Maybe I’ll never be brave enough to. Maybe I only want to think I am.
So, when the crowd hits us, I find myself standing alone, surrounded by dozens of strangers.
Ruben.
Ruben.
Ruben.
Ruben.
There’s no malice in their eyes. There’s only love in their touches. Admiration in their voices. But they press against me until they’re breathing my air. Their hands, dozens of hands and hundreds of fingers, claw at my body wherever they can touch me. My neck, hair, lips, arms, legs, chest. A hand slips inside my coat. Moist lips press against my wrist.
My name gets louder, and louder, and LOUDER.
Some try to push the others back from me.
Give him some space.
Back up, guys.
He can’t breathe.
Their voices are swallowed up, though. Just like I am.
“Please, let me get through,” I beg. “Please. I need to go. I need to move. Please. Just—just let me, move, let me go, I need to get THROUGH!”
Someone hears me. Hands take mine. A small group of them pulls me, and the group grows as the word spreads. I need their help. I need them to save me from themselves.
The sea starts to move, and it’s like being dragged through quicksand, but, gradually, its grip on me loosens, and I’m collectively yanked out before I can be sucked back in the depths.
And the freezing air is back on my face. And lights. Blinking, flickering streetlights, headlights, neon lights on storefronts. I’m chanting thank you, thank you, to everyone and no one while I search for Zach, Angel, Jon.
“Ruben!” Zach finds me first, tearing his way from the crowd. He throws himself at me, and I grab his upper arm, because that’s okay, I think, that’s safe, and I need to touch him, I can’t not. The crowd is still there, and it’s still swarming, but it’s split in two. The half trying to reach us, and the other half holding it back. It wrestles with itself, seething, crushing.
“Angel!”
It’s Jon, standing with his feet planted firmly apart, fifty feet away from us. I follow his eyes and find Angel, hovering at the edge of the crowd. Angel’s skin flashes orange and white as he stares at the lights around us with unseeing eyes. The traffic is thick and furious. Even though it’s night, the city is alive and blaring. The shouts, and the crowd, and the blinding headlights whipping and whipping and whipping past, must be disorienting him beyond belief.
“I’m not going back there!” Angel yells, but he isn’t looking at Jon. He isn’t looking at anyone.
Erin and the guards appear from within the thronging crowd. They weren’t consumed. They’re immune.
Erin stands beside Jon. “Angel,” she says, in the world’s most casual voice. For the cameras. For the onlookers. “We’d better head back up now, don’t you think? We have to be up so early.”
It’s a show. Just a performance. The performances never end with us. They just go on and on and—
“She needs to stop talking,” Zach says. “She’s freaking him out.”
He’s right. Angel’s looking between Erin and the crowd, like he’s considering diving in. He’s running his hands over his face and down his neck, scraping and dragging at his skin. His chest rises and falls like a drowning man gasping for air he can’t suck down.
“He’s known you the longest,” I say, squeezing Zach’s arm. “If anyone can calm him down, you can.”
He nods grimly and takes a few steps forward. “Hey, dude,” he says. “It’s fine. Honestly. But it’s way too cold out right now, so why don’t we all go out together tomorrow? I want to see Budapest, too!”
It’s a good attempt at talking him down without making it obvious to our hundreds of witnesses what the problem is. But I don’t think he’ll buy it. It needs an endorsement. He needs something substantial to grasp on to. A promise that things will be different, if only he comes back.
As I suspected, he starts shaking his head.
“Erin,” I call. “We can go out and see Budapest tomorrow, right? Maybe we can visit the castle?”
Just say yes. Just play along until we can get him home safely. He just needs to ride this out safely.
But she doesn’t. Instead: “Angel, if we go back now, we won’t need to involve Geoff. He doesn’t have to know.”
A veiled threat. Angel stiffens. Tears roll down his reddened cheeks. “No,” he says.
Then Erin takes a step.
And he flings himself backward, screaming through a raw throat. “NO!”