Chapter Text
Midday New York City reminds Samira of the inside of a beehive. The cluster and bustle and roar of life around her is the incessant buzz of workers, drones, queens. Coins pass hands in exchange for sodas and smokes. The smell of grease and tobacco and weed and piss. Overflowing trash cans surrounded by equally fit-to-burst trash bags. Passersby exchange smiles that are more similar to wolves baring their teeth than a friendly gesture. The city is a vile, overcrowded hornet’s nest, and oh how she loves to visit.
She’d grown up in Harlem and frequented Loisaida in her youth and adulthood, but Manhattan has a charm reserved for the rich epicenters of culture. Although she despised the faux fur coats and flashing ring lights that blockaded every intersection, the chaos is part of the life there. Sam remembers a time where she was that once. Her days of lights and struts and adoration feel so far away now.
Reuben squeezes her shoulder from behind, his kind eyes swimming in the corner of her vision. “You want any snacks for the show? Holly’s buying for the group.”
When he’s not in his nurse’s uniform—which is less often than he’d like, but policy is policy—Reuben feels less like her caretaker and more like a youth pastor, or one of her eager-to-please students from a lifetime ago. His dark beard and sun-lightened hair is in desperate need of a trim, but he somehow makes it look bohemian. Sam doesn’t smile when she sees him, but her frown straightens out to a neutral flatline, the closest she’ll get to a kind greeting. He’s one of the only workers at the hospice center that she allows to touch her, which is why she always seems to be stuck with him.
“Twix,” Sam says, forcing herself to look away from the hornet’s nest, back into her harsher reality. “And a grape Fanta.”
The rest of her tour group stands eagerly at the theater’s doors, chatting amicably to one another, seemingly unaware of the double-take glances of passing tourists who’ve apparently never seen a group of dying people before. Lying on her feet, Frodo paws at her shoes and chirps to grab her attention. He wants to be picked up.
“What’s the show even about?” Sam asks as she lifts Frodo into her arms, suspiciously eyeing the word marionette spelled out in neat letters on the sign above them. “This is a bit far from Broadway. Or even Off Broadway.”
Reuben grimaces but tries to cover it with a smile. Sam sees right through him.
He has a mole on his upper lip and dark eyes that the other nurses coo over. They call him a male Marilyn Monroe, even though he’s not a blonde nor a very good actor. However, he can excel at lying when he wants to. Right now, he just looks like a trickster.
Sam narrows her eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s a goddamn marionette show.”
“Don’t be mad,” he says.
“You lied.”
“I didn’t technically lie.”
“You tricked me.”
“Oh, yeah, for sure.”
She points an accusatory finger at him with no malice. “You dick.”
“Betsy likes them,” he says in a weak retort. “And you’ve seen her puppet skits during talent night. You can’t really say no to someone like her.
He nods to the white-haired elderly woman at the front of the line, their tickets held tight in her skeletal grasp. She spends group sessions crocheting stuffed dolls for the younger patients in their hospice center. Sam is equal parts jealous and annoyed by her for taking her dementia diagnosis with such grace.
“And besides,” he continues, “it’s not like they do these kinds of shows often. Who knows when we’ll get this opportunity again.”
Sam hears the underlying implication as his words trail off into nothing. She might not live long enough to see another show.
They’re all on borrowed time.
Reuben knows she doesn’t care about her own mortality—she hasn’t accepted her death but rather plans on ignoring it until it sneaks up on her like a cold wind—but try as she might to pretend otherwise, Sam cares about her fellow terminal friends.
Frodo burrows his face into her sweater, purring in steady hums.
“We better be getting pizza after this,” Sam hisses with no heat. “And not just any pizza. I want to go to Patsy’s.”
Reuben’s already gentle face softens further, and he bumps a loose fist against her bony shoulder. She feigns pain. “Of course. Anything for my favorite patient.”
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She enjoys the show, despite the puppets, but can’t bring herself to stay the entire time. It’s all too much. The young strung-up boy, the balloon of joy and hope and wonder, and its subsequent pop.
Sam is a poet. She understands symbolism when she sees it, parses it out in her mind to an almost obnoxious degree. Watching art and enjoying it are mutually exclusive when she can’t switch off her brain. And her brain won’t stop reminding her that her balloon’s already popped, that her time is running out and all that will be left of her will be plastic shrapnel and string, the air and the fall, and oh god she’s going to die soon.
With Frodo squeezed tight to her chest, Sam walks out of the auditorium and into the lobby. Her legs waver, but she braces herself against the concession stand, forcing deep breaths in and out. Frodo’s incessant purring vibrates through her chest, an outside influence that dulls the panic until she can think again.
She stands there until the show ends, punctuated by distant clapping and the shuffling of feet. Reuben exits first, eyes scanning the lobby until they land on Sam. He smiles, waves, and approaches in a jog.
