After that, I wandered until I found yet another bar to help me continue dulling the pain. The next place I found was the proper setting for me. It wasn’t a tourist trap or a place for hipsters—it was a real neighborhood type joint. It was the kind of place I would have gone if I lived around there.
The lighting was dim, there was a pool table, a few old barflies sitting at the bar looking like a stiff breeze might knock them off their stools.
Nearby, a group of four girls with lots of makeup, poofy hairdos and exposed cleavage were drinking shots and talking in loud voices.
They started checking me out the second I walked in, but I pretended not to notice. Of course, I didn’t mind them checking me out—after the way Lindsay had treated me back at the hotel, a little ego boost felt nice.
I sat down at the bar and ordered a pitcher of beer.
“How many glasses for the pitcher?” the female bartender asked.
“Just one.”
She gave me a look, as if to say, are you going to be trouble for me tonight?
I smiled. “Pretty please?”
She laughed. “Just don’t make them carry you out of here on a stretcher.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“I’ll take him home with me,” one of the cleavage chicks called out from nearby.
Everyone laughed at that, including me. But I made a point not to start up any conversations. That wasn’t what this was all about.
A minute later, there was a nice cold pitcher of beer in front of me and I’d poured myself a frothy cup. Moments after that, I’d drank down the contents. It hit my stomach and the warmth in my throat felt good.
The world had lost some of its focus, the edges were kind of fuzzy now.
I thought about Lindsay, the FBI guys, Quarry, Brooklyn—none of it made a dent. This brought a calm, peaceful smile to my face.
My plan was working. Now the only trick was to keep the numb, peaceful feeling going for as long as humanly possible.
Yes, at some point I would pay the price—at some time in the not too distant future, I was going to have to face reality. But that time wasn’t now.
I poured another glass of beer. “Cheers,” I said to the bartender, who flashed me another cautious look.
Down the hatch it went.
LINDSAY
I kept waiting for Justin to come back, to text me or call me to let me know where he was or that he was okay. But he never did.
The slides weren’t ready until two in the morning. Carter and I had been texting, on the phone, and then emailing slide sets back and forth for hours until he’d finally said we could stop for the night.
I should have been exhausted when it was over. It had been a crazy day, one that had included a plane flight and tons of emotional highs and lows.
But I wasn’t tired. In fact, I felt wired.
There was no way I was going to be able to sleep, so instead I took a long shower, hoping the hot water would take some of the tension out of my body. But it didn’t help.
I dried myself with one of the fluffy, expensive-looking towels that was hanging in the bathroom, then pulled on a tank top and a pair of pajama pants and climbed into bed.
The sheets felt soft and smooth, and the blanket was a luxurious shade of royal blue. The mattress was one of those ones you could adjust to make as firm or as soft as you wanted. I set it to a middle setting, then grabbed my phone off the side table and texted Justin.
Just let me know you’re okay.
I lay there for a moment, listening to the sound of the cars rushing by outside.
Even at this hour, New York was loud. There were voices and cab horns and a million other sounds.
And even though I was here in this city filled with people, I felt alone and homesick. I was longing for my dorm room, longing for the bed that had scratchy sheets because they were the only kind that would fit an extra-long mattress, the pillow whose feathers were always poking me in the cheek, the comforter whose lining was torn.
I turned over and spread myself out across the bed. It was so big that I couldn’t reach both sides, but it helped me somehow to feel not as alone, like if I wasn’t all scrunched up on one side of the bed that it meant nothing was missing.
But of course something was missing.
Or rather, someone was missing.
Justin still hadn’t texted me back.
So I texted him yet again.
He wasn’t replying, though. It was enough to drive me crazy, so I turned on the TV and began to play a game with myself. I set my phone facedown on the bed, and tried to see how long I could go without checking to see if he’d texted.
The most I lasted was four minutes.
When he still hadn’t texted me by four in the morning, I started to wonder if maybe I should call the police. He was out, in New York City, at four in the morning, doing God knows what.
Surely he would have at least texted me to let me know he was okay? A thrill ran through me ass I imagined myself dialing 911. The police would show up, their hats emblazoned with the NYPD logo.
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Brown?” they’d ask me.
“A few hours ago,” I’d say. “But he hasn’t been in touch. It’s very strange for him not to at least check in with me.”