Читать книгу Searching for Sam - Sophie Bienvenu - Страница 17

IT’S THE TIME WHEN NIGHT FALLS FAST AND HARD, and it’s just going to get worse.

I go out on the balcony that looks over the alley, because I don’t smoke inside people’s houses. Sam sticks her nose outside, then pulls it back in just as fast. No flies on her. She’s not the type to get cold if she doesn’t have to. I laugh and call her a wimp, but she doesn’t give a shit. I close the door to keep the cold out.

It’s quiet outside. There’s no one, no cars, not even a cat. The sharp air feels like I have paper cuts all over my body.

I automatically think I need to buy her a new winter coat. It’s the sort of thought that catches me off guard, that shits in my head and destroys me, particularly when I’m spending the night indoors and I’m not hungry. Sometimes you remember all the things you lost.

I have to sit down.

It has to stop.

I’m thinking too much.

It’s like an India-ink stain on wet paper inside my head. It spreads everywhere, every way, and it drives me mental. Most of the time, I manage to numb the pain, but tonight, it’s spilling over. It catches me by surprise and crushes me and squeezes me, and I think I’ll never be able to get up or move.

The balcony isn’t high enough for me to jump off and kill myself.

…

I can see my breath.

…

I have to get up on the roof.

I stand up and look around. In the corner, there’s a rope for moving, stuck between the recycling bin and five or six neatly stacked boxes.

I have to tie it to something. I don’t know what. I need a flashlight.

The door hits me in the back. Sam comes to sit beside me. She doesn’t look at me. She’s looking off in the distance, at nothing in particular. Maybe she’s saying, there’s no cats, no people, no cars. Maybe she’s thinking I’m stupid, but she doesn’t dare look at me because it’ll show in her eyes.

We stay there for a minute. Sam doesn’t like to get cold if she doesn’t have to, but when she has to, she can stay outside till she’s frozen. She doesn’t complain, doesn’t move. She’s just there, and I can take all the time I need.

“If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead a hundred times over,” I tell her.

She still isn’t looking at me. Just her tail’s wagging a little.

A last look at the alley, at the moon, at the starless sky, at a beam on the ceiling.

“Anyway, I’m already dead.”