CHAPTER 78
"Next weekend," I told him, stopping at the subway top of the stairs.
Tony remained standing there as if he'd been waiting on my block forever. Hoodie pulled up over his head, black joggers, scuffed sneakers from a life he left and for which he ran. And in each hand—a coffee.
"Changed my mind," he said to me, with that skewed, infuriating, unjust smile. "Also, Caro cautioned me never to underestimates your stress level. Thought caffeine would suffice to see me through this visit."
I edged towards him slowly, pulse doing flips behind my scarf. "You talked to Caro?"
"She threatened that if I hurt you again, she'd make a 'before' shot of my face for a dental surgery advertisement."
I took one of the coffees from him, my fingers brushing against his.
Still warm.
"I should have known you were stubborn enough to catch a bus at 4 a.m."
Tony shrugged. "I said I'd come by."
That was it.
No grand speech. No fireworks. Only this boy who used to frighten me, showing up quietly like he'd found out what mattered.
We started walking.
\---
It wasn't scripted. But with Tony, anything never was scripted to be worth anything.
He maintained my pace as if he had studied the pace of my footfall now. We passed a street sax player who elicited tears from Miles Davis from his bell, the bookstore window display packed with first editions dusted away, and an open eye wall mural with star pupils.
"New York's not what I expected," he said as we entered a red lantern-lined Chinatown alley. "Louder. But softer too. If that makes any sense."
"It does," I said. "It's a monster who has a heartbeat. Just like you."
He smiled. "Insult or compliment?"
I suddenly clicked him with my camera. Click.
"You photograph softer in this light," I said as I played with the lens. "Softer."
Tony didn't flinch at the click this time. Didn't duck or scowl or ask to see the shot. He just glared back at me, eyes burning but resolute.
"I feel different with you here," he said.
It punched me in the solar plexus. Not in a dramatic way—just honest. Bare. Like he'd dropped the remaining acting that had wrapped his life like an armor shell.
I packed away the camera.
"Come on," I told him, grabbing his wrist. "I want to show you the roof."
\---
The Brooklyn rooftop wasn't mine—but it could have been now.
It was part of the intern dorm building, and technically, I wasn't allowed access. But the night shift security guard, Hal, had a taste for my coffee bribes and tales of subway fights. So when I explained to him that I wanted to use the roof for an evening, he just nodded and handed over the spare key.
"I'm not going to be climbing anything tonight, am I?" Tony asked when we stepped out into the fresh air.
Just thoughts, I said, tugging him toward the ledge. "No ladders needed."
The city glowed below us—flickering signs, taxi lights, and that soft orange haze New York saved for itself.
Tony leaned against the wall. "The last time we were on a roof."
"Don't," I said. "This isn't that."
He shook his head slowly. "No, it isn't."
And it wasn't.
That rooftop had been fire and scrubbing. This one was breathing.
We didn't need to talk about Wells. About Thatcher. About the versions of ourselves that we'd lost. We'd lived it, survived it. That was all that counted.
"Take off your hoodie," I told him, camera focused on him again.
He breathed out. "You're such a bottomless pit."
"Shut up and be serious."
He pulled his hoodie down, wind blowing through his curls. I snapped the photo just in time, his head angling to the side, mouth curling into the beginnings of a smile.
"Perfect," I breathed.
"You say that like it means something."
"I do. Finally, I really do."
\---
We spent the night at my place.
It wasn't much—a studio apartment with squeaky floors, one nice chair, and a couch that protested every time someone sat down. But Tony made himself at home in it like it was tailor-made.
He reclined his legs and gave me his phone. "Pick a movie. No horror, no drama, and no documentaries about how sugar is going to kill me."
I chuckled, scrolling. "You just cut out huge pieces of my collection."
We ended up watching an old rom-com that neither of us particularly cared about. And halfway through it, I just stopped watching altogether.
Tony was doodling sloppy designs on the back of my hand with his thumb. His other hand was fist-sized behind his head, eyes half-shut, mouth open a little. He seemed. normal. Not ethereal. Not hunted. Just normal.
"I don't want you to be my escape," I said out loud in the quiet.
He spun around to me. "I don't want to be that either."
I clamped down on my bottom lip. "So what are we?"
Tony did not rush to respond. He fished out of his pocket something. It was a tiny, silver picture frame. A print of one of the pictures I'd taken rested in it—the picture from the bridge, where the skyline dissolved into his form.
"I hold this now," he said. "Not because I want to remind myself what I was, but because it reminds me what I'm working towards becoming."
My throat tightened. "You want to be a silhouette?"
"No. I want to be in someone's story who won't shrink when she writes reality."
I didn't say anything.
He didn't need me to.
We huddled up together on that couch as if we were pages of the same book finally read aloud.
And for once, the world outside my window didn't matter. Not my deadline. Not the ghosts of my past. Not the opinions of boys who used to call me a ruin.
All that mattered was the boy beside me—once he'd tried to burn me, and now carried my photograph in his pocket.
\---
I woke up earlier than him the next morning.
Sunlight cut through the couch, touching gold on his jaw and collarbone. My camera sat on the coffee table. I picked it up quietly and took a picture.
This one was not for Queens.
It was not for the world.
It was for me.
Proof that people can be redeemed. That pain isn't the same as devastation. That sometimes the boy who breaks you is the same boy who learns to walk with you instead of ahead of you.
Tony rolled and felt for me half asleep.
"I'm here," I whispered, leaving lips on his forehead.
"Good," he grumbled. "Stay."
"I will. But I'll have to chase down a lead in an hour."
He flinched. "Worst girlfriend ever."
I grinned. "You love it."
And he did.
I knew that he did.