he managed. “Just fine.” He excused himself and went upstairs. He went into the bathroom and his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps by that point. He looked in the mirror above the sink and did not care for his reflection. The way his eyes kept blinking or did not blink at all. The way his lips quivered and age had been etched into his young face. He did not look in the sink. He could not bear to. A hot, almost gaseous odor was coming from the drain. Come down to us, Lily, come down in the darkness with us. Christ, he’d come here to see Chrissy and now her crazy mother had opened up a can of something horrible in his head. Dead people down in the sewers. Nicky. Her dead sister calling to her from the drain. What kind of damaged shit was that? Well, you helped her along that path to the nuthouse, now didn’t you? He supposed he had. Lily talking about all those dead people living down there and what does he say?
