The Sound of Keys
Kenzie
I hear the keys before I hear his footsteps.
That metallic jangle against the apartment door sends my heart into my throat, the way it does every single evening at 6:47 PM. I glance at the microwave clock—6:46. He’s early. My hands, already trembling slightly as I stir the pasta sauce, begin to shake harder. I turn down the heat on the stove, wipe my palms on my jeans, and take a breath that doesn’t quite fill my lungs.
Calm. Be calm. Smile.
The door swings open, and Mark steps inside. My eyes go to him immediately, scanning, assessing, and trying to read the weather system, which is my boyfriend’s mood. His jaw is tight. His shoulders are hunched forward. His eyes—those blue eyes that once looked at me like I was the only person in the world—are dark and distant.
Bad day, then.
“Hey,” I say softly, forcing my voice to sound light and normal. “Dinner’s almost ready. I made that pasta you like, with the—”
“I’m not hungry.”
The words come out flat, dismissive. He doesn’t look at me as he drops his keys on the counter with a sharp clatter that makes me flinch. He shrugs off his jacket and throws it over the back of the couch, missing, so it slides to the floor. He leaves it there.
I turn back to the stove, my throat tight. “Okay. That’s okay. I can save you some for later if you—”
“I said I’m not hungry, Kenzie.” His voice is sharper now, edged with irritation. “Why do you always have to push?”
“I’m not—I wasn’t pushing. I just thought—”
“You just thought what?” He’s behind me now. I hadn’t heard him move. His presence fills the small kitchen, sucking up all the air. “You thought you’d nag me the second I walk in the door?”
My hands are still on the wooden spoon. I can feel the heat from the stove on my face, or maybe it’s the flush of anxiety creeping up my neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to nag. I was just—”
“Just what? Just trying to control everything like you always do?”
The accusation lands like a slap. My mind races, trying to find the right words, the ones that would de-escalate, that would smooth over whatever has set him off today. Was it work? Traffic? Something I’d done that morning before he left? I’d been careful, so careful, but maybe I’d missed something.
“I’m not trying to control anything,” I say quietly, my voice barely above a whisper. “I just wanted to make you dinner.”
Silence. Heavy and suffocating.
Then Mark sighs, long and dramatic, and moves away. I hear him open the fridge, followed by the crack and hiss of a beer can. The first of many, probably. My shoulders sag with something that isn’t quite relief.
“You know I had a shit day,” he says from the living room. I can hear him settling onto the couch, the springs creaking under his weight. “And I come home to you hovering over me like I’m a fucking child.”
“I wasn’t hovering. “I’m sorry you had a bad day.” I turn off the burner and move the pot to a cool element. My appetite has vanished anyway. It always happens when he comes home like this.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the pasta sauce I’ve spent forty minutes making from scratch—the recipe his mother gave me back when things were good, back when his mother still called me and invited me to Sunday dinners. That had stopped about a year ago. I wonder sometimes if Mark said something to her, told her to back off, or told her that I wasn’t worth the effort.
‘You’re being paranoid,’ I tell myself. Stop it.
I wipe my hands on a dish towel and walk slowly into the living room. Mark is sprawled on the couch, his beer already half-empty, his phone in his other hand. The TV is on, tuned to a sports channel, and the volume is too loud.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, perching carefully on the edge of the armchair across from him. Not too close. I want to be close enough to show I care, but not so close that he feels crowded.
“Talk about what?”
“Your day. You said it was bad.”
He doesn’t look up from his phone. “Nothing to talk about. Just the usual bullshit. Dave being a dick. Traffic was fucked. Everything’s always fucked.”
I nod, even though he isn’t looking at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” He takes another long drink. “You’re always sorry.”
The words sting, but I don’t respond. I’ve learned that sometimes silence is safer than trying to defend myself. Defending myself only makes things worse, turning his irritation into anger and his anger into rage. I’ve seen that progression too many times.
I reflect on the girl I used to be. The individual who would have responded with a pointed remark, who would have sneered in someone’s face if they addressed me in such a manner. That Kenzie—college Kenzie, high school Kenzie—feels like a stranger now. A ghost. Someone I used to know in another lifetime.
I’d been loud once. God, I’d been so loud. Always laughing, always the centre of attention at parties, always ready with a joke or a story. Stella and Piper still talk about those days sometimes, their eyes getting soft and sad when they look at me, like they’re mourning someone who’d died.
Maybe that version of me had died. Maybe I’d killed her, slowly, over four years of walking on eggshells.
“Are you just going to sit there staring at me?” Mark’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
“No, I—sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
About how I got here. About how you used to be different. About how we used to be different.
“Nothing important,” I say.
He finally looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m not. I’m just tired.”
“You’re always tired.” He shakes his head, turning back to his phone. “Maybe if you didn’t spend all day gossiping at that coffee shop, you’d have more energy.”
The coffee shop. My job. The one place I can breathe, where I can be something close to myself, where Stella and Piper remind me that I’m still a person, still Kenzie, even if I feel like I’m disappearing a little more each day.
