What surprised me the most was that I wasn’t only fearful of the ramifications for Cal and for our relationship, but for Rosie as well. I had never had a soft spot for the scrawny thing, but goddam if I wasn’t petrified for him. Rosie had never stopped making me uncomfortable, but he had grown on me. The more I’d gotten to know him, the more I understood. Rosie had never gotten a fair shake at life, yet he’d persevered, being who he was in spite of people's confusion. The acceptance he’d found in Towertown had been transcendent for him, and he’d had to watch it get torn to shreds by hatred and ignorance without even having time to gather the scraps of his dignity before it was stripped from him. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair, but it was America, land of the free and home of the slaves. Hypocrites.

Lying under the tracks of the L on a dark summer night, I stared up at the train as it passed above me. There was a click between the cars as the locomotive sped to its destination, each one hitting the same mark and rumbling as it forged on. Sparks flew from the wheels and flitted into the balmy air, extinguished by the humidity that hung dense, making me feel worse for the wear. Peeling the cotton of my shirt away from my tacky skin, I waved some of the moon-kissed breeze in.

I should have been at the apartment receiving Rosie rather than supine under the L, but I was petrified like a tree in the forgotten forest of time. I was snapped branches and disenchanted, everything I didn’t want Cal to be. How could I have ever grown strong when my roots were yanked from underneath me? All I wanted was what a man in my position should have never expected—forgiveness for my weakness and a stake to support me. I could not expect Cal to be my strength. He’d been so much to me already. I needed to be brave and tell him to go. I needed to love him enough to look past myself and consider him. I needed to show that I’d grown under his care, but I could not be who I wasn’t. My limbs were meant to hold him, and I couldn’t let him leave, even if it meant I would expose how termite-infested I had been from the start, tough bark hiding the holes in my heartwood.