promise of a show. Maybe it was down to the random firing of one particular neuron. I would never know.
When my skin finally stopped steaming, I shut off the tap and pulled on the hotel robe. I stood in the bathroom for a moment, covered in goose bumps and shivering, trying to decide what to do next. Finally, with a terrible effort, I reached into the tub and yanked the rubber stopper off its chain. I crossed to the sink and picked up the disposable razor. I opened the wardrobe and retrieved the hair dryer. Then I crossed to the sliding glass door, opened it, and hurled everything over the railing and out onto Franklin Avenue.
I went back inside and found my phone. The first call went to voice mail, so I dialed again. This time, he picked up on the second ring.
“Ellie?”
The sound of Ripley’s voice jolted me back to life like a defibrillator, and before I could speak, I began to cry again, heavy, chest-heaving sobs.
“Hey,” Ripley said. “What’s going on?”
It took me a while to calm down enough to talk, but once I did, the words spilled out of me like water from a shattered tank. I told Ripley about my dad’s heart attack. About my dream.
And then I told him what I had almost done.
The silence was long and protracted—or at least that’s how it seemed. Time was distorted in the gray.
“Are you safe now?” Ripley asked. I had been afraid that when he spoke, he would sound distant or disgusted, but he didn’t.
Then I glanced at the sheets on the bed, at the clothing pole in the closet. I hadn’t suicide-proofed the room—not really—but the impulse was gone, even if the thoughts weren’t.
“I think so.” I swallowed. “Ripley, can you come here? Now?”
He cleared his throat. “I can’t, Ellie. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” His refusal stung, and I withdrew like a flower closing up at dusk. “That’s okay. I mean, I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ripley said. “We’re going to video-chat for the next three hundred hours with no pee breaks. I just don’t have a car because my dad is working and Heather moved to Portland to find a boyfriend with a beard.”
Relief forced a sound out of me; it was less like a laugh and more like a screech.
Ripley made me get up and raid the hotel vending machines; I returned to my room with a Pepsi and a package of Hostess Donettes. Once we were on video chat, I took one look at Ripley and almost burst into tears again. It felt like years since we’d broken up in Las Vegas.
“Thank you for rescuing me. Again.”
“Turns out rescuing people is one of my vices,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“My Alateen sponsor has informed me that I am an ‘enabler.’ It’s kind of like being a Hufflepuff, only nobler. I’m embracing it. It’s already in my Insta bio.”
I made a snuffling laugh.
Ripley cracked open a soda. “So I guess you got the props?”
I nodded.
“You will now tell me the whole story. Begin.”
I filled him in on everything that had happened: breaking into the warehouse, running into Rico, performing for Devereaux. Watching Higgins fly around cackling like a kindergartener in a jet pack.
“Wish I hadn’t missed that,” he said. Then he pressed his lips together; he was holding something back.
I looked down at my pruny hands. “Ripley, I’m so, so sorry. I—”
“I’m not going to lie. What you said hurt me. Really badly.” His face seemed to set like drying concrete. “I deleted your text without reading it. When I got your email, though . . . I called my sponsor. She agreed I should write you off.”
I shut my eyes. “It’s what I deserve.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ripley said. “You were sick and off meds, and none of that is your fault. Like, if you had one of those brain tumors that make you violent, could I blame you for hitting me? It would be like blaming someone with a cold for sneezing. I mean, it’s more complicated than that, but not really, you know?”
My chest seemed to unfreeze. “I think so,” I said.
“Plus,” Ripley continued, and his voice was oddly light, “it doesn’t feel like a good punishment, cutting you off. Then I lose a friend, too. I think, instead, I’d prefer you to feel extremely guilty for a very, very long time. I would find that quite satisfying.”
I smiled, and he smiled, and I wanted to reach through the screen and