• When the whiskey haze finally faded, it hit Alex that she was gone.

    No, no, no…her side of the bed was cold. Had she been there at all? He vaguely remembered being led up the stairs of the fire escape, her fingers intertwined with his…he knew he remembered that. It was after they ate breakfast—eggs and whiskey shots. Charlotte hadn’t ever really been what you’d call ‘conventional.’

    Alex sat up and pushed back the straggly brunette bangs that fell over his eyes. God, he was hungover.

    “Charlotte?” he asked no one, throwing off the sheets that had been tangled around his legs. His voice was pathetic and raspy, vocal chords scorched by one too many shots of bourbon. Alex forced himself off the bed and stood on shaky legs. He repeated her name again. “Charlotte?”

    And again, no one answered.

    He cursed as a soft breeze blew through the open window. The room was filled with a spine-tingling chill, which certainly didn’t help the way he was feeling. His stomach ached—Alex wasn’t quite sure if it was because of the hangover, or the fact that Charlotte had completely deserted him.

    Where was she?

    Slowly, he made his way to the kitchen, not bothering to put on anything beside his boxers. No one would be awake yet; after all, the digital alarm clock by his bed had just announced that it was two a.m.

    There were dirty dishes on the table, caked with scrambled eggs and bacon grease. Charlotte, however, was nowhere to be seen. If she had been there, she would’ve cleaned up Sunday’s breakfast by now.

    Sunday…that was only yesterday, wasn’t it? They’d spent the entire day together in bed. And she’d been there when Alex had gone to sleep…he—he remembered kissing her goodnight, and touching the nape of her neck and wrapping a loose tendril of long honey-colored hair around his index finger. He remembered telling her he loved her. It all felt distinctly real. So where was she now?

    He needed to find her. He had meant to ask her something. There was no chance of asking her anything if he couldn’t find her, though.

    Ah…Christ. Alex dragged himself back to his bedroom and got dressed in the same clothes he’d worn last night with Charlotte, a pair of tight black jeans and a fitted red shirt. He could still smell Charlotte’s sweet perfume in the fabric of the shirt; a scent like gardenias and baby powder. After slipping on a pair of black and white checkerboard Vans, he made his way to the bathroom. Alex splashed some water on his face, in hopes that it would wake him up a bit, or at least bring him back to reality.

    Again, he told himself that he needed to find her.

    He ran down the list of where she might be—his bed (obviously that wasn’t the answer), her apartment, Starbucks (weren’t they closed by now?), or…well, he didn’t want to think about where else she might be.

    So he would search for her. After all, he did love Charlotte. She was his calling. And today—today he’d planned to ask her to marry him.

    Alex ran down the stairs and shoved his blue LG phone into his back pocket, not bothering to check the messages. He had to find her and kiss her and promise that even though he didn’t really have the money for a ring right now, that someday he would, and—

    She’d told him too many times before that she didn’t believe in love. And maybe—oh, God, things were starting to fall into place—maybe that was why she didn’t respond when he had whispered, “I love you.”

    s**t.

    He locked the apartment door behind him and bounded down the fire escape, looking out at the Oak Cliff lights. They’d stayed out here for hours on end, making out with the city noise as their soundtrack.

    Alex wondered now if he’d ever get to do that again.

    He shook his head and went down another flight of stairs, reaching the third floor. He knew her apartment number—3F.

    Approaching her door cautiously, he took a moment before he knocked. It was two in the morning, and she’d be asleep, right?

    Nah. Charlotte didn’t sleep. He rapped on the door with his knuckles, hoping it was loud enough for her to hear.

    And no one came to the door.

    Again, he knocked, and again, no one answered.

    He swore into the wind and leaned against the railing. What was he to do now? The neighbors were probably home, but it was so early, and they’d be pissed at him for waking them up.

    Alex decided to bite the bullet and knock on the door. He saw the lights come on inside, and the door suddenly opened. An overweight, middle-aged man stood, grumbling.

