The clouds smothered the moon and left the city to assume that the earth’s companion was loyally crossing the night sky. Charlie was on the roof of The Madison, leaning with arms crossed on the cold concrete of the wall, watching the nothingness of midnight. He saw no one milling about on the streets, and the roads—for once—seemed free of traffic. One by one, he saw lights from apartments across from The Madison extinguish, a single window at a time, until entire blocks of buildings were pitched in utter darkness. The streetlights were lit below him on the street, but their glow wasn’t strong enough to reach the roof, which was clothed in cold shadows.
“I should have brought my coat,” Charlie mumbled to himself, tugging on the thin white fabric of his shirt.
He had thrown off his blazer after his father had left to rejoin his mother for dinner. Alone, Charlie made his way around his room to survey the damage. Slowly, he picked up the ruin of his painting and set the broken canvas back upon its easel. The fabric had torn and curled around where his father threw his fist, like painted flames trying to burn its abuser. He touched the tears lightly, brushing his fingers over the canvas to see the picture as it had been only momentarily—perfect and beautiful—but when he pulled his hand back, the fabric coiled in on itself again.
The paintbrushes waited for him on the floor of his bedroom, scattered about after the cup they sat in was knocked over. Some had rolled under his bed, up against the wall, and one had broken, stepped on by his father’s heavy stride. He gathered them together and returned them to their glass.
His father’s voice churned in his mind like acid in an anxious stomach. Take this as a warning.
Charlie locked the door of his bedroom when he heard the sounds of his parents returning home. Laying on his bed, he could hear their hushed argument through the thin walls, the muffled sound of a smack followed by the breath of an apology, and finally the soft click of their bedroom door.
The flame of his candle guttered. It had missed the terror from before, but Charlie felt it knew—could feel the leftovers of his father’s hatred. It danced in the soft whispering sighs of the wind from his open window, flicking back and forth hypnotically. Every now and then, it sputtered out, as if frightened away by something, before coming back to light after the threat disappeared.
Charlie tossed back and forth on top of his blankets, as fidgety as the fire. You remember, it seemed to say when it jumped high into the air. You are a witness.
When he heard the first rhythmic growl of his father’s snores, Charlie’s restless legs begged to escape. He needed to get out, to distance himself from this room, this house, this family, for even just a few hours. He sat up, blew out the last of the light in his room, and climbed out his window, taking the fire escape two stairs at a time until he made it to the top.
The cold air stung his eyes to tears. At least that’s what Charlie decided to tell himself—that the dampness that lined his cheeks was from the biting air and not the strangled sensation he felt in his chest, like someone was tightening a belt around his heart.
His fingers burned in the icy air for a while before the pain eased into a numbness that nearly had him convinced they had fallen off. He bent his fingers, looking at the small lines of paint that had stained them when he was picking up his room. He couldn’t feel the way they moved. It was appropriate, he thought—his life wasn’t his to feel anymore; it belonged to someone else.
He had considered bringing up something to sketch with, but he couldn’t muster the courage. Some small piece of him feared that his father would know, would feel his art leaching out into the real world beyond his bedroom. Besides, Charlie didn’t need any more pictures to remember this evening. He didn’t want to have his father’s anger rekindled in a sketch, didn’t want his art to be as empty as he felt in this moment.
Laying his head back down on the rough wall of the roof, he imagined what it would be like to live without a home to go back to every night. His life might be tense because of his father’s moods and his mother’s strictness, but he still had some place warm and soft to lay his head.
He was never without food—though they never ate at the expanse of mahogany that sat empty in the dining room of their apartment. His parents insisted on only dining in the formal restaurant on the first floor of their building, or at a string of expensive restaurants scattered throughout the streets of D.C., like pearls spilled from a broken necklace. Bright, shiny, beautiful restaurants steaming with hot meals and brimming with painted people. Not his painted people, but his father’s.
Dinner was not a family event; it was a possibility for publicity. His father wouldn’t miss an opportunity to be seen having a pricey meal with his fancy family. But, Charlie thought, at least he had a family. At least he had food. It was more than most, nowadays. He should stop thinking that he could—that he should—have more.
He needed to be grateful for what he had. Even if it meant he had to forget everything about his sketches and paintings, or the girl on the street, and become his parents’ puppet. He should let his art go and follow in his father’s footsteps, though he hated the idea of becoming anything like him. Detached from feeling, uncaring of the pain around him, ignoring the beauty of his world. But there was only so long that Charlie could push against his parents. Eventually, he would lose. Accepting the inevitable would save him years of frustration and suffering.
