The Space Between

The Red Line roars up to the platform, accompanied by a vast wind. Paper is blowing everywhere, grimy with the dirt of the city. When the train comes to a stop, the doors gasp open and people file out in twos and threes.

Truman is sitting slumped against the wall of the L-train shelter with his head tipped back, mouth open a little. His eyes are closed, but I can see that he’s still breathing.

“This is our train,” I tell him, looking down into his face. His eyes are half-closed and the lids are still a bad bruised color. “It’s here, so you have to stand up now.”

When he doesn’t respond, I grab the front of his sweater and pull until he stands. He has to use the wall to do it, keeping his back against the shelter. Every part of him looks like it hurts.

With my hand on his arm, he steps through the open doors and sinks into the nearest empty seat.

I settle myself beside him and try to make sense of the nighttime train-riders. There are boys and girls with haircuts so jagged and bright that their heads look like the plumage of tropical birds. On the other side of Truman is a man with a dark, wrinkled complexion and a light blue coverall. His hands are cracked at the knuckles and there’s something black beneath his fingernails. Even when I watch him for minutes at a time, he will not look in my direction.

At Jackson Street, we transfer to the Blue Line. In the seat next to me, Truman shivers, holding his elbows. I can’t think of anything to help him. He’s rocking, making a low noise in his throat, and I reach for his hand.

“We need to get off the train,” he says in a thick, hoarse voice. “The next stop, I need to get off.”

He shakes his head, his eyes barely open, pulls his hand away. “I have to get off right now.”

“I have to get off the train.” He’s leaning forward, his elbows propped on his knees and his head hanging down. “I feel really sick.”

As the train slows into the next station, I try to help him, but he’s already on his feet, stumbling toward the sliding doors.

I smile politely at the girl who steps out of Truman’s way to let him off, and at the other people in the car. The smile feels false, but no one comments on my teeth this time. When I step out onto the platform, it’s a relief to be away from their stares. The doors wheeze shut behind me and I go to retrieve Truman Flynn.

I find him in the dark, beside the little station shelter. The lights above him have all blown out, leaving shards that crunch under my boots and glitter with the reflected glow of the street. He’s on his feet, but barely, hands braced against the shelter wall, head hanging down. I stand with my bag propped against my shins and my hands in the pockets of my coat, and wait for him to finish being sick.

I’d make a face to show disdain or disgust, something that Moloch would do, but I don’t know the way to shape my mouth. Everything feels wrong and I don’t know how to act like I’m above it. The train is roaring away, the platform shaking roughly, the shelter rattling. There is broken glass everywhere.

“You can help him,” my mother says at my feet in a hundred bright, clear voices. She echoes from the shards under my boots, reverberates in the jagged reflections of herself. “All you have to do is take away tonight. He’ll feel better and you need the fix.”

The horde of tiny Liliths smile up at me maliciously. “And clearly an experience worth cherishing. He doesn’t need it and you do. Don’t tell me you’ve got no appetite.”

She’s right. The hollow feeling in my chest is there, not unbearable, but growing. I look away, shaking my head. “I’m not doing that.”

“Your sisters were never this squeamish,” she says, twinkling in the scattered glass, already disappearing. “Take him home then and let him sleep. In the morning, make him tell you what he knows.”

I step into the shadow under the broken lights, where Truman is still slumped with his palms braced against the shelter. I touch him, resting my hand on his back, and he leans his forehead against the wall.

He keeps clearing his throat, like if he could just get something out of the way, he could speak. Say everything.

“I won’t hurt you,” I tell him, but it’s only a whisper. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I stand at the top of the platform stairs, looking out over dark streets. When I close my eyes, the map is a colored spiderweb in my head, stars showing up where we are, where we came from, where I want to go. His home is close enough, only eight blocks. If he were well we could walk it easily, but he’s too unsteady, and even going down the steps is an ordeal. I have to put my arm around his waist so he won’t trip.

