Chapter 10
Returning from New York, I saw my apartment for what it was: half-furnished, incomplete, a holding pattern in the shape of a few small rooms. I stood between the thin walls of its cramped kitchen and suddenly understood: the problem was Sawyer.
In the bloodless air of the school and town, I was shrinking, fading away.
And then from this realization, a fantasy of another life bloomed.
I would get a new job. If not in New York, in some other city, on one coast or the other, a place that met you with something unexpected, that kept you moving.
Somewhere not hemmed in all sides by the rusted-out sprawl of the US collapsing on itself.
And I wanted this with Tyler, what we’d had on the trip, something public and known.
This alternate life of happiness, pleasure, and surprise felt not only possible, but like it had been there all along, just waiting for me to open my eyes.
When we’d left each other at LaGuardia, I waited with my luggage and watched Tyler weave through the security line toward the checkpoint.
I followed the arc of his shoulders until he disappeared into the crowds; a murky dread that I might never see him again uncoiled within me.
But now I realized the break was a gift.
Six weeks to devote to my book. This project, which had felt like a leaden weight around my neck, now, I could see, was the key.
I would finish the book, I would go on the job market, and Tyler and I would be free.
I rearranged my living room, clearing space to work—even my office on campus had been constraining me; who could think in that place?
I piled towers of reference books against one wall and against another stacked my research documents, one for each chapter.
I read through everything I had written up to that point: lectures and chapter fragments, notes squeezed in the margins of photocopies, flashes of insight scrawled across manila folders.
Above the kitchen table—I had hauled it into the living room, it was now my desk—I tacked sheets of yellow legal paper, across which I worked out a map of the project: black ink for what I already had, green for what was missing.
I had done more over the past years than I realized.
I dove in, swept up in the currents of the project.
I felt like a first-year graduate student again, the thrill of thinking through writing, of discovering an idea as you were putting it down in words.
The anxiety that had greeted me every morning for years, my loyal and persistent companion, gave way to a kind of electrified anticipation: nerves, raw-edged, alert and ready.
I’d wake up and leap right from bed and by the time the coffee was ready, I was already deep in the work.
Tyler and I slipped into an easy groove without naming it, texting each night, and only at night.
This granted me working hours free of distraction, but with something to look forward to, a promise at day’s end.
I would sink into the warm, cushiony bubble of our exchanges in satisfied exhaustion, worn out but not weary, grinning at his daily reports.
Updates on high school friends, a story about his father setting an oven mitt on fire, his mother yelling as she doused the flames.
He sent photos, close-ups of his face, blasted with light from a bedside lamp, goofy and unaware, as if he had surprised himself.
He asked about the book always with the same question: How were your murderers today?
I sent thoughts on a letter from the archives, a grisly detail I’d uncovered in a coroner’s report.
I told him my ambition—to have a draft, rough but complete, by the end of break.
But I didn’t tell him why—that I was working toward our escape.
I would save that for his return. After we signed off for the night, although it was late and the next day would begin early, I would stay awake a while longer, basking in the feeling of his company.
These weeks of work experienced just one interruption, once a day.
An intrusion I tried to hold off, but always, at some point, it pushed through.
Sometimes it happened without my realizing.
I would find myself not at the table but standing in my bedroom, my hand holding my phone, which I hid in there during my working hours.
The new phone. Every time, the same result: still no word from Safie.
We’d had no contact since the Walton Walk.
I would steady myself and start to compose a message—I had been an unforgivable asshole; it was on me to reach out—but everything sounded trite, insincere.
I would vow to write later that night, with a clearer head not muddled by my manuscript.
I just needed to get through this day. The weeks wore on and as the gap of communication widened, it felt even harder to imagine what to say: The deepening silence demanded more words to fill it.
Maybe the break was good for us; Safie just needed some space.
We would reunite when the semester started, me unburdened and ready to be a better friend.