“Not a big fan, huh?” he asks.
“I prefer musicals,” she says.
Reuben doesn’t press the issue. “Are you cold?”
Sam hadn’t even realized she was still shaking. She nods. Reuben reaches up and adjusts the beanie on her head to cover her ears.
“There. Now you won’t be.”
He cares too much.
Reuben hooks his arm to hers and guides her back to their group as they gather outside. The sun pokes through smog clouds in patchy bursts, touching Sam’s AC-chilled cheeks. Sam tilts her head back, basks in the temporary warmth until it passes, and the sun is gone.
“Are we still getting pizza in the city?” she asks Reuben again.
Distractedly, he nods. He’s discussing something with the other nurses, Holly and Jack, though Sam doesn’t bother eavesdropping.
There is an exhaustion in her bones. It’s not exactly pains or aches; it travels deeper than that, directly into her soul where the fentanyl patches can’t reach. Sam’s body is a stitching of deteriorating muscles, misfiring nerves, exploding cells. Standing tires her, but sitting is no better. Lying down just tempts her never to get up again. Constant fatigue gnaws through her at an atomic level.
Words pop into her head, the first few lines of a poem she’ll develop and abandon later. Sam always thought that good poetry was made from a tortured soul, but she didn’t really know pain until her diagnosis, and the subsequent treatments that tore through her body like radiated bullets. She might have been tortured before, but not enough that she couldn’t write.
Now, it hurts to hold a pen. It hurts to turn pages, to focus her eyes enough to read what she’s written. It hurts to see how her handwriting gets worse.
Existing hurts. And yet she can’t help but continue until she can’t.
Sam steps to the side, out of the nurse’s view, and towards the subway entrance. She cares about the others, she does. Even when she doesn’t show it, even when it hurts to care. But this is something they don’t get to be a part of.
The subway is, predictably, crowded. Tourists tug along their suitcases, and locals either shout down their phone’s receivers or silently stare into nothing with headphones blocking out the world. Its smoke-piss-weed stench strengthens by tenfold as she walks down the stairs, gripping the sticky railing.
Frodo eagerly tugs at his harness. He likes to walk in front of her when on stairs, as if a small cat like him could catch her if she falls. Sam finds the subway map, tracing the path from where she is to Patsy’s. The next train won’t be there for a few minutes.
She fishes her headphones from her pocket, drowns out the world with Bill Wuthers, and immortalizes the poetry on paper before she forgets.
It’s simple, nonsensical, not even an original thought. No energy is created, nor destroyed. All sound and stench and darkness melts into a steady thrum in the periphery of her thoughts.
Frodo jumps on her leg, careful not to scratch her with his claws, though they do get stuck in her sweatpants. Sam picks him up and tucks him to her chest. Her yellow sweater hangs loose around her thin body, acting as a shield from the bumping shoulders. It would do nothing to protect her, in reality, but she can pretend for a little while.
Sam cannot pretend to look healthy anymore. Her dark skin has lost its warmth, her once-cloudy hair is short and coiled close to her scalp, just now growing back since it fell out. There are some bruise-black bags under her eyes, and makeup looks like nothing more than a mask to cover the difficult truth. If anyone looks close enough, they’ll see the illness written all over her face.
But they don’t. They ignore her like they ignore everything else, and Sam is lost in the crowd. She becomes acclimated to the world around her because she’s lost. Despite the noise and chaos, she loves the city because nobody bats an eye at her. She hates the pity, the help. All she wants is to belong again, and the city grants her that sanctity.
Frodo squirms. Sam readjusts her hold, thinking he’s just uncomfortable, but then he squeezes himself from her arms and hops to the floor. He trots away from her, tail up.
“Frodo!” she hisses, clicking her tongue to draw him back to her. He has the audacity to ignore her.
A train arrives at the station in a rush of stale air and clanging tracks. She grabs his leash before it slips from her hands, fearing she’ll lose him in the crowd as people flood in and out of the subway car. Sam keeps her eyes down, searching for the black and white devil running away from her. Shoulders bump, and she trips on a foam coffee cup, but she maintains her hold on Frodo’s leash. He must be chasing a rat again.
After a bout of weaving through bodies, she finds herself near the front of the crowd she was trying to disappear in as the train pulls out of the station in a growling rush. Sam tugs at Frodo again, but he continues regardless. She follows his path as she realizes where he’s going.
Frodo walks right up to a man in a suit and paws at his pant leg. His shoulders are hunched, head down, hands gripping his upper arms like he’s trying to break them. He’s standing past the yellow line, ahead of everyone else. Sam thinks he must be a tourist, to stand so recklessly close to the platform’s edge. A few more inches forward, and the wind from the passing lines would knock him forward into the tunnel. Being hit by the train is not a pleasant way to die, even if it is quick. She’s seen far too many strangers fall victim to the railings, purposely or otherwise.
