Chapter 57 Eliana
ELIANA
chif·fon·nade: /?SHif??n?d/: noun/verb
The tears mix with the rain on my face as I stand there and laugh up at the sky.
I’m soaked through to the bone, cold in ways I’ve never been cold before.
But if my phone didn’t ring just then, I probably would’ve stood there forever.
The heat death of the universe would’ve found me on this exact spot of pavement, arms outstretched, staring up at clouds that don’t know I exist and wouldn’t care if they did.
My phone does ring, though. And for one stupid, hopeful second, my heart leaps. Bastian.
I fumble the clutch open with shaking fingers and yank out my phone, squinting at the screen through the rain and my failing vision.
But it’s not Bastian’s name on the display.
It’s… Sage?
I squint at it for a moment, confused, sure I’m seeing things wrong. Why would Sage be phoning me? We’ve hung out a few times when I’ve been at Bastian’s place, sure, but we don’t exactly have a calling-each-other relationship.
And yet the phone keeps vibrating in my palm.
I swipe to answer and press the phone to my ear. “Sage?”
His voice comes through frantic and breathless, tripping over his syllables in his haste to get them out. “Eliana, thank God. I need your help. It’s Bastian— Something’s wrong with Bastian and I don’t know what to do.”
I press the phone harder against my ear. It’s a struggle to hear him over the pouring rain. “Sage, sweetheart, slow down. What’s going on?”
“He locked me in my room!” he cries out. “He just— He came home and he wasn’t right, Eliana. Something’s wrong with him. He looked like— I don’t even know. He looked right through me. Like he wasn’t even there anymore.”
“Did he say—?”
“No!” he interrupts. “He didn’t fucking say anything! He just— Goddammit, I don’t know! He just locked me in here and left, and I was screaming his name but he didn’t come back, and then I heard the front door open, so he must be gone, but I’m still stuck in here.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know! He wouldn’t talk to me or explain a goddamn thing.
Just shoved me in here and locked the fucking door.
” I hear something bang. It sounds like Sage hitting the door as hard as he can.
“I’ve been trying to call him, but he’s not answering, and I’m scared he’s going to do something stupid. ”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming over. I’ll—”
“No!” Sage’s shout makes me flinch. “Go find Bastian! He’s about to do something bad. Or maybe he already did, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”
My hands shake as I grip the phone. “What do you mean? What kind of bad?”
“I don’t know!” The panic in his voice mirrors the panic rising in my chest.
“Okay. Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll go find him. Just—just keep your phone close, okay?”
“Alright.” WHAM. “I’m gonna try to get out of here. I’ll— I’ll wait for you to call me.”
I say goodbye and hang up.
I stand there for another minute with the phone still pressed to my ear even though the line’s gone dead.
The rain is coming down harder than ever, turning the sidewalk into a river that runs past my ankles.
My dress clings to every curve of my body, heavy and cold.
I can feel my mascara tracking down my cheeks in thick lines.
All that careful work Mama and Yasmin did, dissolving.
I should go inside. Change into dry clothes. Call Yasmin, maybe. Or my mother.
Instead, I start walking.
I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I can’t stand still anymore. My body needs to move or it’s going to shake itself apart.
The sidewalk is uneven under my feet. I falter once and catch myself against a parking meter. My palm comes away wet and gritty. I wipe it on my dress without thinking, leaving a dark smear across the burgundy velvet.
Something’s wrong with Bastian.
Sage’s voice loops in my head, frantic and young. Younger than he usually sounds. Like he’s eight years old again, calling for help from the wreckage of a car.
He looked right through me.
I know that look. I’ve seen it before, that day in the park when Bastian pulled that man off me. When his eyes went black and bare and I didn’t recognize the person they belonged to.
My breath comes shallow and quick. I press a hand to my chest, trying to slow it down, but my lungs won’t cooperate. They keep snatching at the air in little gasps, like I’m drowning on dry land.
He’s about to do something bad.
I stop walking and bend forward to catch my breath, hands on my knees. The rain beats against my back. I can feel it soaking through the velvet, through my skin, all the way down to the core of me.
The tears keep coming like I’ve sprung a leak somewhere essential. I wipe at my face with the back of my hand, but it doesn’t help. Everything’s wet anyway.
I straighten up, blinking rain out of my eyes, and remember: I have Bastian’s location. We share our locations with each other. Have for weeks now.
The screen is slick and hard to see through the water streaming down it. I swipe, tap, and wait for it to load. The little blue dot that represents me pulses in the center of the screen.
And there—half a mile north—is Bastian’s dot.
Half a mile. I can do half a mile.
I start running.
The heels make it almost impossible, so I kick them off and leave them behind. I keep going, running barefoot through nasty puddles and over jagged, broken concrete that tears at my soles.
My dress tangles around my legs. I hitch it up with one hand, clutching my phone in the other, watching that blue dot grow closer with every stride.
A huge crack in the sidewalk catches my foot and I go down hard. My palms smack against wet concrete. Pain shoots through my hands and knees—the same spots I injured just days ago, barely healed, opening up again like new.
I push myself up. Blood mixes with rainwater on my palms.
I keep running.
I arrive at the location three-quarters drowned and dripping blood from all my limbs after falling again and again.
Bastian’s blue dot on my phone has led me to a dingy Irish bar wedged between a Chinese restaurant and a boarded-up storefront.
It’s so generic that I almost don’t believe it’s real.
It looks like it’s been here since before I was born, with a flickering neon shamrock in the window and green paint peeling off the door frame.
I shove through the door hard enough to make it bang against the wall.
The bar is dull and dim. Just a handful of regulars hunched over their drinks and a bartender polishing glasses behind the counter.
They all turn to stare at me, and I guess I can’t blame them.
I must be one hell of a sight: barefoot in a gala gown, soaking wet, torn and bloody, with black-streaked eyes like some kind of undead ghoul.
The bartender, an older woman with gray-streaked hair, sets down the glass she’s polishing. “Jesus Christ, honey. You alright?”
I stumble forward until I can grip the edge of the bar to keep myself upright. “I’m looking for someone. Tall, blonde, blue eyes. Have you seen him?”
She exchanges a glance with one of the regulars, then looks back at me with concern etched deep in the lines around her mouth. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “He’s out back. But—”
I don’t wait to find out what might follow her “but.” I just shoulder my way through the bar, leaving wet, crimson footprints as I go, until I reach a metal door at the back.
A sign hangs over it: EXIT, in huge, red letters. As if I needed a fucking metaphor right now to inform me that the happy part of my life is over.
I rear back and punch the bar of the door hard. It flies open, and the suck of the wind and storm keeps it there.
I step out onto the stoop. Turn my head.
And there, at the end of the alley, I see him.