Two Weeks Later
For the first few days, I thought Alian would come get me.
I didn’t know how he’d find the apartment. I didn’t know what Joon had told him, or whether he was still at the House, or how badly they’d fought when he woke up and found me gone. I imagined several versions of the fight. In all of them, Alian was furious, and eventually somebody gave him my address.
I kept my phone beside me while Mom talked and took it into the bathroom. Before bed, I turned the volume up in case he got my number instead. I rehearsed whole arguments with him about how long he’d taken.
Mom stayed for the first few nights. She bought groceries, washed things that were already clean, and kept finding reasons to touch me when she walked past. I let her. Sometimes I caught her looking at me and smiled before she could ask anything.
I’d wanted to see her so badly. Now she was standing in my kitchen, asking where I wanted the mugs, and I couldn’t stop watching the door behind her.
The first night, she offered to sleep beside me. I told her I wasn’t five, then got up an hour later to check that she was still in the spare room. Her slippers were crooked beside the bed. I stood looking at them until she woke up.
“What is it, honey?” Mom asked, lifting her head from the pillow.
“Nothing,” I said from the doorway. “Go back to sleep.”
She lifted the blanket anyway. I crossed the room and got in.
When she went home, I helped carry her bags to the car and told her I’d call that night. Back upstairs, I shut the apartment door and immediately wanted to open it again.
I could have gone with her. She’d asked. I had a car; I could visit whenever I wanted. But if Alian came here while I was gone, what then? I pictured him knocking, getting no answer, leaving before I got back.
So I stayed in the apartment Joon had bought me and learned which noises belonged to the neighbors.
I could hear the elevator from the couch. A dog barked across the hall whenever somebody passed its door. For a while, I got up every time it started. By the end of the first week, I could usually make myself stay seated, though I still turned the television down.
I started the job Mara had arranged. There were forms to sign and names I forgot as soon as people told me them. Somebody showed me where the coffee was. I went back twice that first morning because I couldn’t remember which door led to the bathroom and didn’t want to ask again.
Having somewhere to be helped. I washed my hair and put on clothes I’d have been embarrassed to sleep in. For whole stretches of the day, somebody needed me to pay attention to something that had nothing to do with the House.
Then I’d get home and check whether anything had moved: a chair, the mail I left on the counter. Once, I thought the bedroom door was open wider than before, and I went through every room before I remembered carrying the laundry basket through it that morning.
I called Mara. She answered questions about the job and asked whether I was eating. When I asked her to take me back, she refused. I tried asking for a number instead. Just Lucas’s. Just so I could hear for myself that he was getting better.
I didn’t get that either.
Afterward, I saved her under her full name. It was a pathetic little punishment, particularly since she would never see it, but I couldn’t bring myself to delete the only number that might get me near them.
By the fourteenth night, I was eating toast over the sink because a plate would have given me another thing to wash.
Mom called while I was picking a burnt corner off the second slice. She asked about work. I told her about a woman who’d spent ten minutes looking for glasses she was wearing on top of her head. Mom laughed, and I managed to laugh with her.
“Do you want me to come this weekend?” Mom asked.
I looked toward the spare bedroom. “You already stayed all those nights.”
“That was hardly a chore, honey,” she said. “I asked if you wanted me to.”
I rubbed a crumb off the counter with my thumb. “I’ve got laundry. And I might have to work.”
I didn’t have to work. I wanted her to come. I also wanted to get through one phone call without giving her another reason to worry.
She stayed on the line until I pretended to yawn. We said good night, and I kept the phone against my ear after she’d hung up.
The toast was cold. I put it in the trash.
There were two mugs in the drying rack. I’d used them both. I put one away, then the other, wiped the counter, and opened the refrigerator. Mom had bought eggs. I checked the date on the carton and put it back.
It was barely ten.
I stood with the refrigerator open until it started beeping at me.
“Okay. Fuck,” I muttered, and shut it too hard. The jars rattled, and I turned toward the living room with an apology already in my mouth.
Nobody was sitting there.
I went to the couch and picked up my phone again. No missed calls. I opened my contacts, scrolled past Mara, then scrolled back. My thumb rested over her name.
I knew what I’d ask. She knew too.
I put the phone down and pressed both hands between my knees. Across the room, my work bag was ready by the door. I’d put my keys on top so I wouldn’t have to look for them in the morning.
Tomorrow, I would get up and take that bag to work. Afterward, I would come back, lock the door, and find something to eat. I could do all of it. I’d been doing it.
I couldn’t figure out when I was supposed to stop expecting somebody to be here.
Two weeks. Alian had been awake for almost all of them. Whatever happened that first morning, whatever Joon told him, there was time to argue. Time to get angry and find a phone.
I didn’t know if he was looking for me. I had no evidence that he was. I’d been making it up because I couldn’t stand sitting here without it.
