Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Alex
Evie's overnight bag has been packed since Tuesday. She's been talking about Lily's sleepover with an enthusiasm that I’ve never seen before. This is the first time we’ve stayed in one place for her to not only make a friend, but for that friendship to become something more than passive.
Lily not only sits next to her in math class, but as fate would have it, lives in the apartment building a block away.
She has, by Evie's account, correctly identified Sophie as a problem without asking her opinion on the matter, which is apparently the primary qualification for friendship as far as Lily is concerned.
"You have my number," I tell her, for the third time, as we stand outside Lily’s door.
"I have your number," she confirms, with the impatience of someone who has decided to be kind about the repetition.
"And Mr. Roberts—"
"And his. Alex." She turns and looks at me with those eyes that carry the experience of someone far beyond her years. "I'm going to a sleepover. In the building around the corner. Not across the city."
"I know that."
"You're doing the face."
"I don't have a face."
"You are making a face," she says. "The one that says you want to say something else but you’re trying not to." She picks up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder as she continues. "Whatever it is, just say it."
I look at her for a moment longer — this kid, this extraordinary impossible kid — then tell her, "Have fun. Call me if anything feels wrong. Call me if anything feels right, actually, I just want to know you're safe."
She smiles. A real one for once, the kind that reaches all the way up to her eyes, the one I wish I saw more of.
"I'll call you," she says. "I promise."
"I’m holding you to it," I nod, hug her briefly, and let her go.
When I get back to the apartment, it is very quiet.
I stand in the middle of it for a moment and take inventory of the quiet, not entirely sure what to do with it.
It is six-thirty on a Friday evening, and I have nowhere to be until my café shift tomorrow morning, and the apartment is mine and only mine for the first time since we moved here.
I have absolutely no idea what to do with that.
With a deep breath, I decide to attempt to do what an adult who works two jobs and raises a child by themselves does in moments like this: relax.
First, I make tea, sipping on it while I sit on the couch and read a few chapters of a book I've been trying to finish for six weeks.
But my mind keeps wandering, and I manage to retain none of them.
I check my phone — no messages, which means Evie arrived safely and has already been absorbed into the business of being a twelve-year-old girl at her first sleepover, which is exactly what I wanted for her. I try to remember how that's supposed to feel: happiness, joy, excitement.
Just as I begin to settle down and let my guard relax, some of the lights in the apartment go out.
No warning flickers, not gradually, all at once.
All of them, the lamp, the kitchen light, and the small light above the stove, everything, the whole building going dark in a single instant that turns the apartment into a collection of grey shapes and window-light from the street below.
I sit very still for a moment. Then I reach for my phone and turn on the flashlight, slowly moving to the window to look out.
Outside the surrounding buildings are as dark as my own, and confirm that yes, the whole block is dark.
With a deep breath, I go searching for the spare candles I have stashed just for occasions such as this.
I find two in the kitchen drawer, set them on the counter, lighting them with matches from the same spot, and go back to the couch.
I pick up my book and tell myself this is fine.
This is a blackout. Blackouts happen. I have candles and a fully charged phone, an empty apartment, and a Friday evening, and this is fine.
And it is fine, for all of exactly thirty seconds.
Then there is a knock at my door, and my heart jumps into my throat as it echoes through the silence.
Three knocks, which is Mr. Roberts's pattern, and I am halfway to the door with my phone flashlight in hand. Then I realize that without the light in the hallway, I won’t be able to look through the eyehole and see who is outside.
What if it isn’t really Mr. Roberts? I panic. Stopping in the entryway, hesitating.
"Alex." Mr. Roberts's voice, from the hallway, cheerful and slightly muffled by the door. "We came to check on you and Evie."
We?
I take a deep, stilling breath before moving, deciding to look anyway, maybe, just maybe the shadows of the flashlights will give me some visibility. Going to the door and looking through the peephole, I gulp at what I see.
Mr. Roberts is in the hallway with a flashlight, and the beam reflection off the door outlines his silhouette as well as another's. Beside him, taller than him by nearly a foot, with his phone flashlight on, and an expression of complete composure that I find absolutely infuriating, is Victor.
