RUSH (City Lights, #3)(91)

“Try,” Yuri mused, and finally released me from his neck hold. “Try to dive and soar and fly again? Not anymore. Not here.” He clucked his tongue. “You remember Lyle Baker? He blows out his knee in Switzerland, and comes back here. A hero in a wheelchair. And everyone laughs and claps and six months later, he’s back in Switzerland, and the snows are melted so he climbs the naked mountains instead. And everyone is happy and goes on with their business.”

Yuri belched and eased back in his chair. “But you, bratishka. You almost die and you cannot walk or talk or see, and when you come back, they do not see the hero who can now walk and talk but still cannot see. They see the danger. The price that can be paid.”

Yuri’s words sank into me like little teeth.

“What am I going to do?”

“Long time, now I say you’re better than the work. You can write. You can tell your story.”

“I have nothing to say,” I whispered. “It’s all black, Yuri. Empty.”

“You write from here.” He tapped my chest. “Is that empty? Or full?”

I thought of my ridiculous attempt at writing—on a typewriter, for God’s sake—where my words vanished the second I hit the key. But I’d sat down to write about Machu Picchu and somehow that experience tied itself to Charlotte because my heart was full. Of course it was. It was full of her.

“Yes,” Yuri said, as if I’d spoken aloud. Maybe I had, I was so damn drunk. “She is a thing of beauty. Her eyes…they are full of love when they look at you.”

It’s what I had been drunkenly asking Deacon; trying to articulate a longing I had to see Charlotte, to see what she felt for me reflected in her eyes. I needed it like I used to need the adrenaline high, and I realized, sitting in a ballroom full of meaningless noise, that there was nothing more important in this world than finding her and telling her what she meant to me. That I loved her. I was in love with her.

“Thank you, Yuri,” I said. “But it’s time to go.”

“It is, it is.”

“Where is she?”

“Not here,” Yuri said. “Maybe…she already go.”

“Wouldn’t blame her.” I clapped Yuri on the back and fumbled my way into my jacket, before beginning the arduous trek out of the ballroom.

I felt my way through a maze of clogged tables and chairs to an open space, realizing—too late—that I needed my damn white-stick. I’d stupidly left it under the table.

It took no time at all to realize how futile it all was. I made it out of the ballroom itself but so what? I had no idea where I was or where the elevators might be. I was surrounded by noise and bodies brushing past me and clinking glasses. I was lost, without my cane or Charlotte to guide me, and my senses dulled further by the alcohol I’d stupidly drunk to dull the pain. The whole night was pain. I should have listened to Charlotte. Instead, I pathetically tried to hold on to something that had slipped through my fingers the moment my head struck those rocks a year ago.

“Time of Your Life” by Green Day began to play in the ballroom, and I recalled its second title, ‘Good Riddance.’

“Good riddance is right,” I muttered.

A collective cheer went up every now and then. I guessed the slideshow had begun. My skin burned and I took several more halting steps forward. The humiliation was second only to the awful disorientation. I’d drank too much—one drink was enough to wreck me and I’d lost count of how many I’d had. My usual darkness now pulsed and writhed and tried to pull me under like a cold, black riptide.

I found a wall, a rounded pillar. I leaned against it and sank down, hanging my hands over my upraised knees. Someone would come along eventually, I guessed. Charlotte, find me. I’m so sorry…

Someone did come along, but it wasn’t Charlotte.

“Jesus Christ, Lake! Are you playing limbo by yourself? How low can you go?”

Deacon. He managed to sound disgusted and triumphant at the same time. I felt hands under my arms as he hauled me to standing.

“I have to find Charlotte,” I said, reeling in the dark. How utter blackness could spin was beyond me. “Help me find Charlotte.”

“Sure, buddy. You want a nip?”

The stringent stench of whiskey filled my nose. “Damn, Deacon, I’m drunk enough. Just help me find Charlotte. Do you see her anywhere?”

“Not sure. Observation Deck, maybe? Happy to take you.”

Something in Deacon’s voice told me all or part of what he said was a lie, but I had no choice. I couldn’t sit on the f*cking floor all night. I took his arm and let him lead me to the elevators, and then the deck. A jazzy-sounding band was playing in the gallery. Deacon took me outside; to the deck itself. From what I remembered from a visit years ago, there was a tall protective fence corralling the visitors on the outside perimeter. I could feel the cool wind against my alcohol-heated skin.

I felt my chest tighten to think of Charlotte up here, alone, against the sparkling backdrop of the city, with music playing. I’m so sorry, baby. I want that dance with you, I do…

“Do you see her?”

No answer.

“Deacon?” And suddenly I knew he was gone. What the hell?

I heard the clack of high heels move close and then stop. A woman.

“Charlotte…?”