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"That's not a fair comparison. And technically, we’re still waiting on the untitled, Mercy House Two."

"I know it's not fair, but it's how it feels. Some of what I felt was real fear. But also—" He searched for the word. "Maybe armor? Against the fact that he was succeeding at something I haven't figured out. It's easier to be afraid of someone than to admit they have the life you want and the talent to back it up."

Layla watched him with the expression she got when Hakeem said something true enough to make her stop being funny.

"That's really honest," she said.

"I'm trying it on."

"It's working. Keep going."

"I described his method perfectly. At the bar, to you and Tabbi. I was describing exactly what was happening to me, in real time, in the house where it was happening. I didn't know because I was too busy being the character to recognize the author."

Layla reached over and put her hand on his knee.

"Go home, Hakeem."

"I will."

"Tonight."

“Okay."

"And this time, don't accuse him of anything."

He almost smiled. "No promises."

Hakeem drove back through Los Angeles an hour later with Layla's voice still in his ears and the feeling of complete emotional exhaustion. He felt emotionally disassembled and partially reassembled in a single evening.

The freeway was empty. The city sprawled around him in its nighttime configuration—lights scattered across the basin like someone had dropped a jar of fireflies and decided the mess was beautiful enough to keep. He took the exit toward home and felt the word land differently than it had that morning. This morning, the house had been a crime scene ready for its cue. Now it was the place where an author who wrote books Hakeem loved was sitting alone with the knowledge that his roommate had thought him capable of violence.

Hakeem parked on the street. The house was mostly dark. The porch light was on, which meant Antonio had turned it on after Hakeem left. A small thing. The kind of thing you did when you wanted someone to be able to find their way back.

He sat in the car for a full minute, hands on the wheel, looking at the light.

Then he went inside.

The front room was empty. The lamp was off. The book Antonio had been reading was on the couch, face down, spine up, holding his page. Antonio had washed the glass from the table and put it away. The room had been restored gently, as if someone had tidied up because sitting with the mess was worse than cleaning it.

Hakeem walked up the stairs until he reached the thin stretch of hallway. Antonio's door was closed. A thin line of light showed underneath it.

Hakeem walked to the door and stopped.

He raised his hand to knock and then didn't. His knuckles hovered an inch from the wood. On the other side, he couldn’t hear anything.

"Antonio," he said.

His voice came out quieter than he intended. The kind of volume you used when you weren't sure you wanted to be heard but were also terrified you wouldn't be.

A pause. Then, from inside the room, a sound. It was the quality of silence changing, the way a room's attention redirects when someone in it starts listening.

"Yeah," Antonio said.

His voice was close to the door. He sounded as if he had been somewhere within arm’s reach of the wood between them.

Hakeem leaned his forehead against the door. The wood was cool and smooth and he closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said.