"I ran into your neighbor on the way up," Victor says, through the door, like this is normal. “I offered to come check on you guys with Mr. Roberts.”
"He's just moved in up the hall," Mr. Roberts adds helpfully. "4D. I thought since the power's out you might want some company. Blackouts are no fun alone."
He what?!
I look at Victor through the peephole. He looks at the door with those pale eyes and the composure of a man who is simply unbothered by this turn of events.
In fact, he almost looks amused. He moved into the building, my building, where my daughter and I live.
After everything that has happened, that cannot be a coincidence.
The power is out, Evie is at a sleepover, and I am completely, comprehensively alone. And I realize that despite everything that’s happened, I don’t want to be alone in the dark. With a heavy sigh, I open the door.
"Thank you," I say, with everything I have. Feeling instantly relieved now that the decision has been made.
And then the other shoe drops.
"Of course, dear." Mr.Roberts pats my hand. "I have to go check on the other residents. Victor offered to stay with you for a while. Holler if you need anything, I’ll be back in a bit."
He shuffles back toward the stairs, with his flashlight bobbing, and I watch him go, keeping my thoughts to myself. When he disappears down the stairwell, I finally look at Victor. Alarm rising once more.
"No," I say.
"The power is out," he says, like it answers every question and concern I have racing around in my brain.
"I have candles."
"I can see that." He looks at the phone flashlight in my hand. "You should have more than just the two in there lit. It's a big apartment."
"It's a small apartment," I counter.
"May I come in?" he asks, leaning on the threshold, that amused glint still in his eyes.
"No." I say, even as I find myself stepping back.
He comes in despite my pitiful protest, the way he seems to do everything — unhurried, completely certain of his position, like the world around him bends to his whim, and we're simply moving through the formality of arriving at it.
I step back again, because the alternative is him walking through me, and some part of my body has very strong opinions about being in close proximity with him again.
He moves past me into my apartment and looks around, taking note of where I have the candles lit.
I close the door and lock the locks. The hallway is cold, and despite the danger that just came into my apartment, even more danger remains outside of it.
"You moved the furniture around," he says casually as he moves to sit on the couch.
I stare at him, confused. "How would you know that?”
He looks at me. Says nothing. And reality crashes down on me instantly, the anger rises so fast it nearly takes the air from my lungs. "You’ve got to be kidding. How dare you. Get out.”
"Alex—"
"You bugged my apartment didn’t you?" I say it quietly, with a bite of animosity; the walls are thin, and yelling will do nothing but bring further attention to us, but the strain of my anger is there in the words.
“And now you moved into my building? After you followed me to work and kissed me in the alley. And it was you that left the milk outside my door with my real name on it.” The weight of all of it pressed heavily against my chest. "You have been listening to everything. "
"Yes," he says. No apology. Just a clean, solid admission, no remorse.
"Then you need to leave."
"I heard you," he says with a grin. "Three nights ago. After you got home." He holds my gaze across the candlelit apartment, still unmoving. "You said my name."
The heat that climbs my face is immediate and total, and I hate it with every fiber of my being. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You were in the shower," he continues. "You said my name." A pause. "More than once, I might add."
"Get out."
"I couldn't stay away after that," he says, ignoring my demand completely.
"I tried. I sat in 4D and I told myself you were a liability and a complication and a variable I needed to manage from a distance, and then I heard you say my name like that and I have not been able to think about anything else since.
" He moves then, standing, moving toward me.
I take a step back, he keeps coming, and I quickly backtrack and find the wall behind me, which is becoming a recurring theme in my interactions with this man. "So here I am."
"Here you are," I say. "In my apartment. That you bugged. Without my permission."
"Permission defeats the purpose of bugging now doesn’t it." He teases with amusement.
"You're not even remotely sorry are you?"
"Would it help if I was?"
"No," I say honestly. “But it would be moral of you to have at least a smidge of remorse about invading my privacy. Again.”