He drops his chin to his chest and stands like that for another few seconds.
“If this is what you need, I want you to have it,” he tells me after raising his head.
I watch him turn and reach for the door handle. He doesn’t pull it open, just stands there with his hand wrapped around the metal, his back to me. I see his shoulders start to shake.
“But if you really want to know what I need, I’ll tell you.” His voice is shaking too. “It’s you. From the second I met you, it’s been you.”
A splash of light and noise spills into the alley for a second, and then he’s gone.
I’m alone.
I’m so, so alone.
I sink to my knees right there in the dirty alley and finally start to sob.
Twenty-Two
DeeDee
SHOOTER: a straight shot of liquor meant to be consumed in one sip
My apartment buzzergoes off just as I’ve finished cleaning my breakfast dish and putting it away. Valérie isn’t home, and I’m not expecting anyone. I push the button to open the door without asking who it is. It’s probably the mail. I bought a bunch of stuff online to restock my hair dyeing kit. I thought some new gear and a fresh shade of pink might make me feel better, but the urge to run down the stairs in my pajamas and hug the mailman that I always feel when new hair stuff shows up doesn’t appear today.
It’s been three weeks since I ended things with Zach. He accepted Monroe’s job offer, so I haven’t seen him at the bar since.
I don’t know if there’s a hair dye powerful enough to snap me out of the haze these weeks have passed in. If I thought some sort magical lightning bolt of change and independence was going to hit me as soon as I left him, I seem to have really guessed wrong about the weather. It’s like I decided to sell everything I own and set out on a grand highway adventure, only to realize I don’t have a car. I don’t even know where to get a car.
Usually packages just get left in the building’s entryway, so I jump and swear with surprise when somebody knocks on the apartment door just as I’m walking by. I stare through the peephole and see a stretched-out-of-shape Roxanne looking around the hallway. She smiles when I pull the door open.
“Roxy? What are you doing here?” I ask in French.
“I came to see you!” she answers like it should be obvious. “Duh.”
“How do you know where I live? And when did you get back from Paris?”
I step back so she can come into the apartment. She peers around the tiny entryway before taking a couple steps forward to get a look at the living room.
“You know what I realized the other day?” she asks instead of answering my questions. “I’ve never been to any of your apartments. Not one. I’ve known you since I was seventeen, and I’ve never seen anywhere you’ve lived.”
“Well, you see me at the bar. I basically live there.”
She chuckles and comes back to stand in front of me. “True, but you know what I mean. I was hanging out with Monroe yesterday, half-dead from jet lag, and we both realized we’ve never hung out with you at your place. Monroe had to give me this address from your employee records, which is illegal, by the way. I promised you wouldn’t sue her.”
“I’ll think about it,” I joke.
Roxanne looks so out of place standing here in my doorway—sheisright; she’s never been to any of the many places I’ve lived in Montreal—but these past few weeks have been so blurred I probably would have opened the door for a serial killer and said, ‘Salut, you want some tequila?’
“You can take your shoes off,” I tell her. “We can sit down.”
She shakes her head. “I came here to take you somewhere, but first I just want to say...I’m sorry. You always seem like this little ray of sunshine bouncing around and partying all night long, having the time of your life. You always seem like you’re having so much fun that it’s hard to think of you as having problems too, but I know nobody’s that happy all the time. Your friends are supposed to be the people who know you’re not okay even when you say you are, and I...I haven’t been that for you.”
“Ben là, Roxy, that’s not—”
“It is true,” she cuts me off. “I’ve known you almost as long as I’ve known Monroe, and whenever one of us is down, you’re always there to take us out on a crazy adventure and make us feel better.”
She smiles at some memory, and I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of the same thing.
“Do you remember that night at the club—” I begin.
