Part 3The Secret in the Shadow

On my way home, I passed the subway station Alan usually used.

A crowd had gathered at the entrance: firefighters, paramedics, shell-shocked survivors wrapped in foil blankets.

I stopped, my feet rooted to the spot.

A message buzzed on my phone.

[Hey, baby. My phone fell in the water, just got it fixed.]

[Brought you a little cake. Almost home~]

It was followed by a sticker of a cartoon puppy holding up a heart. The caption read: [Puppy loves you most!]

For a moment, the world tilted.

After a long time, I typed back with trembling fingers:

[I’m at the subway station. The Broadway exit at 116th.]

It didn’t take long for him to appear around the corner. The young man was tall and lean, his skin so pale it seemed to glow under the streetlights. A simple white t-shirt, a gray hoodie, and dark blue jeans—on him, it looked like a high-fashion ensemble. He turned heads; people were stealing glances at him.

“I thought I told you to stay home and rest,” he chided, shrugging off his hoodie and draping it over my shoulders. “You know how easily you get sick, and you still run out in the rain.”

The familiar scent of pine and clean earth enveloped me, and a sharp, sudden ache filled my sinuses.

“I thought you were dead,” I said, pointing a shaking finger toward the station entrance.

I expected to be hysterical, to scream and cry, but my throat felt like a broken pipe—raw, hoarse, and utterly exhausted.

“You texted that you were just getting on the train, and then… nothing. The news said the station was flooded. I was terrified. I ran for miles in this storm to get here. They wouldn't let me go down. I told them I had to, that my boyfriend was in there, and if he was going to die, we were going to die together.”

“Alan—” I looked up, my eyes red-rimmed, staring directly into his. “While I was so worried about you I was ready to die, where were you?”

He lowered his long, dark lashes, hiding those perpetually smiling eyes, concealing the storm that was surely brewing within them.

Maybe the game had gone further than he’d intended. Or maybe he was laughing inside, thinking, This stupid woman, she’d actually do something like that.

He just turned his face away and offered a light, breezy smile. “On my way to buy you a cake, of course.”

No, you weren’t. You were with your trust-fund friends, drinking and laughing. You were taking my heart and grinding it into the dirt with the heel of your expensive shoe.

Before I could press him further, he turned and crouched down in front of me. “Get on. Let’s get you home before you really get sick.”

And just like that, Alan carried me on his back, wading through the muddy, waist-deep water.

My voice was a hollow whisper next to his ear. “What home? Alan, we don’t have a home anymore.”