The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 325

The hand holding his coffee cup trembled slightly.

"When she jumped down from the wall, she scraped her knees, but she didn't even glance at them. She ran over, squatted in front of me, and pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket. Inside was a warm roll and a slice of hot roast beef. The meat was still steaming. She had kept it tucked against her chest so it wouldn't get cold. As she watched me eat, she kept saying, 'Don't be scared, I'm here.' Later, I found out she lived on the next street over. She had heard me crying for ages but couldn't figure out how to get in. The alley was too narrow for adults to squeeze through, so she was the only one who could climb the wall."

"After that, she started bringing me to her own home. My mom worked crazy hours, mostly night shifts. Sloane told her mom, 'Mom, let Josh stay with us, he'll starve alone.' Her mom didn't ask a single question. Not one. She just added another plate at the table and set up an extra bed. Her mother was incredibly gentle... She would often make a rich meat sauce over pasta for us. The smell would drift out of the kitchen and fill the whole block. She always spoke softly, and when she smiled, her eyes curved like crescent moons. Sloane had her exact same eyes."

He paused. A skua flew past the window outside, casting a tiny moving shadow across the snow.

"From then on, I was her shadow. Wherever she went, I followed. When she went to school, I chased after her bike; when she had practice, I crouched by the pool and counted her laps; when she competed, I held up handmade cardboard signs in the bleachers, screaming louder than anyone else. Do you know how incredible she was? I was terrified of those debt-collecting thugs with their massive tattoos. My legs would shake. But she, just a teenage girl, stood right in front of me, smashing their beer bottles against the wall one by one. 'If I ever see you in this alley again, I'm calling the cops.' None of them dared to step forward. They were scared of her. They were all terrified of her."

He smiled at the memory. It was brief, gone in a flash, and then his eyes grew red.

"To me, she was a superhero. Invincible. The kind of person who could hold up the sky with one hand if it fell. It wasn't until later that I realized—even superheroes get scared. She missed her mom, too."

"After her mother passed away, she would sneak up to the roof by herself. She'd hold her cello—not playing it, just holding it—and stare up at the sky. I caught her once. She turned, smiled at me, and said, 'It's nothing, the wind is just too strong, some sand got in my eye.' But there was no wind on the roof that night. Not a single star in the sky either. She just... missed her mom too much."

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