At the bottom, I let him go and we stand facing each other under the streetlight. As I pull my coat straight, something small and white begins to fall, drifting in front of us. At first, I think it must be tiny scraps of ash.

The flakes keep falling, landing on my cheeks where they sting hotly, then turn to water. And in a rush of delight, I realize that I know what this is. For the first time in my life, I’m seeing snow.

I turn slowly, holding out my hands and letting the snowflakes scatter on my face and get caught in my hair. “Look,” I tell Truman, pointing at the sky. “It’s snowing.”

He just shivers harder and doesn’t look up. His head is bowed and he holds himself tightly, arms crossed against his body.

“You’re cold.” I slip out of my coat, meaning to offer it, but my shoulders are narrow and he’s much bigger than me. “Here, you can wear my sweater.”

When I pull the Freddy sweater over my head, the air stings my bare arms. The sweater fits him much better than it does me. He doesn’t have to roll the sleeves up over his hands.

We make our way down the dark street, my arm around his waist the way I’ve seen the Lilim do with some of the bone men, but this is different. It’s not about want or desire, and every now and then he pitches forward, tripping over his own feet. I catch him as best I can, but he’s heavy and several times he falls hard on the pavement. By the time we reach Sebastian Street, his hands have begun to bleed.

On the fourth floor, Truman fumbles in the pocket of his jeans, and when he can’t get his key into the lock, I do it for him. I’ve got him by the arm, but once we’re inside, he pulls away and I follow him down the hall. His room is small, with one window and a mostly empty bookcase. There’s a narrow, lumpy-looking bed pushed against the wall and Truman collapses on it, sighing and rolling onto his back.

He starts to laugh, a hitching, inexplicable sound. “I can’t—I can’t move my arms.”

I help him pull the sweaters over his head, first my Freddy sweater, then his gray one. They’re warm inside from being close to his body. When I sit down beside him, the mattress creaks under my weight and he rests a hand over his eyes. Below it, the line of his mouth is soft and lovely and terribly sad.

I study him, brushing his hair away from his forehead, remembering the feeling of his fingers twined with mine. Trying to find the boy who reached for me in the terminal.

“That’s funny.” He smiles, just a little. “You look . . . familiar. If I don’t know you, why are you doing that to my hair?”

I watch my hand, stroking his hair away from his face again and again. “It’s nice. It feels soft.”

Truman laughs like he’s trying not to cough. “Nice. It does feel nice.” He takes a long breath. “Please, don’t stop.”

And so I keep touching him, feeling the softness of his hair, the warmth of his body. I press my fingers against his temple and find the whisper of his pulse.

I don’t know how to answer. I’m not the kind of person who’s supposed to be taking care of anyone. Even the question feels wrong, so I let my hand fall and stand up. “Stay here. I need to wash your face.”

I cross the hall to a cramped bathroom. There’s a washcloth beside the sink and I wet it under the faucet. I don’t look at the mirror, in case my mother appears with more ideas about what exactly I should be doing to help Truman.

When I go back into the bedroom, he’s still lying where I left him. I wash his face as gently as possible, but his breathing doesn’t even change. His palms are raw from falling so much and when I touch his hands, they feel hot. His face looks better clean, and the hollowness inside me beats against my ribcage like a living thing.

I hate the empty feeling, but more than that, I hate the way my mother smiles knowingly, like this is simply to be expected. Like there’s no way I can control it. Hunger echoes inside me and I need to prove—to myself and to my mother—that I can resist the pull of his sadness.

His lips feel cracked against mine, but warm, and I move closer. Hunger fills my throat and I can almost taste the complex flavor of his sorrow. I breathe it from his lips and as I do, I know without a doubt that I could drink it if I let myself, draw it out of him like venom. But it isn’t mine to take.

He sighs in his sleep, and I pull away quickly and turn out the light. In the dark, I lie down beside him on top of the blankets, turning on my side and folding my hands under my cheek like praying. I close my eyes, something I have barely ever done.