“I don’t gossip,” I say quietly. “I work.”
“Right. Making lattes is such hard work.” His tone is mocking and cruel. “Must be exhausting.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting copper. Don’t cry. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Don’t let him see how much it hurts.
“I’m going to clean up the kitchen,” I say, standing.
“Whatever.”
I escape back to the kitchen, my hands shaking as I start washing the pot. The hot water scalds my fingers, but I welcome the pain. It’s something real, something I can control. I scrub harder than necessary, watching the red sauce swirl down the drain.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I dry my hands and pull it out.
Stella: You okay? You seemed off today.
I stare at the message. My fingers hover over the keyboard. What would I even say? That I’m fine? That’s what I always say. Fine. Everything’s fine. Mark and I are fine.
The lies come so easily now.
Me: Yeah, just worn out. Long day.
Stella: You sure? You know you can talk to us, right?
Me: I know. I’m decent, promise. See you tomorrow.
I put the phone away before Stella can respond. From the living room, I hear Mark crack open another beer. The second one. By the time he gets to four or five, he’ll either pass out on the couch or he’ll start looking for a fight. I’ve learned to read the signs, to predict which way the night will go based on the speed of his drinking, the set of his shoulders, and the tone of his voice.
Tonight feels like a fighting night.
I finish the dishes in silence, moving quietly, trying to make myself small. When I’m done, I dry my hands and stand in the kitchen doorway, watching him. He’s absorbed in his phone now, his jaw still tight, his free hand clenched into a fist on his thigh.
I remember when those hands used to hold mine gently. When they used to cup my face like I was something precious. That was before. Before my parents died. Before the drinking got worse. Before everything shifted and darkened and became this.
He’d been so good to me after the accident. So caring, so present. He’d held me while I cried, had gone to the funeral, and had helped me and Ethan sort through our parents’ things. For a few months, I’d thought maybe the tragedy had brought us closer, had reminded him of what mattered.
But then something had changed. Or maybe it hadn’t changed—maybe it had just intensified, like he’d been holding back before and the grief had given him permission to stop pretending. The drinking increased. The criticism started. The yelling. The way he’d grab my wrists when he wanted me to listen, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks that I’d cover with long sleeves and bracelets.
He’s never actually hit me, I remind myself. He’s never crossed that line.
But sometimes, when his hand shoots out to grab my arm, when his face gets too close to mine and his voice rises to a shout, I wonder if it’s only a matter of time.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say softly.
He grunts in response, not looking up.
I walk down the narrow hallway to our bedroom, closing the door behind me. The room feels like a cage. Our bed, unmade from this morning when I left for my shift at 5:30 AM. His clothes are on the floor. My clothes were folded neatly in the dresser. Everything is divided and separate, even though we share the same space.
I grab clean pyjamas and lock myself in the bathroom. Only when the water is running, loud enough to cover any sound, do I let myself cry. Silent tears that run down my face and mix with the shower spray. I press my forehead against the cool tile and let myself feel it—the exhaustion, the fear, the desperate, aching loneliness of living with someone who makes me feel more alone than if I’d been by myself.
I think about Ethan. My big brother, who calls me every few days to check in and who worries about me even though he has his own life to manage. He doesn’t know. I’ve made sure he doesn’t know. After losing our parents, I couldn’t bear to add to his pain, couldn’t bear to admit that my relationship—the one thing that had seemed stable in the chaos of our grief—is actually falling apart. Has been falling apart for years.
I should leave, I think, not for the first time. I should just pack a bag and go.
But where would I go? Ethan’s place is too small. Stella and Piper have their own lives, their own problems. And besides, what would I even say? That Mark yells at me? That he’s mean sometimes? That he grabs my wrists and drinks too much and makes me feel like I’m worthless?
It sounds so small when I put it into words. So manageable. So much like something I should be able to handle on my own.
He loves me, I tell myself. He’s just stressed. Things will get better.
But even as I think it, I know it’s a lie. Things don’t get better. They only get worse, slowly, incrementally, like a frog in boiling water that doesn’t realise it’s being cooked alive until it’s too late.
I stay in the shower until the water runs cold, then dry off and dress in my pyjamas. When I emerge, the apartment is quiet except for the TV. I find Mark passed out on the couch, an empty beer can on the floor beside him, his phone still clutched in his hand.
Relief floods through me. He’s passed out. That means the night is over. That means I’m safe.
I cover him with a blanket, gently, careful not to wake him. Then I retreat to our bedroom, climb into bed, and stare at the ceiling in the darkness.
Tomorrow I have to work the morning shift. I’ll see Stella and Piper. I’ll make lattes and smile at customers and pretend that everything is fine. And then I’ll come home and do this all over again.
The thought makes me want to scream.
Instead, I close my eyes and try to sleep, knowing that in a few hours, I’ll hear the sound of keys in the door again, and the whole terrible cycle will begin anew.
