glance down. The watering can that David upset that day on the roof.
Ethan approaches, soaked with rain, bright eyes in a dark face, panting.
I stoop, seize the watering can, swing at him—but I’m woozy, off balance, and the can slips from my grasp, sails away.
He ducks.
And I run.
Into the dark, into the wild, afraid of the sky above but terrified of the boy behind. My memory maps the rooftop: the row of boxwoods to the left, the flower beds just beyond. Empty planters on the right, sacks of soil slouched among them like drunks. The tunnel of the trellis directly ahead.
Thunder riots. Lightning blanches the clouds, drenches the rooftop in white light. Veils of rain shift and shudder. I charge through them. At any moment the sky could cave in and crush me to rubble, yet still my heart is pumping, blood heating my veins, as I hurtle toward the trellis.
A curtain of water drapes the entrance. I burst through it into the tunnel, dark as a covered bridge, dank as a rain forest. It’s quieter in here, beneath the canopy of twigs and tarp, as though sound has been walled off; I can hear myself gasping. To one side sits the shallow little bench. Through adversity to the stars.
They’re at the far end of the tunnel, where I hoped they’d be. I bolt to them. Grasp them with both hands. Turn around.
A silhouette looms behind the waterfall. It’s how I first met him, I remember, his shadow piling up against the frosted glass of my door.
And then he steps through it.
“This is perfect.” He mops water from his face, moves toward me. His coat is sodden; his scarf sags around his neck. The letter opener juts from his hand. “I was going to break your neck, but this is better.” He cocks an eyebrow. “You were so fucked up that you jumped from the roof.”
I shake my head.
A smile now. “You don’t think so? What have you got there?”
And then he sees what I’ve got here.
The gardening shears wobble in my hands—they’re heavy, and I’m shaking—but I lift them to his chest as I advance.
He isn’t smiling anymore. “Put that down,” he says.
I shake my head again, step closer. He hesitates.
“Put it down,” he repeats.
I take another step, snap the shears together.
His eyes flicker to the blade in his hand.
And he recedes into the wall of rain.
I wait a moment, my breath heaving in my chest. He’s melted away.
Slowly, slowly, I creep toward the arch of the entrance. There I stop, the spray misting on my face, and I poke the tip of the shears through the waterfall, like a divining rod.
Now.
I thrust the shears ahead of me and leap through the water. If he’s waiting for me, he’ll be—
I freeze, my hair streaming, my clothes soaked. He isn’t there.
I scan the rooftop.
No sign of him by the boxwoods.
Near the ventilation unit.
In the flower beds.
Lightning overhead, and the roof blazes white. It’s desolate, I see—just a wasteland of unruly plants and frigid rain.
But if he isn’t there, then—
He crashes into me from behind, so fast and so hard that the scream is knocked out of me. I drop the shears and fall with him, my knees collapsing, my temple slamming against the wet roof; I hear the crack. Blood floods my mouth.
We roll across the asphalt, once, twice, until our bodies ram into the edge of the skylight. I feel it shudder.
“Bitch,” he mutters, his breath hot in my ear, and now he’s righted himself, his foot pressing on my neck. I gurgle.
“Don’t fuck with me.” He’s rasping. “You’re going to walk off this roof. And if you don’t, I’ll throw you off. So.”
I watch raindrops seethe on the asphalt beside me.
“Which side would you choose? Park or street?”
I shut my eyes.
“Your mother . . .” I whisper.
“What?”
“Your mother.”
The pressure on my neck eases, just slightly. “My mother?”
I nod.
“What about her?”
“She told me—”
Now he presses harder, nearly throttling me. “Told you what?”
My eyes pop. My mouth flaps open. I gag.
Again he lets up on my neck. “Told you what?”
I breathe deep. “She told me,” I say, “who your father is.”
He doesn’t move. Rain bathes my face. The tang of blood sharpens on my tongue.
“That’s a lie.”
I cough, rock my head against the ground. “No.”
“You didn’t even know who she was,” he says. “You thought she was someone else. You didn’t know I was adopted.” He pushes his foot against my neck. “So how could—”