Incredible You

by Lili Valente

For a second, I consider the door, but I don’t remember seeing another set of stairs, or an elevator, and I don’t want to run into Keri on my way down. Better to try the fire escape.

  I waddle across the room to the window, the wooden legs of the chair thudding heavily against my calves as I move. I’m sure I’ll be bruised tomorrow but right now I don’t feel a thing. My adrenaline is running so high that for a second I’m certain I’ll be able to open the window with just the tips of my fingers.

  I turn, finding the handle behind my back and tugging—once, twice, three times—but it refuses to budge, and the heavy pane stays tightly closed.

  Beneath my feet, the floor begins to vibrate and a moment later the sound of another approaching train fills the air. I glance over my shoulder, calculating how many minutes Keri has been gone. No more than two or three, but that’s enough time for her to be out of earshot. And hopefully the rumble of the train will help cover the sound of shattering glass.

  I wait until the grumble becomes a dull roar and then I spin hard, setting the chair on a collision course with the window. The glass vibrates as it repels the wood, sending me stumbling to the left, but I’m back in position a second later. I slam the chair into the pane again and again, until my shoulders are screaming and my arms protest the impact. Finally, on my seventh try, the glass cracks. On the eighth, it breaks.

  I sob with relief as I spin to do a quick scan of the opening. There are a few jagged pieces of glass hanging from the top of the window frame, but there’s more than enough room for me to crawl through.

  Lugging the chair behind me, I climb awkwardly up onto the ledge and out onto the fire escape, my hair whipping around my head as I move into the path of the wind coming off the river. One look down is enough to make my stomach pitch and my head spin.

  Holy shit. Five stories is higher than I thought, and the fire escape is old, rickety, and barely clinging to the crumbling brick. The entrance to the ladder leading down to the floor below is also narrow. So narrow that, as long as I’m tied to this chair, there’s no way I’ll be able to fit.

  “Then get rid of the chair, Shane. You’ve got this,” I mutter to myself, refusing to give in to despair.

  I’ve made it this far, damn it. I’m going to make it down to the ground, away from this place and this crazy woman. The baby and I are going to be okay, and I’m going to have the chance to tell Jake that I love him—that I love him, and that in the moments when I thought I was going to die, memories of him are the ones that felt the most beautiful and true.

  I turn back to the window, gaze honing in on a piece of shattered glass that looks like it’s about even with my bound hands. I drag the chair closer to the window, sit, and scoot back until I feel the shard bump against the knots, breath rushing out as it hits in just the right spot.

  I’ve started to wiggle back and forth, slowing sawing through the thick rope, when a deep voice calls my name from inside the loft and relief floods through me so thick and fast it makes my head swim all over again

  “Jake!” I cry out, sobbing in the middle of his name. “I’m out here! On the fire escape!”

  With a sharp shove of my feet, I scoot around to face him, turning in time to see his handsome face melt into an expression of profound relief. And then I glimpse a blur of black as Keri rushes into the loft behind him, pulling her gun as she moves. My lips part to warn him, to tell him to be careful, but before I can pull in a breath, Keri lifts the weapon, aiming the barrel at my chest.

  And then everything seems to happen at once.

  Jake turns as Keri’s lips twist with a mixture of pain and rage, and the gun goes off. There’s a boom and a flash—there and gone so fast I’m not completely sure I saw it. But Jake is fast, too. Not as fast as the speed of light, but fast enough to lunge forward as the gun is fired and take the bullet intended for me.

  It hits his chest, and he jerks hard to the left, staggering backward one step, then two, before his knees give and he falls to the floor.

  Keri drops the gun and rushes to his side, screaming—wild, terrified screams muffled by the roar of another train and the inhuman wail of sirens on the street below.

  A few minutes later, the loft is filled with policemen pulling Keri away from Jake and cuffing her, but Jake still doesn’t move.

