One morning in February, David woke before noon on a day off. He lay pleasantly under his blankets, listening to the drifting din of the street, a murmur between Ridwan and their girlfriend coming from their room.

It would get dark in six hours. I should explore the city for once. David hadn’t done much of that yet.

He laboured over shaving, makeup, doing his hair just so. He was beginning to detest the androgynous wrap that winter gave his body. He wore a dress and purple sweater tights beneath his big grey overcoat and took the train to East Broadway, got food in Chinatown, wandered down to city hall, walked up the Brooklyn Bridge under a cloudy sky and then back over. Asked around where the Fulton Fish Market was (“It moved, kid!”). He got on the ferry for a view of the Statue of Liberty and took pictures at the railing as they passed, hustled off on Staten Island, and then hustled back on. He sat and took in the sparkling harbour as they went by the statue again. He dug out his phone to take a picture to send to his mom—

Saw his last text from her: When are you coming home?

Closed the phone, put it back in his pocket.

His face scrunched and tiny gasps came out of his mouth.

He put his hands to his cheeks and cried, very silently, a wave of despair heaving in his whole body.

He cried very, very silently.

Some minutes later, the wave had passed through him, for now. A man across from him was drinking from a tallboy, lost in thought.

“Hey,” David said. “Give you a dollar for a slug of that.”

The guy reached into a paper bag and pulled out a fresh one. “Gimme three and you can have this.”

David handed him money. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Hey! My man. Your makeup’s running.”

David got off the ferry and tossed the can into the recycling with a lazy merriment in his system. The sun was almost completely down. He would wander up to Delancey, he decided, and then he’d get back on the train and go home.

He was walking up Nassau when the clouds emptied on him. “Fuck, not again!” he said to no one, but he was laughing. His silly ass never used an umbrella growing up, not in the daylong dribble rains of Pacific Northwest winters.

He looked for the nearest subway station. Fuck, this was Lower Manhattan—wasn’t there a train like every other block?!

By the time she got down into a stairwell, her clothes were like towels in a bathtub. Jeez, she was really soaked.

She texted Iris: I have turned into a water buffalo and am by your house. You’re not at your house, are you?

Right away: Oh no! Yes I’m here, toasty warm. Come!

While she was waiting for the train, a small group of young guys inexplicably dressed in knight’s armour were joking around, and one of them eventually noticed her. “My damsel in distress!” he said. “Art thou in need of a towel? Nay, my weapons are no match!”