Letting go, he feared, would leave a permanent bitter taste in his mouth that he would have to live with until the day he died. He would be trading one shape of heartache and hardship for another. Which was worth fighting for? Which would be worth the pain?
The sky ripped at its seam, the gray clouds bowing back gracefully for the rain to begin. It started slowly, a drop here and there, like the sky was crying softly for D.C. Charlie wiped his cheek and continued to watch the night. A little rain wouldn’t hurt him.
The rain continued to fall, quietly at first—a gentle cloud of mist. But before long, it became aggressive and heavy, a steady stream of a shower, followed by the strong fierceness of a storm. Soon, the rain fell like icy tacks, needling him with the cold.
He squinted up to the sky, letting the pain of the frozen rain clear his head. He spread out his arms wide and opened his mouth, gathering a yell. The pain, frustration, everything he kept bottled inside of him rushed forward but fell mutely from his lips. The profoundness of his loneliness—a loneliness that twisted in his gut and slithered around his heart—couldn’t even find an abstract voice in a scream. It was as silent as his paintings.
Closing his eyes, he dropped his hands and head, bowing his neck to the rain. He hauled himself to standing, resigning to the weather and exhaustion that he had refused to acknowledge for hours. He pulled himself over the low wall and hopped onto the top landing of the fire escape, leaning over as far as he could without falling.
It would be easy to slip, he thought to himself. To tumble through the air and feel—for just an instant—that he was free and flying. The rain fell harder, pinging and clanging on the metal loudly, just daring him to do it, but he ignored it and made his way down the first flight of stairs.
Down, down, down the steps he spiraled, dragging a wet hand through his rain-tangled hair. The storm still followed him, even a couple stories down from the roof, buried under the metal landings of the fire escape. The cold was pulling the warmth out of him, replacing his muscles with a painful, wrung-out feeling. But he kept climbing down.
As he rounded another set of stairs, he thought he saw a flash of red, like a bright poppy blooming through cracked pavement, but when he blinked, it was gone. He shook his head, lecturing himself.
“Your imagination’s getting the best of you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Your dreams have no place in the waking hours.”
He pulled his hand across his eyes and down his face, wiping away what wetness he could before more rain replaced it. He took the next set of stairs blindly and came down on something loud and metal. It sounded like he had kicked up a cymbal that had crashed to the ground. Removing his hands from his face, he looked down and saw that he was standing on top of a dented lid from a garbage can. He looked up to the landing above him but saw no trash, no topless can.
“For crying out loud, who puts a lid in the middle of some steps?”
The rain tapped on the lid in a strange pattern, chiming in with its own metallic melody. Charlie grabbed onto the two railings on either side of the stairs and jumped over the obstructed step. His hand slipped slightly on the slick railing, and he barley had a chance to catch himself before he slammed into the hard landing.
He took a few breaths, waiting for his heart and stomach to realize he wasn’t falling anymore. The railing at the bottom of the stairs was cold in his tight fist. He lifted himself up to his feet and stared through the curtain of rain to the city streets. His hair flopped forward into his face, and he pushed it up as he turned around to take the next set of stairs.
Foot out, hair flopped over his forehead, water dripping down his face—he froze.
Red hat.
Tentatively, he took a step forward. He didn’t blink, afraid that taking his eyes away for just a moment would break the spell of what he was seeing.
Blonde hair.
He stepped forward again, his breath caught in his throat.
Brown coat.
One more quiet step. His heart was thrumming in his ears as he bent down.
Alice.
Somehow, she was sheltered from the rain, the sky falling down around her like a veil. He looked up and saw the lid of the missing garbage can was on the step right above her, like a small, round roof. A tin umbrella. He smiled to himself.
“Smart.”
The wind shifted, and the rain came slanting into her. She shivered in her sleep and made a soft sound that he couldn’t quite make out. The crumpling sound of paper drew his attention away from her face. In her raw, red fingers, he saw his small pocket sketch of New York. His mind spun, swirling with the cyclone of rain that blew around them.
He reached out a hand and set it on her elbow. The fabric of her coat was soaked through with cold rain, and she shivered again. Her nose and cheeks were as red as her fingers, but her lips were a strange shade of purple. Charlie looked at her and panicked. She must be freezing.
Gently, he shook her elbow. “Alice?”
She curled in on herself, her fist tightening on the smudged sketch as she drew nearer to the railing and into the rain.
Charlie bit his lip and thought. He could bring her out a blanket, maybe set one of his coats on her… But she was soaked through. Extra layers would only weigh her down more with the cold; it wouldn’t help her at all.
