Page 5 of He Sees You

The cold bites at my exposed skin, sharp and real and exactly what I need.

My Uber driver is playing Christmas music, Bing Crosby crooning about being home for the holidays.

I settle into the backseat and watch Manhattan blur past, all those people living their safe, predictable lives.

In two days, I'll be in the mountains.

In the silence.

In the place where I first learned that darkness wasn't just something in stories.

My phone buzzes one last time.

Juliette:

My brother says the mountains are beautiful this time of year. Says the deer are everywhere. You'll love it.

He reads your books, you know. Says you understand darkness better than you think.

I stare at the message, something cold that has nothing to do with winter settling in my stomach.

I start to type back, asking how Juliette's brother knows my work, but delete it.

Everyone reads my books. That's what being a bestseller means.

Instead, I type:

Tell him thanks. Maybe I'll run into him.

Juliette responds immediately:

Oh, I'm sure you will.

The Uber pulls up to my Murray Hill apartment building.

I stand under the awning for a moment, looking up at the sky.

Snow falls in thick, lazy spirals, erasing the city's hard edges, making everything soft and dreamlike.

Somewhere upstate, snow is probably falling too.

Covering the mountains, the small towns, the secrets everyone keeps.

I think about my father's voicemail.

Some trouble up here. Young women.

I think about my empty apartment waiting upstairs, my empty bed, my empty pages.

I think about Juliette's brother in the mountains, reading my books, thinking I understand darkness.

He has no idea, I think,how much I want to understand it.

But that's the thing about darkness—you never really understand it until you're already drowning in it.

And by then, it's usually too late to swim back to shore.

I go inside to pack.