My phone slid between the cushions when I reached for it. I shoved my hand into the gap, caught the edge of the case, and lost it again.
“Come on,” I muttered, digging farther between the cushions.
I pulled one off, and the phone fell onto the rug.
I left it there and covered my face.
At first, I tried to keep quiet. I was still doing that, even here, with nobody to wake up. Then I couldn’t get a breath without making a sound, and I bent over my knees and cried until my nose ran onto my hands.
I wanted Alian. I wanted to put my face against him and have him complain about the snot on his shirt while he held me there. I wanted Lucas to interrupt. I wanted to hear somebody moving around the kitchen while I fell asleep.
“I want to go home,” I said into my hands.
Saying it made me cry harder. I’d wanted Mom. I’d wanted to leave. I had meant those things too, and now I was sitting in an apartment I owned, wishing somebody would come and take me out of it.
Eventually I got up for tissues. I blew my nose, filled a glass of water, and carried it into the bedroom. I left it untouched on the nightstand and climbed into bed with my phone.
I checked it once more before putting it facedown.
The other pillow was cold when I dragged it against me. I folded myself around it, knees drawn up, and tried to breathe through my mouth. Every time I started settling, I remembered the weight of Alian’s arm around me that last night. The first time we slept like that, and I woke up somewhere else. I pressed my face into the pillow and started again.
Sometime after four, I fell asleep with the pillow wet beneath my cheek.
* * *
I woke up with my face stuck to something that wasn’t my pillow.
For a few seconds, I kept my eyes shut and pressed closer. Whatever it was gave beneath my cheek, soft and warm where I’d been lying on it. If my bed had developed a new feature overnight, I was willing to be grateful.
Then a piece of fur went up my nose.
I pulled back, sneezed, and opened my eyes.
A teddy bear stared at me from the other pillow.
It was brown, with a crooked little nose and a cream-colored stomach. One ear had folded beneath its head. A flower lay across its lap, the end of the stem wrapped in damp paper and plastic so it wouldn’t wet the sheets.
I stared at it. Then I lifted my head and looked toward the bedroom door.
“Mom?” I called, still thick with sleep.
The refrigerator started humming in the kitchen.
She wasn’t here. I’d talked to her last night. I rubbed my face, trying to wake up properly, and looked back at the bear.
I sat up slowly. The bear tipped toward me, taking the flower with it. I caught the stem before it slid off the bed.
“Where did you come from?” I murmured, turning the bear in my lap.
A tag stuck out near its hip. I turned it over, looking for a note, but there was only washing information and an instruction to remove all packaging before giving it to a child.
Great. Appropriate for ages three and up. Finally, something in this apartment I was qualified to handle.
I put the flower on the nightstand, beside the glass of water I’d carried in last night and never touched. Then I picked up the bear properly. It was bigger than it looked on the pillow, filling the space between my folded legs and my chest. Its head tucked beneath my chin when I brought it closer.
I meant to check the other side for a card.
Instead, I hugged it.
“I love you.”
I jerked backward so hard the bear nearly went over my knees.
The voice came from its stomach, small and cheerful and completely inappropriate for the state of my nervous system. I stared down at the cream-colored fur, then pressed it with two fingers.
“I love you,” the bear repeated.
My mouth trembled. I held the bear away from me while I tried to stop it, which was apparently the best I could do this morning. Two weeks of having my own apartment, my own money, my own car, and I was about to lose my shit because somebody had put a speaker inside a stuffed animal.
I tucked it against me again, keeping my hand off the hard little disc beneath the fur.
I stroked the bent ear flat with my thumb and held it closer.
Then I smelled coffee.
I lifted my head. The scent was faint, coming through the open door. I put both mugs away last night. I hadn’t made coffee.
I got out of bed with the bear still held against my ribs.
On the kitchen counter, beside the stove, stood a stainless-steel thermos.
The lid sat crooked on its threads. I set the bear on a stool and picked up the thermos. The exposed neck was hot beneath my fingers. When I lifted the lid, steam touched my face.
Coffee, with milk already mixed in. I bent over it and breathed in. I knew before I took the small, stupid sip that burned my tongue.
Joon.
I lowered the thermos but caught the edge of the counter instead of setting it down. Coffee splashed against the rim. I steadied it with both hands.
“Joon?” I called out.
I went straight to the spare bedroom. The bed was made. Mom’s slippers were gone, packed in her bag when she went home. Nobody stood behind the door or beside the wardrobe or anywhere a man his size could conceivably fit.
I checked anyway.
“Joon,” I called again, louder this time.
The bathroom was empty too. I yanked the shower curtain back, sending the rings scraping along the rod, then went into my bedroom and opened the closet. My work clothes hung where I’d left them. The flower was still on the nightstand.
He’d been beside my bed.
I turned so quickly my shoulder hit the closet door.
