Nathan
The man’s still wheezing when I drag him out of the elevator and onto the ground.
His fisherman’s hat hits the floor somewhere between the doors and the hallway, landing beside his keys.
I take a breath. My knuckles throb. My pulse is still hammering.
I pull out my phone, scroll to a number, and press call.
“Hello,” comes the emotionless voice over the line.
“Yeah,” I say, voice low. “It’s me. I just hit a guy.”
A pause. A very. Long. Pause.
“Your place?”
“Yeah, in the building. He’ll be outside my door till you get here. Just… get him out of here.” I don’t recognize the gravelly undertone of my own voice.
“You got it.”
I hang up before the questions start. I don’t want the stress of having to answer them, because honestly, I don’t have the answers. I just reacted.
Inside my apartment, the quiet hits harder than the punch did.
I drop my keys, flex my hand, looking at the cut across my knuckles… I’ll need stitches in the morning.
What the hell was that?
I don’t even really know the girl.
She was already gone before I threw the punch. She didn’t see a thing. Did she hear, though?
I had no choice. The way that guy followed her into the elevator, the way she pressed the wrong floor, the way she froze. I felt it.
That tension, that sick feeling of fear that creeps into your soul. The kind that hums in your chest before something happens.
It was like my body moved before I could think. Like muscle memory. I just reacted.
Like I’ve been here before, and this time I refused to let it happen again.
Maybe it wasn’t about her at all.
Maybe it was about… someone else.
Someone Ishould’veprotected.
Someone Ididn’t.
Someone Ifailed.
I stare at my reflection in the window… the city lights fractured across the glass. Jaw clenched. Hands still trembling with the aftermath.
Why the hell did I even care?
Why did it matter what happened to her? She was just a stranger I happened to meet in the elevator—a really pretty stranger.
Why did something in me react like she was more familiar than that? Old habits die hard, maybe. Or maybe I’m finally snapping. I sink onto the edge of the bed and press my eyes shut. The city fades away along with its lights, its pressure, its need to constantly be seen and heard.
