There’s just this. An office full of expensive things that suddenly mean nothing. A funeral I’ll have to attend alone. A best friend I’ll never get to apologize to.
And somewhere in that envelope, a will that named me as a beneficiary.
What could Whitney possibly have left me?
Was she angry? Or did she miss me too?
I sit on the floor of my ridiculous office, surrounded by the life I built on compromises and silence, and I cry until there’s nothing left.
Patrice watches from her corner.
For once, she’s silent. At a loss for judgment. All that’s left is pity.
chapter 2
Saylor
The sun personally attacks my eyeballs the moment I step out of the subway.
I’ve been awake for twenty-six hours, give or take, and my body has moved past tired into that floaty, disconnected state where everything feels slightly unreal. Like I’m watching myself from three feet to the left. The guy shuffling down East 7th Street in yesterday’s black T-shirt and jeans that smell faintly of cigarette smoke and spilled vodka? That’s me. But also, somehow, not me.
Last night’s gig was a private party in some finance bro’s Tribeca penthouse—the kind of place with floor-to-ceiling windows and art that costs some people’s entire 401k. I wasn’t there as an escort. Just security. Standing by the door for eight hours, checking names against a list, politely redirecting the coked-up investment bankers who kept trying to bring plus-ones that weren’t on the guest list.
It’s not glamorous work, but it pays cash, and cash is the only language my landlord speaks.
I dig my keys out of my pocket as I approach our building—a crumbling, five-story in Alphabet City that’s seen better decades. The lobby smells like mildew and someone’s attempt to mask mildew with lavender air freshener. It’s not working. The lift’s been broken since the week we moved in, which means five flights of stairs that feel like fifty when you haven’t slept.
By the time I reach our door, my thighs are burning and I’m reconsidering every life choice that led me to a fourth-floor apartment with no lift.
I pause with my hand on the knob, taking a breath. Resetting my face. Mum doesn’t need to see how tired I am. She’s got enough to worry about.
The door swings open before I can turn the key.
“There he is.” Callie’s standing in the doorway, her scrubs printed with little cartoon bunnies today. She’s five-foot-nothing, with deeply tan skin, kind eyes, and the sort of smile that makes you feel like everything might actually be okay, even when it’s demonstrably not. “I was starting to think you got lost.”
“Traffic,” I say, which is a lie. The truth is, the moment Callie texted me that she could bring Mum home this morning, I sat on a bench in Tompkins Square Park for twenty minutes, staring at pigeons and trying to remember what it feels like to not be exhausted.
Callie steps aside to let me in. “Your mom’s in good spirits today. We just finished up.”
Our apartment is small—two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen that’s more of a suggestion than a room. But it’s clean, and the morning light coming through the windows makes it feel almost cheerful. Mum’s favorite red, velvet reading chair dominates what used to be the living room, surrounded by the medical equipment that’s become as familiar as furniture: the adjustable tray table, the shower chair we wheel in and out of the bathroom,the grab bars I installed myself after watching forty YouTube tutorials.
Mum is propped up against her pillows, her silver-streaked auburn hair freshly brushed and braided. Callie’s work. Mum’s hands shake too much these days to manage it herself, and my attempts at braiding look like something a drunk toddler would produce.
Mum’s eyes find mine. “Morning, love.” Her smile breaks across her face like sunrise—the same one she gave me when I won the Year Three spelling bee, when I graduated, when I helped her through her first steps of physical therapy. A smile that says I’m still her boy, her anchor, even though we’re drowning in medical bills in a country where our slight accents mark us as outsiders.
I don’t deserve it. But I’ll take it anyway.
“Morning, Mum.” I cross the room and drop a kiss on her forehead. She smells like the lavender soap Callie uses, clean and familiar. “How are we feeling?”
“Oh, you know.” She waves a hand vaguely. “I’m vertical. That’s something.”
“Vertical is underrated.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Callie chimes in from the kitchen, where she’s packing up her bag. “Gravity is the enemy. We resist.”
I perch on the edge of Mum’s oversized chair, careful not to jostle her. The chronic pain is worst in the mornings, before her medications fully kick in. I can see it in the tightness around her eyes, the way she holds her shoulders. But she never complains. Never has.
It makes it all worse, somehow. Sometimes I think it’d be easier to handle someone who rages against their circumstances than someone who just…accepts them.