“I’m awake,” I called.
My voice carried through the apartment. I waited in the doorway, one hand pressed to my shoulder, listening for the floor to creak under him. A cupboard. A footstep. His irritating habit of saying my name before he told me something I wouldn’t like.
“You can come out,” I added, trying to keep my voice steady.
A truck rattled past below the window.
I ran to it.
The latch stuck, and I fought with it until the window gave under my hands. Cold air hit the thin shirt I’d slept in. Across the street, the buildings were catching the morning light, and there were people behind the glass, moving around kitchens, pulling on jackets, living whole lives while I tried to find one face.
“Joon!” I shouted.
A woman on the sidewalk looked up. I searched past her, over the parked cars, the entrance across the street, the narrow space between two buildings.
“I know you’re here,” I called down to the street.
The coffee was still hot. The bear had been against my face. He came into my bedroom while I slept and reached across my pillow. I slept through it.
Last night I lay awake for hours thinking about him and Alian, about Lucas trying to smile with a face that hurt.
Then Joon had actually been there, and I’d fucking missed him.
“Please,” I called, leaning farther out and bracing my hands against the frame. “You can explain later. Just come upstairs.”
As if I could wait. I was already trying to decide which question to ask first. I wanted to know how he’d gotten me out of Alian’s bed. I wanted to know if Lucas’s hand worked. I wanted to know why loving me apparently required everyone to disappear.
I could ask later. I would take him upstairs first.
“I’m not going to yell,” I called. My voice cracked. “Okay, I probably am. But you can still come up.”
Someone opened a window on the building opposite mine. An older man looked out, squinting across the street. I waited for him to move so I could see the room behind him.
“You looking for somebody?” he called.
I nodded before remembering he needed more than that.
“A man,” I called back. “Tall. Black hair.”
He glanced toward the sidewalk. “Down there?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
The man looked back at me. His expression changed, and I hated him for being able to see my face from that far away.
“You all right?” the man asked, leaning a little farther out.
I pulled myself inside before I had to answer.
The apartment was cold now. I left the window open and crossed to the front door, unlocked it, and pulled it wide. An elevator hummed at the end of the hall. Somewhere behind one of the other doors, a dog barked twice.
I stepped out barefoot. “Joon?” I called down the hall.
The elevator opened. A woman carrying a laptop bag came out and slowed when she saw me. I moved aside. She walked past, keys already between her fingers, and let herself into the apartment across from mine.
I stood there until her lock turned.
He knew which apartment was mine. He didn’t need me standing outside it to help him find the door.
I went back in, but I left it open.
In the kitchen, I picked up the thermos again. It was still hot. I wrapped both hands around it and stood where he would see me if he came through the doorway.
“You can have some of this,” I said.
My voice sounded ridiculous. I was offering him his own coffee, and I couldn’t even hear whether he was there to refuse it.
“Or I’ll make you something,” I added, watching the doorway. “I have food.”
There was bread in the cupboard. Eggs. Things Mom had bought because she kept opening my refrigerator and getting upset. I could cook eggs. I could sit across from him at the little table he’d bought and be angry while he ate them.
I looked at the empty chairs.
“I had a really bad night,” I said, barely above a whisper.
The words scraped on the way out. I put the thermos down before I dropped it.
“I think you know that,” I added.
Traffic moved beneath the window. The front door stayed open. I waited until the cold reached my feet and my phone started buzzing in the bedroom.
My alarm.
I let it ring. It stopped eventually, then started again.
The bear sat on the stool where I’d left it, one leg hanging over the edge. I picked it up by the middle and felt the little plastic box through its stomach.
He could get into my bedroom. He could put this beside me, make the coffee, wrap the fucking flower so it wouldn’t leave a mark on his nice furniture. But he couldn’t walk through a door I’d left open and let me see him.
“Fuck you,” I said toward the open door, and threw the bear across the room.
It hit the wall above the couch and dropped onto the cushions.
“I love you,” its little speaker announced.
I stopped with my hand still lifted.
The bear lay facedown between two cushions. One arm stuck out beneath it, and its ear had folded over again.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I crossed the room and picked it up. My face was wet before I got it upright. I smoothed the fur over its stomach, carefully avoiding the speaker, then fixed the ear with fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking.
“I know,” I whispered.
I set it against the arm of the couch. It slumped sideways. I moved a cushion behind it and tried again until it stayed where I’d put it.
My alarm was still going.
I wiped my cheeks on the bottom of my shirt, closed the front door, then went back to the window and pulled it shut. In the bedroom, I stopped the alarm and unwrapped the flower. A little paper clung to the stem. I peeled it away, put the flower in the untouched glass of water, and carried the wet wrapping to the bathroom trash.
The mirror was going to be a problem. I turned on the cold tap and found a washcloth.
I had work in forty minutes.