We would sort things out. We always did.
I also set the next steps of my plan in motion.
A few years earlier, I’d met an editor from a university press who was excited about the project.
I tracked down her email and wrote. I am not sure you remember me from the conference.
We talked at the reception and somehow got into a long conversation about Tana French and reality TV.
But I have made good progress on the book and would be eager to connect.
I worried that too much time had passed, that I’d missed my opportunity, but she responded the next day.
Of course I remember. I’m so glad you reached out.
Actually just last week I heard this story about a serial killer and thought of you.
Ha, you must get that a lot! We decided I would spend the semester revising and send her the manuscript by the end of the spring.
With all going well, I would enter the fall job-hunting season with a book contract in hand—it was an ambitious plan, but doable.
And by the Saturday before classes resumed, I had done it: a draft of the entire thing. It was a mess, of course, but it was there, it was real, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I was one step closer to freedom.
I spent the rest of the day getting ready for Tyler’s return.
Table moved back to the kitchen, books tucked neatly on shelves.
I took everything down from the wall. Alongside the map of the project—it had grown dense and convoluted over the weeks, the scratch of my handwriting almost illegible—I had tacked up grainy printouts, photos of my murderers, childhood portraits and mugshots.
The blank wall glared, naked without them.
I should get some art or hang up a poster, I thought, like a normal person.
Late in the afternoon, he called.
“Hello,” I said. “You’re back.”
“I’m back.” He raised his voice over a din of music and pitched conversation. “How are you?”
“Good. Great.” More noise, the smack of something crashing to the ground. “What’s going on over there?”
“Sorry, it’s crazy in the dorms. Everyone is amped about being back. Hold on.” Shouts, a door banging shut, and then quiet. “That’s better.”
“Where did you go?”
“I’m in the stairwell. Addison’s in the room.”
“How was the ride back?”
“You know,” Tyler said, and laughed. “Dead cornfields and freeways.” I had offered to pick him up but it turned out Addison’s flight was getting in around the same time, so he gave Tyler a ride. “Addison left his car parked there the entire break. It cost like a thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money to park a car.” I laughed. “We’re on for tonight?”
“Yes. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight. At the usual spot?”
“Perfect.”
I’d made a reservation two towns to the east, dinner at a restaurant in a converted mill.
New York had settled something between us, but it made me greedy as well.
I wanted more with Tyler than the confines of my apartment.
Until I could get out of Sawyer, this is how we would manage.
We would explore the surrounding towns—everyone kept insisting that Ohio had its rustic charms; we could discover them together.
And we’d take trips farther afield, safe and anonymous.
I’d been curious about Pittsburgh, and maybe Louisville, when the weather warmed up.
That evening, I drove to the doughnut shop.
I pulled into the lot. No Tyler. Two figures bundled in winter coats stepped into the liquor store, but nobody else was around.
I parked, idling, and checked my phone. No message.
He would be here, in a minute or two. I double-checked directions to the restaurant.
My stomach growled; I’d gotten so caught up in cleaning the apartment, I’d forgotten lunch.
And then the door to the liquor store swung open and the two figures reemerged: Tyler, with Addison.
Tyler, spotting me through the windshield, waved.
He had a pack of cigarettes in his hand and he pocketed them, pulling Addison toward the car.
Tyler jumped in and a moment later the backdoor opened, Addison sliding in behind us.
“Good to see you again, Professor Lausson. Happy New Year.”
Tyler didn’t look at me, just pulled on his seat belt and said, “Sorry, we were just grabbing some things.”
From the back seat: “Tyler invited me to join. I hope that’s okay.”
Tyler laughed. “He doesn’t mind. Right?”
I couldn’t breathe—it felt like someone had reached into my chest and grabbed my lungs, ringing them like a wet rag. The car’s heat blasted at me. I swiped the air vent closed and stabbed at the door, searching out the button for the window. It swept down; cold air rushed in.