“I warn you, child. If I lose my temper, you lose your head! Understand?!” Grace said. “Congratulations, Henry. You’re officially trespassing.”

I looked around. Apart from a few trees stripped naked from the cold—or possibly long dead—there appeared to be little more on this side than an empty field.

“Where is this mysterious train station you speak of?”

Grace pointed with her cane and set off in front of me. “Just down the hill.”

And it was. Not ten seconds after we’d started walking, a small, sodium-lit building came into view, nestled away in the blackness.

“It looks like a crypt,” I said.

“Well, it is a crypt. In the philosophical sense. All old buildings become crypts the moment they’re finished. A shrine to a time that’s already dead.”

“You are very weird, Grace Town.”

“I know.”

“I don’t mind it.”

“I know.”

When we reached the building, we came to a tall gate made in the same elaborate design as the fence.

“Come,” said Grace. “We’re only trespassing at the moment. Now it’s time for the breaking and entering.”

“Grace, no, come on, that’s really—” I said, but the gates swung open at her touch and she walked through them and looked back at me and winked.

“They haven’t been locked for years.”

We walked through a short, dim tunnel out onto a single open platform that was, shockingly, lit from above by burnt sodium lights. The station was in a much better state than I expected it to be. It was mostly clean of graffiti and not overgrown by any kind of vegetation.

“Uh, as far as abandoned buildings go, this one seems to be in pretty un-abandoned condition,” I said. The ceiling was a series of high arches made of frosted glass, the ground checked marble in black and white, the walls of the building eggshell and emerald green tiles. “Are you sure this isn’t a leftover set from The Great Gatsby or something?” I said as I took it all in, because it really was that beautiful.

“It’s a historical landmark, so even though people aren’t allowed here anymore, they still try and look after it. C’mon, you still haven’t seen the best part.” Grace knelt at the station door then, an ornate piece of wood painted red, and started picking the lock with a hairpin.

“Okay, now, that is breaking and entering.”

“The best thing about historical landmarks is”—there was a ping as the lock clicked open—“all original fixtures. Hundred-year-old locks are child’s play.”

“Are you aware that you’re slightly terrifying right now?”

Grace ignored me, turned on the flashlight on her phone, and stepped into the dark. I followed her through a series of empty, pitch-black rooms, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the old building, until we came to a cast-iron spiral staircase that corkscrewed into the ground.

“Look up,” Grace said as we started descending the stairs. Above us was another domed glass roof, but one of the panels was shattered to reveal a spray of white stars. A rare sight in the city.

We couldn’t go all the way down the stairs because the basement was flooded. Grace sat on the second-to-last step, took off her shoes, and put her feet in the water. Then she tore off a little piece from the loaf of bread and flicked it into the water. It floated on the surface for a few seconds before I heard a bloop and it was sucked under.

“What the hell was that?” I said, backing up the stairs.

“Calm down, it’s only fish. Come down here. Sit really still and they’ll come up to you.”

It felt a lot like the trash compactor scene from Star Wars, but I’d already come this far, so I did what she said. I went down the stairs. I took off my shoes. I sat next to her, close enough that our clothing brushed when either of us moved. I put my feet in the cold water. I sat still. I didn’t speak. I watched as Grace tore off more bread and let it float above our toes. A few minutes passed, and then the fish came, these small, silver streaks about the size of my palm. They darted in and out of our legs, their slick bodies brushing our ankles. Grace put out more bread and more fish came, until all the water around us was alive with silver.

“This is awesome,” I said, but Grace hushed me so I wouldn’t scare the fish away. I fell quiet and just watched them, and watched her, and tried not to think about how soft her lips would feel if I kissed her.

When the bread was gone, Grace leaned back against the stairs with her arms behind her head, so I did the same.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Henry?” she said.

The question kicked my heart into overdrive. “Uh, no, not really.”

“Why not?”

“I . . . Um . . . Shit, I’m really not good at this sharing business.”

“I noticed. Why is that? I thought you were a writer.”

“Exactly. I’m a writer. I could go home and write you an essay on why I’ve never had a girlfriend, and it would be awesome. But I . . . kinda suck at telling stories when they’re not on paper.”

“So you draft everything? Filter everything?”

“Well, it sounds depressing when you say it like that, but yeah. I guess.”

“That sucks. You lose the rawness, the truth of who you are if you pass everything through a screen first.”

“I guess you’re right. If rawness is what you want, at least. I struggle to get the exact message I want across unless I write it down.”

“Why don’t you try?”

“How?”

“Give me the unedited draft of why you’ve never had a girlfriend. Blurt it out.”