7
She got ready at five-thirty, which was earlier than she needed to but felt good anyway.
She'd ordered a dress online in the first week.
It was nothing dramatic, just a dark green wrap dress that was doing what it was supposed to do, and she did her hair properly for the first time since arriving and put on the earrings she kept in the front pocket of her toiletry bag for emergencies.
She assessed herself in the bathroom mirror and thought: fine. Better than fine.
Whit looked up from the couch when she came down the hall and did a brief, frank inventory in the way he did everything: directly and without apparent embarrassment.
"Going out," he said. Not a question.
"Dinner. Friends." She found her bag on the hook by the door.
"Good." He said it simply, like it was. "You look nice."
She almost said you're just noticing I'm a person and decided against it. "Thanks."
Darcy arrived at six-oh-four, rolling a carry-on, already talking before the door was fully open. She stopped when she saw Leah.
"Oh, you look gorgeous."
"I'm just going to dinner."
"That dress…" Darcy dropped her bag and hugged her, then held her back at arm's length. "How are you. Actually."
"Actually better," Leah said, and found it was mostly true. "The work thing is going well. Jess found this place around the corner…"
"Go. Have fun. Text me." Darcy was already looking past her at Whit, who'd come to the hallway, and the specific gravitational event of Darcy coming home was already in progress. "Text me," she said again to Leah, meaning it but meaning other things too.
Leah went.
Dinner was good. Genuinely good. Jess had opinions about everything and Cassie laughed too loud and the wine was exactly right and for three hours Leah was just a person at a table with her friends and not a person sleeping on a mattress on the floor of someone else's life.
She talked about Chad less than she expected to.
She talked about the apartment more, Whit's protein containers and the resistance bands and the running, and Jess laughed until she cried and Cassie said oh honey, is he hot and Leah said that's completely irrelevant which made them both laugh harder.
She texted Darcy at nine-forty-five: heading back soon. Movie night?
Three dots. Then: YES. Whit's in, we have snacks, hurry up.
She said her goodbyes and walked back feeling, for the first time in nearly two weeks, approximately okay.