Page 282 of Love Me in the Dark

The city doesn’t look different.

Same overflowing trash cans. Same cracked sidewalks. The buildings around my neighborhood are all still there. The same stale exhaust sticks to my skin the second I step out of the car.

But everything about this feels wrong.

My apartment building looms just ahead like it always has. Run-down, paint peeling in long vertical strips, one window on the third floor boarded up with duct tape and a prayer. And yet,after where I just came from, it feels like crawling back into a coffin.

I clutch the cash Roman left like it might turn to ash. Like everything that’s happened has been a fever dream, and I’m just now waking up to my disgusting reality.

I’m halfway to the front door when I see him.

The old man from the alley.

He’s sitting on the steps like he’s been waiting there for years. Same ragged coat, same patched gloves, same heavy eyes that somehow see through me and down into my soul at the exact same time.

“Hey, kid.”

I freeze.

He smiles, showing a few missing teeth and a mouth that’s definitely lived too hard.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Same,” I murmur. My voice cracks like brittle ice.

He gestures beside him. “Sit a second?”

And I do. Without knowing why. Okay, that’s definitely a lie that I tell myself because I know why. This man made me care, by caring about me.

The coolness of the concrete step bites through my jeans. The city noise hums in the background—sirens, shouts, car horns. But next to him, it all fades because this man’s life is the life I should be living. What I would have turned into, I’m sure, if it weren’t for Roman kidnapping me and forcing his way into my life.

“He came to see me, you know,” the man says.

I stiffen.

“Roman.”

His name cuts through my chest in a heartbreaking instant. I suck in a breath.

“Thought he was gonna gut me, honestly. Showed up in a three-thousand-dollar suit, quiet as a ghost. Just stood there, lookin’ at me like he knew every bad thing I ever did and was coming’ to reap my soul for it.”

“What did he say?” I ask, throat dry.

“He said you asked him to take care o’me. M’own personal guardian angel. I don’t matter to nobody, y’know.”

I blink hard.

“He said you gave me your dinner. Said I mattered toyou.Told me he owed you more than I could ever repay because you madehimcare. Then he offered me a place. A real one. Roof, bed, heat. Said it was mine for life, no strings. Proved it too. Deed and trust were delivered by a lawyer. Told me that it was ‘cause of you.”

“Well…you saved me.”

“I think you saved me, kid.”

Tears sting my eyes at his words but I don’t let them fall.

“He said he couldn’t take you like he thought. Couldn’t force you. But he could give you one thing he didn’t think he could give you—a choice.”

The man looks at me, eyes like flint softened by weather.