I look at Jae.
“In and out.”
In and out.
“Again.”
Again.In and out.
“Tell me straight. What’s going on?”
“I couldn’t be there. I had to go.”
“Where do you have to go?” Jae asks me, his voice gravely serious.
“I need to get out of here,” I answer, my voice hoarse.
“Get out of where?”
“I don’t know. This city. My house. My head.” I feel tears coming on, but they never make an appearance.
“Let me pay my tab, and we’ll go,” Jae pulls out his phone and begins searching for a contact. He must be letting Rishi know we’re leaving.
“Go where?”
10
We take two different trains and a bus, but we still haven’t left the city. My breathing is still stressed and haggard, and I’m barely keeping it together. Jae keeps his arm around me the entire time, and normally I’d read way too much into it, but now, I barely care to notice.
When we get off the bus, we’re somewhere I don’t recognize. It’s a park by the East River. There’s a sweeping view of the city at night. The sun has just finished setting and the street lamps are beginning to turn on. We’re walking down a literal beaten path—all that’s left of the asphalt path is rocks and dirt—to the water.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask, inhaling a huge, shaky breath.
“I like to come here when I feel like I don’t have a place in this city. Perspective.” Jae
answers. We reach the fence and gaze out at the never-ending bustle of Manhattan.
“Perspective?”
“Perspective,” I turn to face Jae for an explanation. We’re so far from home, even though we’re still in the city. “You need a little perspective, Riley.”
Jae puts his arm around me the way we were on the train. I notice it more this time, and the heaviness of his muscular arm acts like a weighted blanket.
“You see how big this place is?” He cranes his head around, looking at the city all around us. “You have your place in it,” he says, looking back at me.
I nod, my voice disappearing from my body. This view is amazing. This city is massive. It’s hard to imagine how many people live in New York City when you spend your life confined to a neighborhood, a block, a house, a head. This definitely puts it into perspective.
“Your place is somewhere here,” Jae says confidently.
“How can you be so sure?” I look at my feet instead of the city.
“Your painting. You can’t paint like that and not belong here.”
Jae’s arm tightens around me, but I am not afraid.
“Look at me.”
I look at him, and my eyes have to adjust to seeing him so near. I feel dangerously close to crying. I don’t know where I belong. I hope I belong here. I want to belong here, so badly, so desperately.
