Fortune by Annabel Joseph (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

when it neared midnight. At last, Kat left to go find him. She found him sitting up on the side of his bed in darkness, in silence. She went to him, uncertain of his mood, but he turned and pulled her into a gentle, enveloping embrace.

He’d been drinking. She could smell it on him. “Are you mad at me?” she whispered.

“No. Of course not. Why would I be mad at you?” His words slurred a little. He frightened her this way because it was so unlike him to drink. She shrank away but he held her.

Kat’s head hurt and her eyes ached from crying. His somber misery dragged her down even deeper into sadness, like a weight on her heart. Bleak grief was choking her, drowning her, and Ryan, her buoy, was dark in the night. “I’m sorry I asked you to…” She couldn’t say it. “I—I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have asked you to—”

“You were right, Kat. It’s all bullshit.” His gruff, toneless voice startled her.

“What…what’s bullshit?”

“All of it. Love. Hope. Wishes.” He made a sibilant sound of frustration and then he laughed. “You know what it comes down to, Kat? Blood and physiology. Cells. Reality.” He groped her between the legs, an awkward aggressive pressure. She pushed away from him and he stood, dumping her from his lap. His arms rose at his sides and he stood over her like a furious dark angel. “This is it, Kat. This is what we have. And this stupid shit—”

He lurched for the cranes in the corner, the mass of strings alive with wings and delicate beaks. “Cranes. Luck. Good fortune. Bullshit!” His hands tore at the paper chains, stripping the glossy creations from their anchor, pulling them down, shredding them, crushing them. He spun on her. “You believed! When it suited you, you believed. What do you think now?”

Kat shook her head, speechless. She watched his fists close on the broken cranes in his hand and something inside her felt crushed and broken too. She backed away from the man she didn’t know, this man she didn’t recognize, and she ran.

* * * * *

Kat fled down the streets of Cambridge until she ran out of breath, until her lungs ached and then she walked, blowing convulsive breaths of condensation into the cold night air. She didn’t have her coat but she barely felt the weather. She welcomed the numbness. Her walk slowed to an amble. She stopped, finding herself in a familiar place.

She gazed up at the marquee of Masquerade. An effusive group of college-aged partygoers nudged past her and pushed her forward toward the ropes. One of the bouncers smiled at her. “Hey. Long time no see. You coming in?”

Kat looked down at herself, her jeans and tee, her hospital waiting room clothes. She didn’t even have her purse with her. “I don’t have ID,” she said, holding up her hands. Her voice sounded strange and robotic.

The other bouncer shrugged. “We know who you are. Come in out of the cold.”

They led Kat under the rope, comped her in. Their kindness resonated in the emptiness of her mood, made her want to cry some more. The darkness, the smoke and music crawled over her, coating her in a familiar film. How long had it been since she’d been here? Several months by now. It seemed like a lifetime. She felt out of place as she crossed to the stairs and climbed up to the balcony. She remembered the first time they’d talked there.

You’re monitoring my vices?

Should I be?

She remembered falling down the stairs and looking up to find him leaning over her. That was the first time she’d noticed that intensity in his eyes, the intensity he’d just turned on her in his bedroom, ripping down cranes and raging over… What? The helplessness of life. So many wishes unanswered. Even if you knew the future, like her mother, it didn’t make it any easier to cope with when it arrived.

The view from the balcony was different, so different now. Kat went to the restroom just before one but Marla wasn’t there. It was some other woman Kat didn’t know. Kat slunk out the door, having no money to leave a tip anyway, thinking of what may have befallen Marla. Car accident? Aneurysm? A particularly aggressive brain tumor like her father? The dance floor was crowded now, the music almost painfully loud. Kat pushed her way through the undulating throng, then looked up into the eyes of a guy she remembered, although she couldn’t recall his name. She ducked her head, changing direction, avoiding his grasping fingers, only to see another guy she’d been with once upon a time. She forced her way to the stairs, climbed to the balcony and huddled in the back corner, shaking with something like fear.

Those boys. She had been so empty back then, back when she’d played around with those boys. So miserable. Not the misery of sadness she felt now, but an encompassing, smothering misery that had nearly consumed her life. She didn’t want that again. She wanted Ryan. She wanted fun and trust and that closeness he forced on her that scared her and made her feel alive. She thought of crushed cranes and his empty eyes and she knew she’d ruined everything. She’d lost everything. She turned her face to the wall and let the stinging tears come.

She’d lost all the things she never even realized she had.

* * * * *

When she’d left, he’d had the urge to drink more, to really finish the self-destruction he’d started. But then his gaze had fallen on the mass of cranes. He hated those cranes for betraying him, for betraying Kat. For not living up to the magic he believed in. Even half-drunk, he realized his mistake. He realized there was only one way to save the relationship—and it wasn’t folded paper.

He gathered up every crane, one thousand in all, and stuffed them into a trash bag. It felt slightly depraved, slightly