    “What the ******** do you want? It’s ******** two in the morning…”

    Alex began stammering. “I’m sorry—I—uh, I’m looking for this girl, Charlotte…she lives in the apartment next door. She’s my girlfriend, and I was gonna ask her to marry me, and--”

    The man grunted. “She moved away.”

    Alex shook his head. “No, I’m talking about Charlotte—Charlotte Muller? I just saw her yesterday. Where is she?”

    “I just ******** told you, she moved to Miami. You must not have seen her yesterday, because she flew out on Monday. You dumbshit All you ******** teenagers are the same.” The man moved to shut the door.

    He felt his breath begin to quicken. “I’m not a teenager. You must have her mixed up with someone else…”

    “Nope, Charlotte…blonde, big tits, kinda bitchy?”

    Alex let out a long sigh. “Thank you for the information. And—wait. She flew out on Monday? Today’s Monday.”

    “You ******** drunk. Today is Wednesday.”

    “Wednesday…?”

    “The day after ******** Tuesday, you ********.”

    Alex breathed slowly. “Thanks.”

    It couldn’t be Wednesday…was he really that hungover? Had he just breezed through the previous two days in an amber fog?

    The man slammed the door and Alex started making his way down the fire escape again. Rain started to fall, pelting the metal stairs. His foot almost slipped, but he caught himself.

    Why did this always happen to him? It seemed like every time he fell for a girl, dark clouds followed him.

    Alex felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. He leaned against the wall of the building and checked the message—just a Facebook notification. But he realized that he had another message, sent on Monday.

    From Charlotte.

    Four words—four words that hurt more than anything else he’d ever read.

    I’m not coming back.

    “No, no, no…God, no…” Alex whispered to himself, reading the message again. It caught him that he had a voicemail from Monday, so he dialed that up.

    Charlotte, again.

    “Hey, Alex, it’s me. I—God, um…s**t.” Her voice was sort of raspy and raw, like she’d been crying. Charlotte never cried—she was afraid it would mess up her makeup. “Um…okay. This…this sucks. I’m—I’m really confused right now, to be blunt. It’s—it’s raining and I’m about to go get on the plane and I just want you to know that…” There was a heavy pause. “Never mind. I’m leaving for Miami in just a few minutes and…I can’t stay in Chicago anymore. It’s not you, it’s—you know how I am, I just need to be free and—I dunno. I have to go, Alex. I lo--”

    The message cut off suddenly, and Alex replayed it twice, listening to Charlotte’s soft voice.

    She was going to tell him she loved him. She had almost done it, too.

    This ******** sucked.

    Okay, okay, Alex knew what to do now. He’d just call her and tell her he was coming to Miami, too. And he would tell her that he wanted to marry her, and he would say how much he missed her. Yeah, that would work…

    He picked her number from the address book and waited as the phone rang.

    And then the worst thing that could happen, happened.

    “We’re sorry, the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please try again later.”

    Alex stared at the phone for a moment, then hurled it over the railing of the fire escape, watching as it shattered into a hundred pieces. He felt like screaming, like hitting someone, like finding Charlotte and telling her that he absolutely hated her.

    But he didn’t. It was impossible to hate her. In reality, he probably should’ve expected this. Charlotte was an enigma, and once you got hold of her for too long, she set herself free. Her home was never anywhere on the ground, it was somewhere in the clouds, where she could keep an eye on the world.

    Alex wanted that to be his home, too. But as soon as he got there with Charlotte, she’d make her way somewhere new.

    He went down the fire escape and walked down the street, through the road. The rain was falling harder now, soaking his hair. For just a second, he stopped and glanced down the road.

    No one was coming. It was two in the morning and this part of the city was all but deserted.

    Alex closed his eyes and knelt down in the middle of the street. He stretched out, onto his back, and spread his arms.

    This was as close to home he’d ever get. He stared up into the endless violet void above him, hoping that, maybe if he squinted, he’d see Charlotte up there, home at last.