The apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan had stopped feeling like home somewhere around month eight.
James Patterson sat on the fire escape with a beer he'd paid six dollars for, watching the city move below him. It was a Friday night and the streets were alive with people who had somewhere to be. He wasn't one of them anymore.
Inside, Sarah was on the phone with her ex-husband. Through the window, James could see her pacing, her free hand gesturing even though Doug couldn't see her. She was trying to explain why she'd taken his Mercedes SUV. Something about needing it for a week. Something about a friend's place upstate. It wasn't going well.
Marcus was in the kitchen, attempting to make pasta. The smell of burning garlic suggested that wasn't going well either.
They'd worked together at a tech consulting firm in lower Manhattan. The three of them, plus eight other employees, helping companies optimize their operations. It had paid decent money. Had. Past tense. The company had gone under six months ago when the market shifted and their primary client went bankrupt. There were severance packages, but they were small. Enough to last maybe three months if you didn't spend on anything.
That was five months ago.
James had burned through his savings. Sarah had burned through hers. Marcus had gone back to his parents' house in New Jersey for two weeks before coming back and admitting he couldn't stay there. His parents had too many questions about why he wasn't "finding something better."
So they'd ended up here. In a friend-of-a-friend's apartment on the Upper West Side. The friend was a woman named Keisha who worked in finance and spent most of her time in London on a six-month project. She'd offered the apartment to Sarah for free for a few months. "Just pay the utilities," Keisha had said. "And don't throw parties."
They'd paid the utilities for three months. Then money had gotten too tight. Now they were just paying what they could and hoping Keisha wouldn't notice.
"He's threatening to report it stolen," Sarah said, hanging up the phone. She stood in the doorway between the fire escape and the apartment, backlit by the kitchen light. She looked thin. They all looked thin. Like people slowly disappearing.
"Is it stolen?" Marcus asked from the kitchen.
"It's my car. We're still married."
"Legally—"
"Don't," Sarah said. "Please don't give me the legal breakdown."
James took another drink of his beer. It was going warm. He'd been out here for an hour, watching the city. Thinking about the fact that he had $237 in his checking account and no job prospects. Thinking about the fact that he'd been married once and it had ended because they couldn't afford to stay married. Thinking about Emily in Idaho with a potato farm and a new life.
Marcus appeared in the window with his own beer. "Pasta's ready. Well, edible. Not good, but edible."
"Tell me about this place," James said. "Where Sarah's taking us."
Marcus settled onto the fire escape beside him, his legs dangling over the drop to the alley below. "Her friend Keisha has a house upstate. Near Ithaca. Apparently, she inherited it from her grandmother. She's not using it right now. Offered it to Sarah for as long as we need."
"Free?"
"Completely free."
James considered this. Free meant they could stay longer. Free meant they could catch their breath. Free meant they could figure out what came next without the immediate pressure of homelessness.
"When do we leave?" James asked.
"Tomorrow morning. Early. Sarah wants to get out before Doug has time to call the police."
Sarah appeared behind them. She had her leather jacket on, the one she'd bought during the firm's best year. "I'm not leaving you both here," she said. "You're coming. Both of you. No arguments."
"I wasn't arguing," James said.
"You were thinking about it. Your face does that thing."
She was right. He had been thinking about it. He'd been thinking that maybe he should stay. Maybe he should try harder to find something in the city. Maybe he shouldn't just run upstate with two people he knew from a job that was already dead.
But the truth was he didn't have anywhere else to go. And the city felt like it was slowly crushing him. Every morning he woke up and felt a little smaller.
"Okay," James said. "We're coming."
They packed that night. James owned very little. Two suitcases of clothes. Some books. A laptop he hadn't turned on in weeks. His wedding ring, which he wore on a chain around his neck now—a decision he wasn't entirely comfortable with but hadn't changed.
Marcus had more stuff. Comic books, vinyl records, the detritus of someone who'd been forced to abandon a life before he was ready to let go of it. He packed carefully, like each item was a memory he needed to preserve.
