Like Gravity(68)

“Yep, “Lexi nodded sagely. “You were a goner the minute that boy sauntered into your life.”

“He doesn’t saunter,” I pointed out, sipping my drink.

“You’re right. You were a goner the minute he scraped you off the pavement when you fell over that fire hydrant.”

“After I fell?” I asked. It seemed Lexi and I remembered the events of that day very, very differently.

“Yep,” Lexi giggled.

I shot a glare in her direction.

“You love him,” she sighed happily, a dreamy look drifting over her face.

“Lex,” I said, warningly. Admitting it out loud was one thing; discussing it casually over drinks was another.

“I know, I know,” she grumbled. “You don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m going to run to the bathroom,” I told her, rising from my seat. I needed to clear my head. “Be back in a second.”

“Want me to come?” she offered, her eyes fixed on the stage.

“Nah, stay here and guard the table. I won’t be long.”

“Mmkay,” she murmured, practically drooling as she watched Tyler perform a kickass drum solo. I cast a final look at Finn, who was fully engrossed in his performance, his eyes closed in concentration, and I felt my heart swell with so much feeling I thought my ribs might crack under the strain.

Tearing my eyes away, I turned and headed for the back hallway where the bathrooms were located. As I pushed open the door to the women’s room, I froze in the doorway when I saw that all of the stalls were occupied, with several girls waiting in line. Every head swiveled to look at me as the door swung open, and I abruptly realized that I would never be able to think surrounded by so much female hostility.

Allowing the door to swing closed again, I turned my back to the bathroom and glanced down the dim hallway. The walls were dingy, covered in peeling gunmetal gray paint and a myriad stains whose origins I had no desire to discover. A single bare, flickering light-bulb swung from a wire on the ceiling, and the hallway’s other two doors offered passage either into the men’s room or out into the narrow alleyway running adjacent to Styx.

It wasn’t exactly an environment suited to finding one’s inner Zen.

In under a second my decision was made and my feet were moving, carrying me toward the door to the alleyway. I needed to breathe the night air, to see the ever-present night sky and regain an iota of control over the parts of me I felt spiraling wildly.

The door was constructed of heavy, soundproofed metal and, judging from its worn, rusted appearance, it didn’t appear to see frequent use. It squealed on its hinges as I pushed it open, flecks of rust falling like ashes into the dim alleyway beyond. At my feet was a lone cinderblock, pushed against the wall as a makeshift doorstop. Leaning down, I used one hand to grab it and dragged it over to prop open the door.

Yellow light from the hallway spilled out into the alley, illuminating a small section of the otherwise dark passage. Stepping through the doorway and down two concrete steps, I acted on an instinct so deeply ingrained I couldn’t quite remember its origins; my head tilted back, gaze lifting to the night sky, and as the stars swam slowly into focus, I was overcome with a feeling of infinite calm.

I’d craved the grounding serenity of the stars for as long as I could remember; the vastness of the galaxies above had always made my problems seem somehow smaller or more manageable – whether it was from my perch on the Victorian’s rooftop, from the French-style balcony off my bedroom in my father’s estate, or from a dilapidated porch stoop in a long-forgotten foster home. Now, thanks to Finn, I could even see the stars from my bed as I looked up at my ceiling. The thought made me smile into the dark night.

I leaned back against the cool brick wall opposite the club door, head tilted up to the constellations above. With an efficiency born from years of practice, I rattled off their names in my mind.

Andromeda.

Pisces.

Aquarius.

Pegasus.

Eventually, I felt my mind clear and allowed my eyes to droop closed. The minutes ticked by as I listened to the muffled music leaking out the propped door into the alley, trying to work up the courage to go back inside. It wasn’t that I was scared to see Finn. In fact, it was the opposite; I was so eager to be alone with him, it was taking every modicum of self-control I possessed not to storm back on stage and forcibly drag him to my apartment.

My eyes flew open at the unmistakable sound of the heavy metal door slamming shut with a resounding boom that shook me to my very core. Even more startling was the sudden quiet, as if the darkness had thrown a thick woolen blanket over every sound – the music, the laughter, the chatter of rowdy patrons as they bought drinks. It was all gone now, leaving me alone in the utter stillness.

And the dark.

Every trace of calm in my system had fled along with the light, and my mind was abruptly full of panicked thoughts that pinged around the inside of my mind faster than I could keep up with.

Did someone close the door, or was it the wind?

Are you an idiot? There isn’t any wind, Brooklyn.

Okay, so someone closed it.

Did they know that I’m out here?

Shit, does anyone know that I’m out here?

Or, worse…is someone out here with me?

I forced myself to stop thinking along those lines before I induced a full-blown panic attack. My eyes, unadjusted to the sudden darkness, reeled wildly as they searched for something, anything, in the pitch-black alleyway. Every muscle in my body tensed as I prepared for an attack of some kind. I took stock of the situation, my hands curled into fists and my body poised on the balls of my feet as I prepared to take off at a moment’s notice.