Nightfall ✓

Chapter 23

He nodded and drove away.

I was trying to save as much as possible. I only had the money which I'd earned by selling paintings to neighbors, (some of which I'd spent on a phone) minus the cost of the plane ticket and the expenditure of my stay at the hotel. It turned out I had saved enough money to buy four phones, but I hadn't been paying attention. And Sana had lent me some. This was all I had.

I didn't know how long I would have to stay at the hotel. It depended on when I would find Liam. I smiled. Thinking about him filled me with this happy, warm, hopeful feeling. I was going to see him again after one year.

I looked around. I could vaguely remember this place. Liam and I had come here when we were buying the apartment. I had given all the money from my exhibitions, Liam had taken some from his dad, since he wasn't earning on his own, and even Ash had given us money— since her parents gave her a big, fat cheque whenever they had to travel. Then we both had gone to Starbucks to drink coffee and had made out in the boys' washroom. I felt butterflies in my stomach.

I started walking. Maybe if I walked around enough, it would trigger something in my memory about the location of our apartment. I looked at the pretty brown buildings and the clean footpaths.

I walked and walked. I touched the rough stone buildings, feeling their bumpy texture with my fingertips. I walked all along the footpath, walked on all the roads nearby, did everything I could think of, waiting for my moment of déja vu — but I still had no clue where our apartment was. My stomach grumbled. It was already evening. I bought the cheapest sandwich I could find and took a cab back to the hotel, where I spent a sleepless night, crying after every 5 minutes. But I wasn't going to give up so easily. There was no way I was making the same mistake again.

The next day when I woke up, I opened the last page of Frozen Hearts, hoping there would be something in the "about the author" section, maybe his address, but I found nothing. So again I took a cab to Union Ave.

This time I did something different. I took off my locket and showed our prom photo to every pedestrian I could, and asked if they had seen this boy around somewhere. All of them shook their heads. Some laughed. One raised his eyebrows at me, probably thinking I was psycho. A girl accused me of being a crazy stalker. I didn't have enough patience to argue with her, so I ran away before she could call the police. Finally someone told me that this boy in the photo probably lived on Hope Street. I thanked him and walked to where he pointed.

I reached a building and looked up at it. Was this it? I still couldn't remember. How frustrating. Ugh.

Then I remembered. There was an art gallery right in front of our building. That was where I was standing right now. I was sure because there was graffiti on the walls. My breathing quickened. This was it. This was the place. This was it!

I looked around. I didn't remember the number of the apartment. Sitting down on the footpath near the entrance, I ate the donuts and coffee I'd bought. I hadn't had breakfast. People passing me by probably thought I was a starving homeless, because someone deposited a coin in front of me and a kind old woman gave me a cheese croissant which she had in her purse. I accepted it gratefully.

Whenever my legs fell asleep, I got up, walked around, and sat down again. My heart nearly jumped out of its cage each time a tall boy passed me by.

In the evening I spotted two boys jogging. I squinted to focus my gaze. One of them had brown-blond hair. And he was tall. I started to walk towards him.

Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. The hands were gentle and warm, yet I froze. Who could it be? No one knew me and I didn't know anyone. Unless that girl really had called the police. The person slowly turned me around.