  A female cop falls to her knees beside him, bringing gentle fingers to his neck before shouting something over her shoulder as she shucks her coat. She wads the fabric into a ball, pressing it tight to the wound on his chest. But still he doesn’t move.

  Then somehow I’m free and there’s a heavy blanket warm around me, fending off the cold, and a voice asking me if I’m hurt, but all I can do is stare at my lover lying unconscious on the floor.

  He is still, so still, and the officer’s hands are covered in blood. Then she’s shaking her head and she looks sad. So, so sad. Her shoulders slump, and when she lifts her gaze to mine her eyes are raw and filled with pain. She tells me that she’s sorry. So sorry. And I realize that one of the best people I’ve ever known is dead.

  He’s dead, and I never got to tell him that I loved him, or that we were going to have a baby. I never got to tell him that his smell was home, or that his eyes were the most beautiful place I’d ever been, or that being with him made me feel like the good side of human nature might win out after all.

  But it hasn’t.

  The good hasn’t won, and it never will. Not for me, or for Jake, or for our baby, who will never know her father.

  The brutal reality of it hits, and I hit the floor, taking Jake’s hand in mine and crushing it to my chest as I begin to cry so hard I’m sure I’ll never stop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Jake

  I take the stairs leading down into the tunnels beneath the street two at a time and hit the subway platform at a sprint, but I’m too late. The train is already pulling away, the rumble of the wheels turning thunderous as I burst from the stairwell.

  My tight muscles give up the fight as I slow to a walk, my hands falling to my hips and my chin dropping to my chest. “Shit.”

  I’m already late, and now I’m going to be even later. The trains on this line are always at least fifteen minutes apart, no matter what the monitor announcing the next incoming train says.

  I glance up, but the screen hanging from the ceiling above the platform is blank except for a line of dots that stream across the bottom like a never-ending ellipsis, indicating the Metro Transit Authority has no fucking idea when the next train is coming.

  It doesn’t bode well for me getting to Shane in time to make our reservation.

  Cursing rush hour and construction on the L, I pull my phone from my pocket and shoot Shane a text—

  Missed the last train, princess, and there’s nothing coming any time soon. Looks like I’m going to be late.

  I’m sorry.

  And I am sorry. Way more sorry than I would usually be for something beyond my control. Time and tide and the express train wait for no man, but for some reason I hate that I didn’t make it down the stairs in time.

  Really fucking hate it.

  My throat is tight and my chest aches as I pace back and forth on the empty platform, growing increasingly anxious and unsettled.

  I curse again and type out another text to Shane—

  You want to order for me? That way you won’t have to wait. You know I’ll eat anything that’s seen fire for more than a few minutes.

  No oysters, don’t even ask, I add with a smile.

  I continue to pace, watching the screen, waiting for a text, or even just bubbles to indicate that Shane is writing back.

  But there’s only silence.

  Silence from the phone, silence on the platform, silence from the city above, though I’m not that deep underground. I should be able to hear traffic noise, the honk of horns, the shout of the homeless guy at the top of the stairs doing his best to sell copies of the free weekly papers he collects from around town.

  But there’s
nothing, and not another soul in sight.

  I glance back and forth, but I am really, truly alone, something that hasn’t happened in all my years in the city. I’ve never been on a platform by myself, or at least not for long.

  I turn my phone over, checking to make sure I have bars, and then hit Shane’s number. Maybe she didn’t hear the ping as the texts came through. She’ll hear her phone ring, though, especially since she programmed a punk rock cover of “Puff the Magic Dragon” as my ring tone.

  The thought makes me smile as the phone begins to ring.

  And ring.

  And ring—fifteen or sixteen rings without the call going to voicemail or Shane picking up.

  I tap the red circle, ending the call, and type out another text—

  You might just be away from your phone, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Text me, okay?

  Or call. I’d love to hear your voice.

  I wait a minute and add—

  Shane, please, text me as soon as you can.

  Thirty seconds, then I send out—

  I need to hear from you, princess. I need to know that you’re okay. I’m worried.