The man shifts his weight from one foot to another, stepping forward, back, forward, almost as though he’s waltzing to a song only he can hear. Sam knows the dance of indecision well.
Then he steps forward, and he doesn’t step back again. His well-worn brown Oxfords are inches from the edge now, ahead of all the others on the platform. Nobody’s noticed, and if they have, they say nothing about the precarious position he’s put himself in.
Sam should say something. She has to say something. She opens her mouth, but finds no words. What escapes is a tiny, choked gasp.
When Frodo doesn’t immediately get attention, he circles the man’s legs, entrapping him in the pale yellow leash, and lunges at his knees. He chirps at the man, insistent and loud. Frodo is a quiet cat; he only meows with a purpose.
At the feeling of tiny claws in his skin, the man glances over his shoulder, looking around for the culprit and then down. He looks young, a few years her junior, with short auburn hair that sticks out in wild and directionless curls. His suit jacket looks vintage, made of brown corduroy with patches on the elbows, but tailored to fit him.
Despite the tie and collared shirt and shiny shoes, he doesn’t look like the professional business type. A student, maybe, or an intern. All he has on him is a leather messenger bag strapped across his chest and a slip of lined paper sticking out of his back pocket.
He tilts his head curiously. His eyes are distant, staring into nowhere, but they zero in on Frodo, who’s still chirping to grab his attention.
A childlike smile creeps across his face, brightening the darkness in his eyes. He kneels and holds his hand out to Frodo. He’s sniffed, regarded. Then, Frodo presses his face into the man’s palm in silent approval. The man laughs breathily as he scratches under Frodo’s ears, just where he likes it. He uses his index finger of his other hand to lift the tag attached to the harness, reading it to himself.
FRODO CATTINS, THERAPY CAT.
IF FOUND, RETURN TO SAMIRA OR ELSE.
Reuben’s phone number is engraved on the tag as Sam feared if Frodo ever got lost, it was because she was dead.
“Hello there, Frodo,” he says in a shaky voice, lilted by a European accent. He sounds like he’s been crying. “Where’d you come from, mate?”
Among all these strangers, these watery faces of phantoms she’ll never see again, Sam focuses on him. He stands out not just because of his appearance or her cat’s sudden interest, but his demeanor. There’s something perpetually nervous about him. His intentions here are wrong.
Sam should know better than to approach a random man in the subway, but her cat is purring against his leg like he’s not a complete stranger, and Frodo’s the best judge of character she knows. She decides there are stupider decisions to make and slowly walks towards him.
He traces his free hand from the tag to the leash’s clip on Frodo’s harness. The man’s eyes, large black holes that swallow the light around him, flit up to meet Sam’s.
His already weak smile drops completely. He has been crying, though he doesn’t try to hide it.
Sam pulls an earbud out. “That’s my cat,” she says.
The man stands up abruptly, tripping over his own feet. His face is lit with alarm. “Sorry.”
She hates that word. Sorry. It feels useless after countless times she’s heard it aimed at her like a stray bullet, semantic satiation turning it into nothing more than a harmful platitude. But Sam can tell he means it more than most people do.
“You can pet him,” she offers, just to get him to stop staring at her like a lost puppy.
He hesitates for a moment, glancing behind them to the train car, but he doesn’t board. His eyes grow distant for a moment, then re-engage with her.
Despite his height advantage, the man makes himself small. His arms wind around his stomach like it’ll make him disappear, shoulders folding forward. He nods but makes no move to kneel again, simply shrinking further into himself. Tears sparkle in his eyes like little stars.
The paper in his back pocket flutters to the grime-black subway floor. It’s lined with scratchy words on it she can’t read. Sam doesn’t tell him as a breeze picks it up, sweeps it onto the tracks behind him.
“I’ve never seen a service cat before.”
“He’s a therapy cat,” she corrects gently, even though they’re practically the same thing. “He’s not, like, an emotional support animal. He’s actually trained, even if he doesn’t always listen to me.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this.
The man regards Frodo with a humored half-smile. “Aw, but he’s just a little gentleman, aren’t you?”
“He’s a little shit.”
Sam steps back, clicks her tongue to get Frodo to follow. They’re still dangerously close to the platform edge. He follows half-consciously, like a lost pet.
“He normally doesn’t come up to strangers.” She says it apologetically, intent on ending their interaction so she can leave. Two more trains until hers.
“I’m guessing you’re Samira,” he says, holding his hand out to her.
Sam looks at the offering. His hands are large but untouched by life, with a slight tremble to them that doesn’t stop until she takes it in hers.
