single fucking day from that point forward.

In my mind.

What makes you feel alive?

Watching the trees flash by, the ocean sparkles, the world spinning around me like a ballroom dress. Knowing I’m a part of it. Accepting that not being a part of it is life, too.

I SAT IN THE BACK of the taxi on my way to the Hamptons, creating a sick playlist for our stay. Romantic, fluffy stuff I wanted us to listen to while we made dinner and love and unforgettable memories.

It was a big day for Dean, and as the gray sky darkened over the shore, I wondered if the weather symbolized how it was going to turn out for him. It was raining hard. I was covered in four layers. Two of them coats. I brought all of my medicine and nebulizer with me in a shoulder bag that weighed no less than I did. Truth was, I wasn’t feeling my best. But Dean booked us a Friday-to-Friday week in the Hamptons, and I so badly wanted to make him happy, now more than ever.

He was going to resolve a thirty-year mystery. He sure paid a lot to do it. I was going to be there for him, in every sense of the word, even if I had to endure a little physical discomfort.

“It’s raining pretty bad out,” the driver noted, pointing at the windshield wipers. They moved furiously across the windshield. The rain knocked on the roof like it was trying to break it.

“It is,” I agreed. “Sorry you have to drive all the way back to New York all by yourself. It’s probably a hassle.”

“Pffft,” the old man hooted. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for the homeless. For the crazy joggers out there. Cyclists. People who actually have to stand out in the rain.”

“I feel bad for them, too,” I said. “Other than the joggers. No one made them go out in this weather.” We passed by a man in a bright yellow rubber coat who ran on the shoulder of the road.

Dean was supposed to be at the house we had rented by now. I texted him earlier to ask if he would be there by seven, and he said yes. It was already a quarter to eight. I hoped the reason I hadn’t heard from him since was because he had a good, long meeting with his biological dad. I hoped that it meant that they were trying to reconnect. I hoped a lot of things, but I tried not to push him by calling and texting too much.

Still, I was worried, so I took out my phone and typed.

Rosie

Almost there. Getting excited to spend all week together. How did it go?

Dean didn’t answer. The taxi parked in front of a Sheffer-designed, single-clad property boasting a front garden that would put the Palace of Versailles to shame. It didn’t escape me that the house was surrounded by greenery, woods, and nothing else. No neighboring houses. No stores. Just the two of us in this huge space. The driver, a plump man in his sixties, poured himself out of the vehicle, jogged to the back, and pulled out my suitcase from the trunk. He then helped me with my nebulizer bag. I ran all the way to the front door, shielding my eyes from the rain, and pushed the doorbell a few times. Twisting my head back, I waved at the taxi driver.

“Have a great weekend!” I called out to him, out of breath. Damn lungs.

“You too, sweetheart.” He sat there for a few more seconds. I waved him off again. There was no need for him to sit there in the cold and wait for me. He finally drove away.

I rang the doorbell again. Nothing.

I fished my phone out and called Dean. The wind from the shore almost swept me all the way to the other side of the street and the frost trickled into my inner organs. No answer. I called three more times, then texted him.

Rosie

Sirius to Earth, where are you? I’m outside, waiting.

Rosie

Okay, it’s really cold, and it’s been ten minutes since I got here. I’m going to call a taxi and wait for you at a café downtown.

Rosie

Next available taxi comes here in thirty minutes. Where are you? I’m worried. Call me back. Love you.

The rain lashed on me, and I threw my fists at the door, praying that he was there. That he couldn’t hear me because of the downpour, or was napping, and that he would answer at any second.

The desperation in my voice threw me off balance. “Hey! Hey, I’m here!”

No answer.

My teeth chattered.

My body shivered.

I was soaked, head-to-toe, with no one to turn to, and my clothes became heavy with the rain. Terror found me in the space between anxiety and dread. I knew what was happening, but couldn’t stop it. And as hail knocked on my face like glass, I wished for one thing above anything else.

Don’t let me down, Dean. I prayed. Don’t be my downfall.

THE EARTH DIDN’T SEEM AS firm under my feet that day. That should have been my first warning.

After wiring the six hundred thousand dollars to Nina’s malnourished bank account, she texted me the name of a café across the road and said that he would be there at noon. It allowed me plenty of wiggle room to get to the Hamptons on time. Even if the traffic was insane, the roads were blocked, and the weather was against me.

“I’m taking the rest of the day off. If anyone asks where I am, just say hell,” I said to Sue, shutting my laptop and walking past the reception area. I shouldered myself into my Valentino tropical print coat. Sue gave me a sidelong look, and flashed me a smile of the eat-shit variety.

“Have a good weekend, Mr. Cole.”

“You too, Miss Pearson.” Fuck her. She wanted to do last names, I was game. Nothing bothered me anymore. Sue was nothing but white noise at this point.

I powerwalked my way to the café across the street. The rain was PMSing that day. Furious as fuck. Not half as much as I was probably about to be, but yeah. The minute I pushed the door open and the overhead bell rang it took me back to The Black Hole and to Rosie, so I managed to draw in a deep breath. I was optimistic about Nina not joining us. She got what she needed and had nothing else to coerce me with. She probably forgot my name by this point. Wishful thinking, and all.

The café was crammed with businessmen and women trying to grab a sandwich on their lunch break, so at first, I skimmed the room through skeptic eyes, wondering how in the hell we were going to recognize each other. Maybe I should have mentioned that I was big on eccentric designer clothes. There was no overlooking my sick jacket.

I walked past the bar and started looking into people’s faces, plates, phone screens, desperate to catch someone who might resemble me.

Three young men in suits. Nope.

Two students sipping coffee with their MacBooks. Next.

An eighty-year-old guy in a three-piece-suit. Like hell. He wasn’t Nina’s taste.

A thirty-something woman who returned a gaze and smiled red and bright at me. Sorry, sweetheart. Happily taken.