Page 6 of Boardroom Mask

I break my rule and do the one thing New Yorkers should never do: I stop and stare.

I know I’m doing it, but I can’t bring myself to stop. Because Iwantthat. That thing they so clearly have.

I want that so badly it makes my teeth hurt.

Not the boyfriend part, necessarily, nor the stoop, or the hug itself. I want the part where someoneseesyou,allof you. Theugly, frightened, broken-down parts you keep behind deadbolts and blackout curtains is revealed, and they stay anyway. They hold your gaze and they don’t look away.

I want the thing that terrifies me most.

That’s the sick joke of it all. I’ve spent five years checking locks, keeping the lights on, making sure nothing and nobody gets close enough to touch the real me. And underneath every single layer of that armor, there’s just a girl sitting in the dark, exhausted, wishing someone would break in and free her from the fear.

I tear my eyes away from the couple and keep walking.

The track changes. Megan fades out and something slower bleeds in through my headphones. Acoustic guitar, soft and sparse, then a woman’s voice, young and aching.

And if you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones. ‘Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.

“Okay, Spotify,” I mutter under my breath. “Depressing, much?”

I keep walking, but the song burrows in. It’s too close to something I don’t want to examine right now. The melody is pretty and sad, and it makes me feel like the singer somehow read my diary while I was sleeping.Corrupted lungs. Yeah. That tracks. That’s what it feels like sometimes—like I’m breathing through damaged tissue, getting air in, but it’s never quite enough, never quite clean.

It’s too cold to free my hands and change the song, so I let it play out as I round the corner onto my block. I nod hi to the doorman as I slip into my building and ride the elevator up to my floor. When I reach it, I unlock my door and shoulder it open.

Home.Thank God.

I kick off my shoes and leave them where they land. The coat goes on the hook and my AirPods get dropped on the counter. I shuck off the day’s work clothes, letting out a happy “Ahhhh” as I undo my bra and slam-dunk it into my hamper with a vengeance. Then I pull on my oldest, softest pajama pants and an oversized NYU sweatshirt that’s been washed so many times the lettering is barely visible.

Returning to the kitchen, I pour myself two fingers of whiskey from the bottle on the kitchen counter and take a sip.

That’s when I notice something strange.

My personal laptop is open on the kitchen table. I closed it this morning. I’m sure I closed it, because I always, always close it

My eyes roam to the left and snag on something else that isn’t right.

The chair is pulled out at an angle, too, not pushed flush against the table the way I leave it.

I set the whiskey down as The Fear starts to leak into my bloodstream, slow and toxic. I look at the living room. The throw blanket on the couch is folded differently. One of the cushions is turned the wrong way. The remote isn’t resting neatly in the basket; it’s hanging halfway over the edge of the coffee table like it’s thinking of taking a suicidal leap onto the hardwood floor below.

They’re all small things that nobody else would catch.

ButIcatch them. When you spend as long locking doors as I have, you’d never miss things like that.

I reach for my purse on the counter and dig around for my phone so I can call Rae to ask if she’s been here.

Before I can find it, though…

… the lights go out.

3

JILLIAN

“And you, you knew the hand of a devil / And you, kept us awake with wolves teeth”

— “Heartbeats” by The Knife

I can’t see a thing.