The address on the license was incorrect. He’d lived here once but had since moved somewhere else, and now here she was, stuck outside some stranger’s building.
It made her want to scream, the way she’d done before. It made her curse herself for being a fool. And then worst of all it made her go around the building into that alley where the chickens had been, and stare up at the fire escape.
Realistically, she knew the idea was mad. Even madder than actually coming all the way here in the dead of night, like some loony, lovesick idiot, desperate for someone to save her. But then, if she could just check. Just have a little look, and see if she could tell for sure whether or not Van actually lived here…
After which came a big blank spot, in her head. Who knew what happened then? Maybe he’d see her through his window, think she was some maniac come to rob him, and give her a shotgun blast to the face.
Of course, she didn’t actually know if Van had a shotgun, but the whole scenario played out very clearly in her head, when she snagged the ladder and actually managed to climb all the way up to the first floor.
And then the next. And the next.
By the time she’d gotten to the rickety metal landing on the third floor, her bike looked very small, down below. And the air seemed thinner too, as though she’d actually climbed Kilimanjaro, instead of the fire escape outside Van’s building. Everything she clung to felt slick, everything she focused on looked old and warped and rusted, and oh God she was almost definitely going to die in this alley.
Almost definitely.
And then she heard a sound from the apartment beyond the big sash window she’d found herself in front of, and suddenly actual death was the last thing on her mind. Instead, dying inside became the order of the day. Her entire body filled with an embarrassed heat—a near impossible feat, considering the envelope of cold around her.
Someone was having sex, in what was undisputedly Van’s apartment. She could tell it was, just from the glimpse she had of its insides. Some of his drawings—big ones, done on canvases—were propped against what might have been the wall by a bathroom door, though even if they hadn’t been she would have known.
There was just something about the place. About the dull wooden floors and the falling-apart dark-green couch—the one he’d covered with a loose-knitted blanket. It looked like him, but more importantly…the guy in there sounded like him.
And he was having sex with someone else. She didn’t understand much about the whole thing, but she understood enough to know. She didn’t mean anything to him. It was all just some silly kid’s dream about running away, done in the strange, silent bubble of the home she’d now have to go back to.
Though it wasn’t the thought of the latter that struck hardest. How could it be? Van was in there with some cool, mysterious other girl, who probably painted like him, and wore interesting clothes like him, and almost never had to meet him only once a week because otherwise her father might murder her.
By comparison, returning to her home seemed almost desirable. When she got there, her father could just bash her head in and she’d never have to think about any of this ever again.
If she ever actually managed to get off this fire escape, that was. The likelihood of which seemed slimmer and slimmer, considering her state. She couldn’t see for tears she didn’t want to be crying. And going down felt a lot harder than going up had done—she couldn’t swing her leg over the ladder without skidding on the rain-slicked metal.
Plus, someone was shouting her name. She could hear them, even though most of her didn’t want to hear anything ever again. And after a moment of too many muffled words—mainly Evie and what and the fuck—she had to accept that it was Van calling her.
He’d just had sex with some girl who was probably still naked in there, and now he was shouting for her to come inside, come inside. Likely as not he wanted to do some weird sex thing with her and the other chick, or worse….what if he wanted to get her inside and give her cocoa and say things to his real girlfriend? Things like, See, this is the poor little thing I’ve been developing into a normal person. Soon she’ll be cool, like us!
God. God.
“Evie! Jesus Christ—what are you doing out there?”
She had to turn then. He’d opened the window, and everything looked even more embarrassing than it had a second ago. You couldn’t hike one leg over a ladder with your cheating boyfriend watching you.
“Oh, hi,” she found herself saying, all falsely casual. Though naturally, she hated herself for doing it. “I was just…checking this was your apartment.”