Sarah packed frantically, like she was running from something. Maybe she was. Her marriage had been disintegrating for longer than James's. They'd met at her divorce lawyer's office, of all places. Both there on the same day. Both trying to figure out how to afford ending their relationships.
The next morning, they loaded the SUV in the pre-dawn darkness. The streets were empty. The city felt like a tomb.
Sarah drove. Marcus sat in the passenger seat with a map application on his phone, even though the GPS was built into the car. He was nervous. He kept refreshing the map like the route might change. James sat in the back and watched Manhattan slide past the window.
"How long until we're out of the city?" Marcus asked.
"Two hours if traffic cooperates," Sarah said. "Probably three."
"And then?"
"Then we drive north. It'll take maybe five hours total to Ithaca. We should get there by evening."
James closed his eyes. He didn't open them until they crossed the George Washington Bridge. When he did, the city was behind them. There was only highway ahead.
The weather forecast on the radio was talking about a storm system developing out west. Some massive low-pressure system that meteorologists were watching with unusual intensity. It was supposed to stay out there—Colorado, Utah territory. Not relevant to them in New York.
But by the time they stopped for lunch in Pennsylvania, the sky had changed. It was still clear where they were, but ahead, to the west, there was a darkness developing on the horizon. Cloud formations that looked wrong. Too organized. Too intent.
"That doesn't look good," Marcus said, staring at the sky while they sat in a Wendy's parking lot eating hamburgers.
"It's hours away," Sarah said. "We'll be there by then."
But she was checking her phone constantly after that. Weather apps. News sites. Looking for updates about the system.
As they drove further north, the sky got darker. Not nighttime dark—storm dark. The kind of darkness that made the middle of the afternoon look like evening. The radio kept issuing updates. Severe thunderstorm watch. Tornado watch. Flash flood watch.
"Maybe we should pull over," Marcus suggested as the rain started. Light at first. Then heavier.
"We're almost there," Sarah said. Her hands were tight on the wheel. "Another hour. Maybe less."
But an hour turned into two as the rain intensified and visibility dropped. Other cars were pulling off the highway. Sarah kept driving.
James sat in the back and watched the storm. There was something hypnotic about it. The way the rain came down in sheets. The way the wind hit the car and made it rock slightly. The way the world outside the window became this grey, watery thing that felt less like reality and more like being underwater.
It was like his whole life. Grey and underwater and slowly suffocating.
"There," Sarah said suddenly. A sign for Ithaca appeared through the rain. Thirty miles. They were close.
The house was smaller than James expected. A cottage, really. Built in the 1970s, with wood siding and a porch that sagged slightly. It was surrounded by trees that were being thrashed by the wind. The storm had followed them from Pennsylvania.
Sarah pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. They sat in the car for a moment, listening to the rain hammer against the roof.
"Well," Marcus said. "Home."
Sarah pulled out a key that Keisha had mailed her months ago. They made a run for the porch, getting soaked in about three seconds. The key worked. The door opened. They stumbled inside, dripping water onto hardwood floors that hadn't seen activity in a while.
The house was cold. Keisha had left the heat off. There was dust on the furniture and a smell of stale air and abandonment. But there were beds. There was shelter. There was electricity and running water and a roof that didn't leak—or at least, didn't seem to leak yet.
Marcus lit a fire in the fireplace while Sarah figured out how to turn on the heat. James wandered to the window and watched the storm outside. The trees were bending almost horizontal now. Rain was coming sideways. The power flickered once but held.
"We made it," Sarah said, appearing beside him at the window. "We actually made it."
"Made it where?" James asked.
"Away. Out of the city. Out of the immediate disaster."
"Is that better?"
Sarah was quiet for a moment. "I don't know yet," she said finally. "Ask me in a week."
They stood together at the window, watching the storm tear through the forest. Behind them, Marcus had gotten the fire going. The heat began to spread through the house. Outside, the world was violent and wet and moving. Inside, for the first time in months, they had shelter.
It wasn't victory. It wasn't even really relief. But it was something. It was a moment where the running stopped and they could catch their breath.
It didn't last long. But for one night, they weren't falling.