  I’m on the verge of being flat out scared, in fact. I don’t know why she wouldn’t be okay—I can’t remember exactly where we’re meeting, but I know it’s somewhere in Midtown, where there’s a cop on every corner and—

  My thoughts stutter.

  A cop on every corner…

  A cop… The police…

  Why do I have this crazy feeling that I just…

  I thumb over to my call list. The last call I placed was to 911.

  911 emergency…

  What’s your emergency?

  My mouth goes dry, and a chill goes down my back like ice water coursing through the hollow of my spine.

  What’s your emergency?

  My girlfriend’s been kidnapped. I can hear myself speaking as if from far away, my voice muffled. The woman who took her has a gun. I just saw her at the following address in Dumbo. Four two five west…

  It’s all coming back, clicking into place…

  Riding the subway to Brooklyn and spotting Keri loading bags into a car alone. Calling 911 to beg the police to come as fast as they can, and then running up the stairs to the loft. Hearing Shane’s voice and feeling hope rip a hole in my chest as I realized she was still alive.

  But it wasn’t hope ripping that hole, was it?

  And now I’m cold—so cold it feels like I’ve stepped into the ice bath in the locker room after a particularly vicious game. My fingers go numb and my phone falls to the ground, but it doesn’t shatter on the tile.

  It doesn’t shatter because it’s gone.

  I glance down, and the phone has vanished.

  For a second I panic—now I’ll have no way to contact Shane—but deep down I know it’s already too late.

  I’m never going to see Shane again. I’m never going to make love to her, or tell her that she’s the best thing that ever happened to me, or find out if we could have made it. If we were meant to be, the way it felt we were every time we touched.

  All that is dream stuff now because I’m on this platform waiting for a train.

  And once I get on the train, I’m never coming back.

  “No,” I say, forcing the word out as my throat goes tight. “No, I can’t go!” But there’s no answer except my own voice echoing off the tiled walls of the tunnel.

  I drive my hands into my hair and hold on, fighting for my next breath. I’m not scared; I’m just not ready. Not like this, with so much unfinished, without even knowing if Shane’s okay.

  Did I stop the bullet? Did I take it for her, or did it cut through me and hit her, too?

  The thought makes me press my freezing fists to my closed eyes, but that doesn’t stop the images from flashing in the darkness. I can see it all play out—red blossoming across the front of Shane’s pale blue shirt, her eyes going wide and then empty as she slumps forward in the chair she was tied to.

  I’m seeing it happen, again and again, seeing Shane die and knowing I’ve failed, when there is a sharp crackle and a robotic voice over the loudspeaker announces—

  “Train incoming. Incoming.”

  I look up at the monitor, sucking in a desperate breath. But instead of the time of the train’s arrival in bright red numbers, the screen is filled with a grainy black and white image. The image of a man—me—lying on a dirty floor with blood all over my chest and Shane holding my hand and crying like her heart is breaking. Like it’s already broken because I’m gone and she’s alone.

  She’s alone there and I’m alone here and the train is coming and everything is wrong. So fucking wrong.

  The floor rumbles beneath my feet and the air stirs, signaling the train is close.

  Closer…

  But it’s not here yet, and this isn’t over until I step through those sliding doors. Holding tight to the thought, and to the all-encompassing need to get to Shane, I turn and bolt for the stairs.

  Inside the stairwell, it’s darker than I remember, dark and shadowed, and as I race up the stairs, numbness tingling through my thighs, I can feel eyes watching me. Eyes from the rafters, from the floor, from the dark pockets behind the motion-activated lights that take no notice of the man fighting gravity and cold and the strange muffling sensation pressing down on his shoulders as he tries to go back the way he came. Back up stairs that are usually one-way only, past the disinterested gaze of other things that have become stuck between here and whatever else there is.

  And in the thick, close air of the stairwell, which does nothing to stop the cold brittling my bones, I know that nothing here cares if I make it up the stairs, or if I board the train, or if I sit down in a dark corner and decide to stay awhile.