She shouldn’t be out in the cold with how wet she looked. Even her hat was a shade darker with rain, her blonde hair stuck to her cheeks. Her lips moved, shaping silent words. She could be sick, delirious. Any longer in the cold and she could become too sick for even a doctor’s help. Not that it looked like she could afford one, anyway.
He tried to wake her again, tightening his hand on her elbow. “Alice?”
Her lips stilled and her eyes shot wide open, blue blue blue and full of panic. Immediately, Charlie let go, backing up from her and putting his empty hands up. She sat up against the railing, backing into the corner.
“It’s me, Charlie. From earlier today… Do you remember?”
She watched him with her mouth popped open, as if she thought the question was ridiculous. “Are you following me, Charlie?”
Despite himself, he laughed. He lowered his hands and shook his head. “No. I live here.”
Her fist tightened around the sketch and she shoved it in her pocket. “I didn’t realize this fire escape was occupied.”
“No, not—not out here. I live inside. Two floors down.”
“Of all the apartments in the world…” She trailed off and tossed her head, the blonde of her hair tickling across her red, red cheeks.
Charlie noticed how dark the blue of her eyes looked in the low lighting. Another gust of wind brought a sheet of rain down on them. Alice shivered so hard it looked like she was convulsing. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood. Charlie scrambled to stand up with her.
“I guess I should be going, then. Can’t bump into the cops with you twice.”
“I wouldn’t…” He began, but realized she wasn’t listening. She was bent over, collecting together a small stack of postcards and a leather notebook.
When she stood again to look at him, she gave him a funny face. “What are you doing out in the middle of the night in this rain anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sure you couldn’t.”
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she answered with a quirk of her lips.
He shot her a grin back, skeptical and sad. “Sure you couldn’t.”
Her smile began to fade as she turned away from him to descend the flight of stairs. The curtain in the window next to the landing twitched open. A small, knobby old woman looked out with blind eyes and small cheaters resting low on her nose. Her glassy eyes looked right through him.
“Wait,” Charlie whispered loudly after Alice, following her. “You’re always running away before I can finish a conversation with you.”
“I’m a great runner, Charlie.”
He caught up to her on the landing and took her hand. “I’ve noticed.”
She slowed and turned to him, so close that their foggy breath mixed together. He hesitated for a moment, letting the sound of their breathing join the constant tapping of the rain. They were frozen, watching each other in some kind of magic moment suspended in time. But, like all magic moments, it was over too quickly—Alice averting her eyes to the metal floor holding them in midair.
On an exhale, Charlie said, “You can’t sleep out here.”
“I was sleeping out here just fine before you woke me up.”
“You’re soaking wet,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “If you stay out here, it’s a oneway ticket to the death house.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I heard you need reservations to get in there.” Her chin jerked toward the curtained window.
“You’ll freeze to death.” Rain pounded down between them, running over her hat and down Charlie’s lashes. He blinked away raindrops. “Let me help.”
Alice crossed her arms. “I don’t like help.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t like owing people something I can’t pay back.” She trapped her lip between her teeth, like she regretted what she had said as soon as it left her mouth.
He paused, considering. “You’d be helping me, too.”
“Oh yeah?”
“If I go in to bed and know you’re still somewhere out here, freezing slowly in the rain, I’d never get to sleep. I’d be wrought with worry, and if you died, guilt.”
“I’m no one’s to worry about, Charlie,” Alice answered, taking a small step back. “I’m better off alone.”
He matched her with a step forward. They pulled at one another like static, two charged fingers held just barely at bay from one another. “But what if you don’t have to be alone?”
She only stared back at him.
“At least not for tonight.”
“Awfully forward of you, Charlie.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I’m no faded rose.”
Even in the cold, he felt his cheeks flame up. She thought he believed her to be a prostitute? “I—I didn’t think—I mean, I’m not… What I meant to say was—” He noticed Alice noticing his blush and saw as a look of amusement flashed briefly across her face. “I’ll sleep on the floor and you can have my mattress. I just thought you could use some place warm and dry to sleep tonight.”
She studied him, and he gave it one last try.
“Don’t make me have to identify a body at some dusty station. I’m more squeamish than I look.”
A smile tried to swipe itself across her face, but she puckered it into submission. “Try any funny business and I’ll flatten you faster than you can say Chaplin, got it?”
He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “No funny business.”
“Keep your whanger in your trousers.”
He sputtered and she laughed, throwing her head back in the rain.
With one strange look over him, she stepped back and gestured to the last flight of steps before his bedroom window. “Lead the way, Charlie.”