Split

I was reading Chris’s last message — Don’t leave before I speak — when the room went quiet.

I looked up and froze.

What’s my face doing on the big screen?

Shut your mouth. You look stupid.

No, smile.

Not like that, you creep.

Like that.

Is that a hair sticking out of my eyebrow?

Jeez.

Around me, people cover their mouths and start whispering.

What did you just do?

Chris is onstage. He’s frowning. Chris never frowns when cameras are around.

“…and none of it would have existed without her.”

The prize is on the stand in front of him. He doesn’t touch it. He looks up at the screen, where the attention I never wanted is now split between Chris and me.

The theater closes in. Camera flashes go off in my face.

***

Chris takes my arm as we follow an assistant from the prize organization. “One of the little perks of winning,” Chris says, looking up at the observation tower.

Wait, Helen. Wait.

Hold on.

The assistant looks at me and smiles, inviting us into the elevator. I know he would understand whatever I said. They pretend they don’t. But they do.

The elevator doors close behind us, and my jaw unlocks before I can stop it.

“Oh, you absolute coward. I told you to read the fucking book.”

“I know,” Chris says. He keeps his chin down. The prize, red and gold, dangles from one finger.

“No, you don’t know. You never listen.”

He frowns.

There it is again. He hates that scar that splits his forehead when he does. I hope someone makes a meme of it.

Something like a smile tightens my lips.

“How could I possibly have known you’d meant that?” Chris asks.

“I—”

Calm down.

My jaw unclenches again, slowly. It’s sore.

“By reading it, Chris.”

He stares at me. Then he looks away and loosens his tie. Beyond the security glass, the Shanghai skyline glows in threads of pink and blue. Chris stands on a transparent section of floor, eight hundred and fifty feet above the pavement. I keep my back against the wall. The sight of the void beneath him makes my stomach turn.

“We had a pact, Chris.”

I shouldn’t have to say any more. The platform moves beneath him. I grip the wall. One of the towers slides into view behind him, a clean opening cut through its top against the sunset.

“I never wanted fame. I never wanted prizes. That was the deal.”

My chest tightens.

“Helen—”

“No, Chris. Now you’ve given them my name. My face.”

"I need to get out of here."

“We have to wait until they come back,” Chris says behind me. “They’re taking us down.”

I move along the curved wall toward the center of the tower, looking for something close enough to hold my gaze. Something to hold my weight.

There’s a bench in the hall, right in front of the elevators.

I can breathe again.

The air fills my chest. It comes out in a short burst, then another. I press my hands against my wet face.

Stupid Chris.

The hall stands still around me. I can hear my breath slowing down. Through the doorway, a patch of sky stays still while the platform turns. Another tower, with an opening near the top, catches my eye. Further away. Smaller from here.

Chris comes slowly into view, carried by the platform. He turns, walks to the doorway, and leans one shoulder against the frame. The prize still dangles from his hand.

“Helen—”

Again, the scar splits his forehead.

Good. Give it something to do.

“I read it. The book,” he says. Then he raises his eyes to mine.

“What?”

“I said—” Chris begins.

The questions line up in my mind and stumble into one another.

“When? Why now?”

“I read it. I just pretended I hadn’t.”

I hear the words. I miss the meaning.

My coat. It’s in the car.

“I had to be ready. Press. Signings. Questions.”

Who’s this?

He comes into the hall. Just a small, careful movement. He sets the prize on the floor and leans back against the wall.

“The book is bigger than me. I don’t deserve to be the one standing in front of it,” Chris says.

Bigger than him. Doesn’t deserve it.

My mind catches on the words and starts pulling at them.

I look up at Chris, but every answer I have sounds like something I’ve said before. I fold my arms tight against my chest.

Help me.

“I could carry the interviews. The cameras. The nonsense. But not the book.”

“Chris—”

“Really? That’s exactly why I gave it to you in the first place.”

I’m not cold anymore.

“When can I go back to the hotel?”

Chris sighs. “They said they’d be back in an hour or so,” he says.

“Fine.”

I get up and walk out to the platform through the other doorway. I keep my head high and step onto the rotating platform. My gaze fixes on the Huangpu River, on the strip of silver between the buildings. I walk against the turn, keeping the hall out of sight.

A third tower, with a hollow square at the top, slides into view.

They look like needles.

Maybe they always did. Maybe I only see it now.

“There was a question,” Chris says behind me.

I don’t turn around. I don’t trust my balance here.

“Really?”

“Before the ceremony. A journalist asked me about that line near the end.”

I know exactly which line. Still, I ask: “What line?”

“Something about building a story on someone’s silence and using it as an excuse.”

“And?”

“He asked if it was meant as a confession.”

For the first time since the prize ceremony, I catch myself smiling. I make sure Chris doesn’t see it.

“That is you speaking,” Chris says behind me.

I notice I’m walking faster. I still don’t look down, but my body is warming up. Chris walks one step behind, our footsteps synchronized.

“Helen. Wait.”

I think about it, but I don’t think I can stop moving without falling down. He catches up and walks with me. Chris holds the prize before my eyes.

“Helen, this is yours. It’s the biggest prize there is. And your book won it.”

“My book? It’s your book. Your name is on the cover. Your name is everywhere.”

Chris widens his stance and steps in front of me. Then he turns around.

I’m not going to stop.

He keeps walking backwards.

Jesus! It even looks natural on him!

“Okay, okay, Helen,” he says, lifting his hands, asking me to stop.

The prize is right before my eyes. Then it flies up in the air. I stumble over something and my arms fly out, searching for something to hold on to. Anything. Everything turns around me: the platform, the skyline.

I’m falling.

Eight hundred and fifty feet to the pavement.

The fall ends before fear can close around my chest. A red-and-gold blur hits something close to me with a hollow thud.

Then it clinks on the glass floor and, for the second time, I prepare to land on the pavement.

But nothing seems to move. After a moment, I hear no glass cracking. No alarm.

Chris is under me. We’re both still on the platform. The city keeps turning. He doesn’t move.

My hand passes in front of my eyes as I try to get up. I catch a flash of red. Whatever it is, it is wrong.

But I know what it is.

“Chris!”

“Chris,” I say again, reaching for his collar.

He doesn’t move. My hands are wet, slick red. The scar on his forehead has split open and won’t stop bleeding. The prize lies beside him.

“Don’t you dare,” I say, shaking my head.

“Don’t you dare leave me with this mess you’ve made.”

Should I press the wound?

I do.

It’s either right or wrong. I don’t know which one scares me more.

He doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t move.

Oh my God. What if they blame this on me?

“Chris… come on.”

I’m exhausted.

Sooner or later, someone will come. Sooner or later, the book will be the least of my problems.

My fingers are sticky.

I stare at the spinning city. The needle towers pass before my eyes, one after the other, only to start all over again.

Now I feel those hollow openings watching me.

I didn’t want any of it. Now I’ll have it all.