  In the grand scope of time, I am nothing. Nothing…but not in a sad way.

  In a way that means there are always second chances. Third chances. Tenth and eleventh and one-hundredth chances. I am energy, raw and eternal, already on my way to being recycled.

  And it’s okay.

  It’s okay to sit down and rest, or to find a seat on the train and let it do the work for a little while.

  As I strain upward, the boundary of my Self blurs, growing slick and slippery, unsure. But I hold tight to Shane, to the need to see her, to touch her, to tell her all the things I was too stupid to say when I had the chance.

  There might always be another chance, but I don’t want to wait another lifetime or two to find her again. I need her now, and she needs me. We didn’t have enough time, not nearly enough.

  And so I keep running, struggling toward the light at the top of the stairs, even as the wind picks up and the dirt on the floor swirls into my eyes, making my vision swell and my lungs ache.

  I run the last few steps blind.

  Blind, and barely able to feel my feet making contact with the floor, but I keep going, battling forward through the dust and the dark and the cold, knowing she’ll be there to catch me when I come out on the other side.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Jake

  There’s a moment of tightness, of contraction, then a silence like the catch before inhale becomes exhale.

  And then there is pain.

  So much fucking pain.

  Pain upon pain as unseen hands lift me and a mask covers my nose and mouth.

  But the pain is good. The pain is beautiful, because Shane’s face is above me, and her hand is in mine. She’s here, right beside me in the ambulance, telling me that I have to hold on, that I can do this, that I can do anything because I’m strong and she loves me.

  She loves me.

  She loves me all the way to the hospital, through a surgery I barely remember, then in and out of the days that follow, when I’m feverish but cold, and I feel smoky hands reaching out from that Other place. They poke at the soles of my feet, scratch places I can’t reach, and tease their sharp nails along the hem of my hospital gown, the one Shane says make
s her hot because she can’t wait to see me walk around in it with nothing on underneath.

  She laughs at the joke, and I laugh with her, even though it hurts. A lot. Especially at first.

  I laugh and talk and make plans for the future. I don’t turn my head or feed the shadows. I starve them of my attention, giving every bit of it to Shane, to soaking up the miracle of being alive and in love with her. I barely register the news that Keri confessed to faking the bruises on her neck, to stalking me, threatening and kidnapping Shane, and a host of other violations of the law and human decency. I’m just glad she’s going to be behind bars for a long time and that the people I love are safe.

  I film a heartfelt thank you to the first responders who saved my life, assure Coach that I’ll be back on the ice by next season, and introduce Shane to my mother and brothers over terrible pudding and worse coffee from the hospital cafeteria. They love her, of course—she is inherently lovable and I’ll have words with anyone who thinks different—and she loves them.

  We part with promises to meet up again for Thanksgiving at my place, since it will be a while before I’m up to traveling, and Shane and I fall asleep in my hospital bed, curled together. The nurses turn a blind eye because I’m almost well enough to go home, and we’re so insanely in love they can tell there will be no reasoning with either of us.

  Shane waits until the day we’re leaving the hospital, stepping out into the first bright, airy flurries of the winter, to tell me about the baby.

  “You’re pregnant? We’re pregnant?” I blink away a flake that lands on my eyelid, thinking I must have heard her wrong. “How? When? I thought—”

  “My IUD slipped out and I didn’t realize,” she says, a nervous hitch in her voice. “I’m so sorry. I know this is a shock. I’ve had time to think about everything, and I’m so happy about it now, but the day I found out, I rocked in a corner for about an hour. So feel free to be shocked or scared or angry or—”

  “Why would I be angry?” I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around this—around a baby—but I know I’m not angry.

  “Because I told you we were protected and we weren’t?” She clasps her mittened hands beneath her chin. “And because I kept this from you for two weeks? I swear I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to do anything to put stress on you when you needed your energy to heal. I saw you dead once, and I really never, ever, ever want to see that again.”