“I go by Sam.” Her mouth teases a smile, but she forces it away.
“I’m Eric. Pleasure to meet you.”
Eric doesn’t let go until she retracts her hand, skin stinging with heat. She must be so much colder than him. His hand hovers in the space between them for a moment, then slowly pulls it to his chest. Sam reflexively brushes the touch off on her pants. It’s a nervous habit she developed when her immune system went to shit, and she could never quite shake it.
He looks down the empty subway tunnel as lights and wind announce the next line’s arrival. A familiar twitch afflicts his feet, the urge to move, to run. Eric steps away from Sam and towards the train as it rushes into the station, the metal-scented wind ruffling their clothing.
Under the gentle mask, she catches a glimpse of a desperate and broken man. Sam wonders what he’s running to, or from.
“This is my line,” she says, scooping Frodo up. “Bye.”
She turns and steps into the subway, finding a seat tucked right beside the doors. Sam closes her eyes for a moment, recollecting herself. Guilt tickles the inside of her throat. Eric didn’t act like the violent freaks she sometimes encountered when she frequented the city. He seemed rather lost, aimless and searching for something he hadn’t found yet. Whatever it is he’s looking for, she’s not it.
When she opens her eyes, her attention drifts to the left. Eric is standing at the other end of the car, holding onto the handle above his head, looking anywhere but towards her. Although he doesn’t crowd her like most creeps, she’s unnerved and annoyed that he followed her. He looks away as soon as he sees her seeing him, his cheeks darkening. At least he has the decency to be embarrassed.
After a couple stops, the seat beside Sam opens up. Against her better judgement, her pity takes over, and she nods Eric over. He darts to her, falling into the seat.
“Thanks,” he says.
He smells faintly of sweat and some fancy cologne, though not the suffocating kind she associates with people like him. It’s more so wet earth, smoked whiskey, old paper. Fittingly him. Sam focuses on that and not the stale piss-smoke-grease stench. There’s a hint of ginger stubble running up his jaw.
“Why are you following me?” she asks bluntly.
Eric grimaces, fingers threading together. His legs are pressed together, taking up little space. “I don’t know. I just—I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Well, figure it out. And stop it. You know it’s weird to follow a random woman around.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Are you lost?”
After a beat of consideration, he nods.
“Where are you headed? You’re too dressed up to be going nowhere.” Sam looks him up, down, up. “You look like you’re going to a job interview.”
“I’m headed nowhere,” he says.
Three more stops.
“Where are you going?” Eric asks, though it sounds automatic, a nicety made from muscle memory.
Sam scratches around Frodo’s ears. “I’m going to get pizza.”
“Sorry?”
“There’s a parlor in Harlem. Patsy’s. I’m getting pizza there.”
The train stops with a slight jolt, and their shoulders bump together. He follows the touch until he’s leaning on her. Sam allows him. It’s been a while since she’s felt warmth that didn’t come from artificial heating pads.
He leans towards her and asks, “Please, can I get pizza with you?”
She snorts, then she realizes he’s not kidding. He’s ashamed, a sheepish blush dusting his nose and cheeks, but sincere. “What? No, dude. Isn’t someone expecting you somewhere?”
“Nobody,” he says, almost dreamlike, a pained frown planted on his gentle face. “There’s nobody who’d miss me.”
She is suddenly afraid. Not of what he might do to her, but to himself. Self-destruction is easy to see when you know what to look for. His gaze floats to that distant nowhere again and stays there.
“Where’s your family?” she asks.
“In Kent.” Eric’s eyes drift back to her slowly, though they don’t focus. “England.”
That explains his accent. “You’re far from home.”
“I’m studying law,” he explains, tone flat. His mouth twitches into a mild scowl. “It was the one thing I was supposed to do. The only reason I’m here.”
“And what about your friends?”
“I don’t have any. I barely had any there.”
One more stop.
Sam’s suspicions hit her all at once; she becomes hyper aware of his demeanor, his watery black hole eyes that continue to threaten tears, his proximity to the platform’s edge. The dots connect slowly.
Frodo looks up at her, as if he too is waiting to see what she decides. Sam hates how she falters so easily when she realizes why Eric is there. She should just leave him. This guy is not his responsibility, even if she chases his shoulder’s comfort when he shifts away from her. What he does, or plans to do, is not on her conscience.
But Sam understands what it’s like to be lost in dark waters and searching for air, and her mouth is moving before her mind can catch up.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
“Uh.” Eric blinks. “Yes.”
“Good.” The subway car stops, and she stands. Eric doesn’t move. “‘Cause we’re getting pizza.”
It’s as much of an invitation as she can offer. His eyes drift back to her, returning from that distant nowhere. So bright and brilliant that Sam has to look away, Eric follows her with a smile.