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I don’t open it in the lobby.

The first time I received one, I tore into it before the elevator arrived and spent twenty-three floors reading the same five sentences while a woman holding a Pomeranian watched me lose an argument with my own face.

I have learned to wait until I am inside my apartment.

Usually.

I make it into the elevator before sliding my finger beneath the seal.

The paper inside is folded twice and carries the faintest trace of her perfume. Maybe she sprayed it deliberately. Maybe it transferred from her skin while she wrote. Either possibility is enough to make me lift it closer before I can stop myself.

Her handwriting begins neatly, but it never stays that way.

Ryan,

If the mezcal gets heavy and you call me, I will answer.

If weakness is what places your voice against my ear again, I won’t punish you for how it arrived. I also don’t believe calling me would make you weak.

You spent too much of your life confusing needing someone with failing to survive without them. Those aren’t the same thing. I can survive without you. I have proven that. I remain deeply uninterested in continuing to do it forever.

Call me sober, drunk, angry, lonely, or laughing because Briggs has done something ridiculous. Call me because you miss my voice. Call me because you woke from a dream with your hand inside your boxers and decided describing it in writing wasn’t enough.

I will answer.

I laugh beneath my breath as the elevator doors open.

By the time I reach my apartment, I am already reading the next paragraph.

Your letter was indecent.

I read it seven times because thorough analysis requires repetition.

I considered responding with dignity. Unfortunately, the woman I am now says what she means, and what I mean tonight is that I have been thinking about sex.

I stop inside my doorway. “Holy fuck.”

I shut the door behind me and continue.

Not sex in general. That would be manageable. I have been thinking about you, which has never been manageable.

I have also been attempting to rank our ten best nights, and the exercise has become academically irresponsible because I keep changing the order.

The maze earns an honorable mention, mostly because you had your fingers inside me seconds before Briggs, Rider, Elenore Mercer, and that bitch Lyric found us. It was reckless, humiliating, and nowhere near as private as either of us believed, but it was also the first time I saw the truth in your eyes. You didn’t only want me. You were already beginning to care, and that terrified you enough to make the memory unforgettable.

The night you showed me your tattoos belongs near the top, although not for the reason you will assume. I had seen pieces of them for years, but that was the first time you let me understand them. Your mother’s name. Your neighborhood. The history you carried across your skin while everyone else saw ink and arrogance.

You stood in front of me without hiding anything, and I understood that letting me see you was more intimate than taking off your clothes.

Taking off your clothes was still excellent.

My laugh breaks against the silence of the apartment.

I drop my keys on the counter, miss the bowl entirely, and leave them on the floor.

Then there was the night in your room at the castle when you called me mi hada.

You tried to bury it beneath something filthy, but I heard you. We both knew I heard you, and then we performed the most ridiculous act of mutual dishonesty in the history of spoken language. You pretended it hadn’t escaped, and I pretended it hadn’t entered my bloodstream and remained there.