Page 7 of My Girl to Use

She didn’t try at all.

I huff out a quiet breath, something close to a smirk pulling at my mouth. “Yeah…this might actually be interesting.”

I think back to her soft, motherly voice. Single mom, likely. Young. Tired. Still holding it together better than most. And definitely not impressed by me.

I shake my head slightly, amused despite myself. I push away from the window, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Good,” I mutter under my breath. “Keeps things simple.”

But even as I say it, I know that’s not entirely true. Because simple wouldn’t have me thinking about her like this. Wouldn’t have me replaying that two-second interaction in my head like it meant something. Or me already wondering what it would take to get her to look at me differently.

I twist the cap off the bottle and take a long drink, letting the silence settle again. I glance once more toward the door, toward the hallway where she disappeared into her own space. A slow smile pulls at my mouth.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “This place might not be so bad after all.”

Chapter Two

Zora

The walls are too thin.

I noticed it the first night I moved in. I’ve been here for almost two months. The week after Janice left him, Amelia gave me until the end of the month, and I found this place in four days because it was the only listing that didn't ask for a co-signer. My boss let me bring Levi to work. The landlord here didn't ask what I was to him, and I didn't volunteer it. That's the whole story of how we got here—nobody asked, so I never had to answer.

It won't hold. I know it won't hold. But it's held for two months.

But today, it feels worse. Louder. Like every sound next door is happening right inside my head. And right now, that sound is people arguing. Sharp voices, raised tones, loud enough to make me flinch.

Levi shifts in my arms.

I freeze instantly, holding my breath like that might somehow keep him asleep. “No…no, baby, stay asleep,” I whisper softly, gently rocking him as I sit on the edge of my bed, my entire body tense.

He’s been sick for two days. Fever. Crying. Barely sleeping. I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to take him in. And I’ve run that conversation a hundred times in my head—the desk, the clipboard, the woman asking me for his insurance and his birth certificate and my relationship to him, and me standingthere with a letter from a woman nobody can find. So I don’t take him in. I sit up with him instead, and I check his breathing every twenty minutes like that’s the same thing.

It isn't. I know it isn't. But the nurse at the daycare center looked him over and assured me he would be fine.

I haven’t slept either, and the only reason he’s down right now is that he finally exhausted himself.

And now this.

A woman’s voice cuts through the wall, loud and angry. “You don’t get to just disappear, Jax!”

Jax.

So that’s his name. My jaw tightens slightly. I shift Levi carefully, pressing him closer to my chest as I glare at the wall like that’s going to do anything. I already know it’s him. My neighbor. The one I ran into the other day. The one I haven’t stopped thinking about.

I exhale sharply at that thought and shake my head. “Not important,” I mutter under my breath.

It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Except…it kind of does. Because I saw her. The woman. Tall. Beautiful. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, like she stepped off the pages of some fashion magazine. She walked into his apartment like she belonged there, and for some reason, I didn’t like that.

She walked in like doors are just things that open. I’ve never once in my life walked into a room like that. I learned to read a room from the hallway—whether the TV was on, whether there were shoes by the door that weren’t hers, whether tonight was a night I ate something or a night I didn’t. You don’t come out of that and then stroll through somebody’s door like you own it.

I didn’t like her. Didn’t like the idea of him with her. Which is ridiculous. I don’t know him. And he definitely doesn’t know me.

Levi lets out a soft whimper, and I immediately shift my focus back to him. “Hey, it’s okay,” I whisper, brushing my fingers gently over his cheek. “Ignore them, okay? They’re just…loud.”

Another loud shout echoes through the wall. Levi jerks. My heart drops. “No, no, no,” I mutter urgently, rocking him faster now. “Please don’t wake up, baby, please…”

It works. Next door, the argument continues like nothing’s happened. As if they don’t care who they’re disturbing, and something inside me snaps. I quickly place him in the bassinet, needing to do something about the noise.