Chapter 65 Kir
KIR
“Goodbye, my almost lover / Goodbye, my hopeless dream”
— “Almost Lover” by A Fine Frenzy
It’s Christmas Eve tonight. Snow falls on Manhattan in fat, lazy flakes. Every brownstone window glows gold with a frosted trim and every fire escape wears a string of lights. Families are pulling chairs up to tables, laughing in matching sweaters. For them, there is hope in the air.
As for me, I’m in the back of a black car heading south on the Van Wyck with one bag and a passport.
My phone sits on the seat beside me. The screen lights up with calls and texts again and again.
Mat, Rae, Lukas, board members, reporters, all of them asking what I’m doing, where I’m going, begging me to stop.
But the one name I want to see isn’t there.
I pick up the phone and hold it in my palm. I wasn’t expecting her to call. I told her goodbye and I meant it. She knows that. But some stupid, stubborn part of me hoped anyway.
No, it’s better like this. Mountains stay. Fires burn themselves out. That’s why I feel the way I do, like a blacked-out, ashed-over lump of coal. The flame is gone, but it’s best for everyone if I remove myself before innocent lives get burned again.
I hold the power button until the screen goes black.
Then I bend the phone in half. The screen yields first, a spiderweb of fractures spreading across the glass.
Then the backbone gives way with a snap that sounds too much like a bone breaking.
I roll the window down. Cold air and snowflakes rush into the car.
The driver glances in the rearview mirror and frowns, but he knows better than to ask questions.
I toss the ruined chunk of technology out of the window. It bounces once on the slick asphalt and then is chewed up by the wheels of a truck one lane over.
The window goes back up. The warmth returns.
We pass the sign for JFK. Terminal 1, International Departures. The driver signals right.
I press my forehead against the cold glass and watch the snow pile up on the airport roof, and I don’t think about anything at all.
As I expected, the airport is somber. A few disgruntled holiday travelers, mostly alone, sit and stare into nothingness. I seat myself apart from all of them, my single bag between my feet, and wait.
Soon enough, the boarding call comes over the speakers. I stand up and hand my passport to the woman at the podium. She smiles and wishes me a merry Christmas. I nod silently and walk down the jetway.
My seat is by the window. I buckle in, decline the flight attendant’s offer of champagne, and press my head against the oval of cold plastic. It’s not long before the engines spin up and the plane shudders forward.
The runway whirrs past. Then the nose tilts up, and Manhattan appears below me, shrinking fast. I can see the grid of streets, the dark slash of the Hudson, the bridges strung with lights. Somewhere down there is my father. Somewhere down there is my mother.
And somewhere down there is a redheaded girl, spending Christmas Eve alone because of me.