Chapter 6 MY BOYFRIEND IS AN ASSHOLE

LILA

I'm running.

My lungs are screaming, a frantic, rhythmic burning in my chest that matches the frantic slapping of my heels against the pavement. My eyes are burning, still streaming involuntarily with tears. I don’t look back, terrified that if I do so, he might change his mind and kill me, just as he intended.

Three blocks. Or four.

He nearly killed me. He wanted to kill me. He had wings and fought a monster and when he noticed that I saw him, he wanted to kill me.

I nearly collide with a man walking a very small dog and mutter something that might be an apology and keep running.

And he said something that indicated that all my... that all the things that I’ve been seeing, things that I thought were a result of schizophrenia or an overactive have all been real.

And that a normal human would not have seen it. And that makes me... not normal?

Don't think about that.

Don't think about any of it.

JUST RUN.

I reach my building, fumbling with my keys so violently I nearly drop them down the sewer grate. I burst through the lobby, and since my shitty apartment’s elevator barely works, I take the stairs, still in a sprint, all four flights of them. By the time I reach my door I am breathing hard enough that my hands shake slightly as I work the key into the lock.

I slam the door, throwing every bolt and sliding the chain into place. When I’m done, I back away from the door until my calves hit the edge of my thrifted, lumpy sofa in my cramped apartment.

I need... I don't know what I need. I need someone to talk to. I need someone to answer a phone and say hello in a normal human voice and set my mind at rest.

I pull out my phone.

Ezra's name is at the top of my recent calls. I press it before I have finished deciding to.

It rings once. Twice. I pace the length of my room, still panting, still breathing heavily.

On the third ring, I remember.

You are not going to speak of what you have seen tonight. Not to anyone. Not to your friends, not to your colleagues, not to a journal, not to a therapist.

I stop walking.

"And if I do?"

"Then you die."

His voice had been so entirely certain when he said it. He had meant it. Every word of it.

The phone is still ringing.

I swallow hard.

Okay, I can still have a discussion and have someone comfort me without going into the details of what happened tonight. I am not going to tell Ezra the truth. Obviously. I won't tell him about the wings, or about our boss being a magical creature. I won't tell him about the monster he killed or about Mr. Sterling hinting that I might be some sort of... magical creature? One that can see things that other humans can’t and that somehow repels his magic.

Besides, Ezra already has opinions about my habit of seeing things that other people don't. Last year he had said that perhaps I should speak to someone about my ‘episodes’ professionally. He had meant a therapist. Then he recommended one that charged 300 dollars an hou.

And... the thing about not getting killed, yeah.

I’ll just... I’ll tell him I saw a fight close to my apartment. A bad one. He knows I live in a questionable neighbourhood. I can tell him I saw something violent and I am scared and I need to hear a familiar voice, and that is not breaking any rule because none of those things require me to mention anything supernatural whatsoever.

"Lila?" Ezra’s voice is thick with sleep, his tone already leaning toward annoyed. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Ezra, oh gosh, Ezra," I gasp, the tears I’ve been holding back finally spilling over. I sink onto the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. "I... I had a really scary encounter on the way home. There was this fight in an alley, and it was so violent, and I thought... I thought I was going to be hurt. I’m shaking, I can’t stop shaking."

There’s a long silence on the other end. I wait for the Where are you? or the I'm coming over. I wait for him to tell me I’m safe.

Instead, I hear a long, exaggerated yawn.

I stare at the water stain on the ceiling.

"Men fighting," he says, when he has finished. "In an alley."

"Yes."

"In New York City."

The way he says it is not a question so much as a gentle, weary implication. I know this tone.

"I know that sounds..."

"Lila, people fight in the city constantly. Were you hurt?"

"No, but..."

"Were they fighting you?"

"No, I just... It wasn't just a simple scuffle, Ezra! It was... it was terrifying. I was cornered. I thought I was going to die. And it was so close to my apartment, too."

"But you didn't." Another shift of sheets. "You walked home, you got inside, you're safe, right?"

I open my mouth and close it again.

"You should probably not be walking home that late on your own," he adds. "We've talked about that."

"I know. But you know that work kept me late." I say. My voice has gone very even.

"Book a ride next time, don’t walk to the subway." Another yawn, shorter this time. "Look, I’ve got a massive briefing with the senior associates tomorrow morning. I told you work is going to be intense this week. I can’t be up all night because you had a scare. Take a Benadryl, lock your door, and I’ll see you at the office, okay?"

The line goes quiet.

I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it for a moment.

He has already ended the call.

I set the phone down on the counter and sigh. I then slide down until my back is against bed frame, and I hug my knees to my chest and stare at the distance.

I had needed someone to say are you okay and mean it. I had needed someone to stay on the phone for more than ninety seconds. I had needed the ordinary, human comfort of a voice that gave a genuine damn about whether I was frightened, and instead, this is what I got.

I close my eyes and remember what my best friend, Maya, told me just last week.

“You can do so much better than a condescending asshole, Lila. That’s what Ezra is. He’s an asshole, and I don’t know why you’re still with him.”

Maybe... maybe I should break up with him. Maybe he really is an asshole.

The images of what I saw in the alley come back. The creature. The sword. Mr. Sterling with long hair and golden wings and extended pointed ears, a golden light radiating over his skin.

And his face when he saw the mark behind my ear.

I reach up and press two fingers to the skin there. The small crescent birthmark I have had my entire life and never thought twice about. His expression when he had touched it had not been the expression of someone encountering something meaningless. It had been recognition. It had been, beneath the composure, something that looked very much like alarm.

I will decide what is to be done with your... unique situation.

But what is it? What is that unique situation?

I think about the fact that for my entire life I have been seeing things I could not explain. Writing them down in a journal I titled, with grim irony, The Chronicles of a Budding Schizophrenic. Convincing myself, over and over, that the shimmer at the edges of people, the wrongness in certain faces, the things I glimpsed in my peripheral vision, were evidence of something failing in my own mind, were a product of my overactive imagination.

I was not imagining anything.

Every single strange, inexplicable, frightening thing I have ever seen has been real.