“Did you just move in?” she yells down.
Good lord, the pipes on her. I clear my throat. She’s on the second-floor balcony of the studio next to mine—so time to yell.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you from?”
“Kentucky, then D.C.”
She nods and wipes the back of her hand across her forehead. The heat must be worse for her. “Do you need any help with your plants?” I say loudly. “If it’s ever too bad this summer, let me know. I used to garden back home. I could hop to your balcony from mine.”
She waves that idea away. “I’ll give you a key.”
We talk for a while more. I learn her name is Lucia, and that she’d moved to Glory Run to be closer to her grandchildren. Likeme, she lives alone. “Are you sure about that, though?” she asks when I tell her I don’t know anyone in this town yet.
“Positive,” I say, cracking a real smile for what feels like the first time in weeks. “Honestly, I’m not sure how long I’ll be living here.”
“I figured as much.”
That isn’t my neighbor’s voice. In fact, that’s a soft bass my suddenly pounding heart recognizes. I turn and find Max standing on the scraggly front yard of my run-down apartment building. “Hey,” I say, lighting up. I always do when he’s around.
He does not light up. “Can I come in?”
Reading people by how they present themselves is the documentarian’s curse. Appearances are like personal billboards. Designer clothing, squeaky-clean shoes, wearing a watch when everyone has clocks in their pockets. People scream stories about themselves, begging us to listen to what they don’t want to say out loud.
This morning, Max’s scruffy appearance is screaming,Danger.
We’re inside my apartment. Note the wordmy.We’d been able to get away with living together in D.C.—everyone needs roommates there—but Glory Run is ninety minutes of solid traffic away from Austin, there’s nothing to do if you don’t work for Ignition, and rent costs two nickels and a salute to the American Flag. Of course, I’d reassured Max that it was fine. I’d gone from college dorm roommates to splitting a cheap studio with him, and haven’t lived alone since my birth mom’s periodic vanishing acts. In a way, I’d kind of liked the idea of decorating this tiny apartment however I’d like. It’d been fun. Feminist, even.
Max eyes the Laughing Buddha–print tea towel hanging off my stove as I hand him a mug of black coffee. It’s one of the only things I’ve unpacked.
“Thanks,” he says.
I take the chair across from him. “Need any sugar?”
“Not today.”
“Oh.” I shift in my seat. He always takes sugar. “Cool, yeah.”
He looks tired. His sleepy puppy dog expression hasn’t changed a bit since we were in college and I had to explain calculus to him so he wouldn’t flunk his Gen Ed. His long black eyelashes crisscross in front of his exhausted brown eyes, the same color as mine and barely visible beneath waves of dark hair he never learned to manage.
“Lilah,” he says after a record-breaking stretch of silence.
“Max,” I reply, trying to smile. I’m nervous. I don’t know why, but I am so nervous.
“This feels kind of impossible to say.”
“So just say it.” I laugh, then stop as his eyes flash. He hates my nervous giggling.You’re always laughing at me.
“Okay. I’ll say it.” Max circles his thumb over the top of the mug, slow, steady circles that should relax my heartbeat but don’t. “There’s someone else.”
“Someone else,” I repeat back, not understanding. “Like, in the apartment?”
“No. Someone else… to me. I’ve been, you know. God, it’s so weird to say this out loud.” He trails off, and I follow his sentence into silence. Because my brain isn’t working, isn’t beeping the right beeps and booping the right neurons, and this isn’t an ADHD medication issue since I took that this morning. This is dread, all natural.
Then, all at once, every single brain cell I have fires. “Are you cheating on me?”
Max’s puppy dog expression stalls out somewhere betweensweet relief and horrible frustration. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to. It just… happened.”
