Chapter 4
I didn't ask them to leave the bedroom. I just walked there.
My suitcase clicked against the hardwood as I pulled it past the cream sofa. The wheels caught once on the rug and I lifted it without looking back. Ryan had said the place was perfect and I believed him. That was why I'd kept the papers in my left hand the whole time, my grip tight enough that the edges bent.
The bedroom door was open. Our bed was made. Mara's clutch was on my dresser, right next to my jewelry tray, and a navy sweater I knew wasn't mine was draped over the foot of the bed. I set my suitcase down and closed the door behind me halfway, then all the way.
Ryan appeared in the doorway a minute later. He didn't knock.
"Claire," he said. His voice was lower now. "You can't be serious about us sleeping out there."
I was hanging my wrap dress on the back of the door. Underneath I had on the black tank and leggings I'd worn to the law office. "You have the sofa," I said. "It's perfect. You said so."
Mara was behind him, her arms crossed. Her emerald dress caught the hallway light. "There's only one bathroom that connects," she said. "This is ridiculous."
I looked at her, then at him. "Hall bath is in the hall," I said. "You'll be fine."
He stared at me, and I watched that slow calculation pass over his face again, the same one from when I'd walked in. He wanted me to be the one to offer a compromise.
I didn't.
"Take the extra blanket from the hall closet," I said, and I closed the door. I turned the lock. It was a small turn lock we'd never used, and it made a soft click.
I stood with my hand on the thermostat just inside the bedroom. It was set to seventy-two. I left it there. Through the window, I could see the parking lot four floors down, the lot lights making pale pools on the asphalt, my car parked in my spot with no one else beside it. I breathed in and out and listened.
The living room was quiet at first. Then I heard the closet open, the rustle of the blanket. The cream sofa creaked when they sat. I laid my papers flat on the dresser — the deed, the mortgage statement with only my name on it, the attorney's letter — and smoothed the bent corner with my thumb.
I didn't get into bed. I sat on the edge of it with my back straight and my feet on the floor, still in my socks. The apartment is not big. The walls are thin. You can hear everything if you stop talking.
After about twenty minutes, the whispering started.
At first I couldn't make it out. A low murmur from Ryan, then a sharper reply from Mara. I didn't move closer to the door. I didn't have to. Their voices carried through the gap under it and through the vent above my dresser.
"You told me she moved out," Mara said. Her whisper wasn't very quiet. "You said this was done. That she was the one leaving."
"I said it was complicated," Ryan whispered back.
"You said the papers were for me," she said. "You said that suitcase was hers going to her mom's."
I closed my eyes. My suitcase was still by the bedroom door where I'd left it, its handle pushed down.
Ryan made a shushing sound. "Keep your voice down."
"No," Mara said. "Don't tell me to keep my voice down. You have me sitting on her couch in her dress. In her apartment. And now you're telling me she owns it?"
"We can talk about this tomorrow," he said.
"There's no we tomorrow if the movers come," she said. "You told me you paid the rent. You told me —"
"I do pay part of it," he said quickly.
The sofa creaked again, like someone had stood up. I heard footsteps, then the kitchen faucet running for a second and stopping.
"I need to use the bathroom," Mara said, louder this time, clearly meant for me.
"Use the hall bath," I said through the door without opening it. My voice sounded calm even to me.
A pause. Then her footsteps went past my door, and the hall bathroom door shut harder than it needed to. The lock clicked.
Ryan stayed in the living room. I heard him sit back down. After a minute his phone buzzed, but he didn't answer it.
I lay back on the bed finally, on top of the comforter, and stared at the ceiling. The vent hummed. The city lights I'd seen from the living room window made a faint orange glow around the bedroom blinds. I didn't sleep. I counted the cars pulling in and out of the parking lot. I listened to the faucet drip once in the hall bath and to Mara's soft, annoyed sigh through the vent when she came back out and whispered, "I'm not sleeping on that thing all night."
"You don't have to stay," Ryan whispered.
"And go where at midnight?" she said.
May you like
Neither of them spoke after that.
Around two in the morning, I got up and turned the hallway light off from the switch inside my room. The living room went dark except for whatever was coming off the city. The sofa was silent. I locked my door again even though it was already locked, and sat back on the bed and waited for morning.
