I shake my head. I don’t want to go in. I don’t even want to be here. This place is a vacuum seal on feelings. I’d enter and they’d duct tape my mouth and tell me not to say a word.

“That’s okay. I don’t need to come in.”

“Did you want to talk more about school? Your studies?” she asks, because these are the only acceptable topics.

“No, I don’t want to talk about school. I wanted to show you something,” I say, and this is when I see if I can do what Michele has been urging me to do all along. To say it. Because if I can say something to my mom, I can say it to Harley. I’m at the edge of a cliff, I’m jumping off without a parachute, and I’m hoping for a soft landing, even though I know I could crash and break every bone in my body.

I turn to my side, pull up my shirt, and show her my new ink. The bandage has been removed.

“These are three trees. And they’re for Will, Jake and Drew,” I say, and she stumbles when I breathe their names aloud for the first time in years. Like she’s been punched in the gut and is winded. “And you might not ever say their names or acknowledge they existed, but I have and I will. Because I don’t want to forget them. I want to remember.”

And that’s all. I don’t wait for a response. I don’t need a response, and I don’t warrant a response. Because even after I turn around and wait endless minutes for the elevator to arrive, she doesn’t call after me, she doesn’t try to tell me she remembers too. She’s stuck to her guns, to her orders from when I was fifteen. Don’t talk about it.

The doors open and I’m inside now. I’d like to say I feel like a new man, like my life is unfurling before me. But that would be bullshit. Instead, my heart is frantic, and my skin is crawling, and I want to go jump into the ocean and swim out into the night, the stars my only companions. But there’s no ocean nearby, there’s only this claustrophobic, sticky, sweaty, smelly, muggy city that I want to escape from, that I’ve lived in my whole life, that’s made everything I’ve done possible.

But I am also buzzing with adrenaline, because I can’t fucking believe I did that. And if I can do that, I can do something that’s more important. I can tear down the fucking walls I have built with this girl I am crazy for.

I’m ready to find her. Ready to tell her. Ready to let her know everything. Damn the consequences. Screw the costs. Telling her everything is like inking my body. I have to go into it with no regrets.

When the elevator opens into the lobby, my heart stops because she is walking toward me.

I don’t freeze. I don’t run to her like in the movies. I just keep moving, one foot in front of the other, and this is the real walking of the plank. This is the true blind dive. I have no clue why she’s here. All I know is she’s not dressed for work. She’s dressed for me. She’s wearing her skinny hipster jeans, all tight and dark, and a t-shirt with a cat smoking a pipe and the words No Smoking under it. She doesn’t even have Converse on now. She has on combat boots, and I’ve never seen a girl in anything hotter than Harley in combat boots. Her hair is loose, and she has on pink lipgloss, and I want to taste it.

Then I give myself a mental slap for automatically going to the physical. I should focus on everything else. Like why she’s here.

“Welcome to the lion’s den,” I say, because I don’t know what the hell to say and humor seems as reasonable as falling at her feet and telling her how I feel for her.

She’s not having it. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She furrows her brows like I’m crazy. “Um, hello? You haven’t answered your phone, except once and then you hung up. And you haven’t responded to a text or anything for days.”

“I think it was two days. You know, if you’re counting.”

She parks her hands on her hips. “Well, I am counting. And I went to your apartment to find you, and now I’m here.” Her voice echoes across the rose-colored marble lobby with brass trim. The doorman in a dark maroon uniform fixes his focus on something unseen across the street, probably doing his best to pretend he can’t hear everything we’re saying. He’s good at his job – see no evil, hear no evil.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say and grab her elbow, gently leading her out of the building and onto the street. We walk several feet because I need space and distance from my parents. We stop near the end of the block and I lean against the stoop of a brownstone. She stands next to me, and we’re the only ones on the quiet street at this late hour. Somewhere, in the distance, a horn honks and someone shouts. But here, the space between us is carved with silence.

I turn to her. She looks back at me. Who will make the first move? But that’s not really a question. She came to me. She found me. She hunted me down. But even if she hadn’t done those things, I still have unfinished business.

“I’m sorry I kinda disappeared the last few days,” I say softly.

“Why did you disappear?”

“I had to figure some things out. Get my shit together.”

She inches away from me. “What did you figure out? That you don’t want to be friends with me?”

I laugh, shake my head. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Jordan said you got a new tattoo. Are you going to tell me now why you keep getting them? What this obsession is? Because I think what you told me when you were drunk was true. Was it?”

She meets my eyes without hostility, without anger, without fear. I’m struck dumb by how masterful the two of us can be at playing people, juggling men and women, reeling off lies with vigor and abandon. But then, in quiet moments, she can strip that away and ask me for all my truths.

I lick my lips, part them, and I feel mute again, like when she called. For the briefest moment, I have the sensation that my entire world can smother me, that the buildings on the other side of the block will break free, topple over and crush me. That I will die. But then I tested that hypothesis a few minutes ago outside my parent’s door, and I’m still standing.

It’s now or never. And one thing I know for sure – never isn’t an option.

“Yeah. It’s all true,” I admit.

“Oh, Trey.” Her throat hitches and her eyes are brimming with sadness. She steps closer, touches my arm. Rubs her fingertips against my skin. “I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me about them? About Will, Jake and Drew.”

I stumble. Like I’ve been hit. But she grabs my hand, steadies me. “You remember their names?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she remembers.

“Yes,” she says with a nod. She links her fingers through mine, leads me to the nearby stoop. I follow her, and the feel of her hand in mine is extraordinary. She sits down, turns to me, takes both of my hands in hers. I watch her, amazed that she’s not looking away, that she wants to listen. That she’s not going anywhere. That she cares. Deeply.

“Tell me.”

So I begin at the beginning.

My parents were young when they had me, just finishing their residencies. I was the only child for a long time, but when I was twelve they were ready to expand, they said. They were established, with a well-respected plastic surgery practice that doubled as a mint. They were raking it in and ready to become a bigger family.

Soon my mom was pregnant with another boy. All was well and her pregnancy was picture perfect. But at four and a half months, I heard her wake up shrieking at four in the morning, then my dad rushed into my room, told me he was taking her to the hospital and that Mrs. Fitzpatrick down the hall would come babysit.

I didn’t go back to sleep that night.

I stared at the clock and waited. When morning came, Mrs. Fitzpatrick told me to get ready for school. She took me to the deli at the end of the street, bought me a bagel, and walked me to school, even though I knew the route myself, thank you very much. When the day ended, my dad was waiting for me on the steps of the school.