“In case you need me,” Rowan finished gently before coaxing me into a hug. “Being prepared isn’t the same as wishing it into existence. I understand. Let’s hope this conversation is all for nothing, but if it’s not, at least we’ll be prepared to help your friend no matter what.”
“Yeah, at least that.”
Rowan did his best to distract me for the five minutes, which were excruciating. But when no text message came in, my finger was ready on the call button at four minutes, fifty-nine seconds.
I chewed my lips as the phone tookforeverto connect the call, but when it did, it went straight to voicemail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
Well, shit.
“Are we going?” Rowan asked, his pale eyebrows raised in concern.
“We’re going,” I confirmed.
“All right.”
I allowed myself one more split second to feel relief that I had such an understanding boyfriend, but then I focused, and we were out the door.
For the second time in a very short span, I was rushing to rescue someone who was incredibly important to me. Well,mayberushing to rescue. Although I was very focused on driving safely, considering I was pushing it with my speed, I couldn’t help but think about how unsafe it was that both Rowan and Tweety’s only real lifeline in emergency situations wasme.And while my boyfriend did have his incredibly close relationship with Iko, I imagined a blind cyclops couldn’t exactly rush there with a car, and he didn’t seem to have much of a support system either.
That simply wasn’t safe. What if I was hurt when they needed me? Or not available for some reason? Everyone deserved to know that they had at least a handful of people they could count on to come swinging in to help during an emergency.
And how many other folks like us hadno one?Not a Naomi, not a Rowan, not a Carolina or Iko. How many were so utterly alone that when life got hard, they just got…gone?
A sobering thought, and one I lingered on right until I peeled into a parking spot in front of Tweety’s apartment building. From then on, my entire mind was focused on getting to her apartment.
“It’s going to be okay,” Rowan soothed from beside me, step in lock with mine. “You’re here now, and even if it’s just a silly miscommunication, we can take her out to dinner to make up for it.”
I didn’t know how to tell him that in all of our years of being friends, I’d never once seen Tweety outside of video calls. Wasn’t the time. I punched in the code she’d given me for the front hall, then made a beeline for the elevator.
After about one lifetime of waiting for the rickety thing to arrive, and then another very fraught lifetime of standing in it while it rose withfartoo many shuddering protests, we were finally on Tweety’s floor.
And, well, it wasn’t what I was expecting.
I knew from our handful of calls over the years that Tweety’s place was modest. A one-bedroom instead of a two-bed like mine, and her dining room was more of a little bit of extra space in the kitchen for a breakfast nook than anything else, but it came with a balcony, which was pretty important for a grounded harpy who needed mental and physical stimulation from the high air.
But for as lovely as Tweety had made the inside, the outside was kind of a dump.
Not that I was judging, I just wish I’d known. The hallway floor had carpet that once might have been a stunning red and blue, but now was either a faded salmon, a washed-out gray, with many stains that occupied the entire gross-rainbow. As if that wasn’t enough, there were sunken parts in some areas and enough bumps that if I looked down the corridor and squinted, the floor made a wave.
The walls weren’t much better. There was wallpaper, but it was so aged that it was mostly yellow, and whatever pattern it had once had was so faded and sun-bleached, you could barely see it. Some sections looked like someone had started to paint over it only to give up after a few feet of wall, and that paint was both chipping and cracking, leaving the entire place looking very, veryworn.
“Landlord should be doing some work here,” Rowan remarked without any judgment. And I couldn’t help but agree. When I’d first moved out of my family home into a room for rent—AKA someone’s basement—it was a dump, but I’d been so glad to be free that it was worth it. But the idea of Carolina and so many others paying the highest rent that they could afford only for their slumlords to let the building fall into such disrepair… Well, another reason having community could help Tweety. If she could find another magical roommate, or even one of the few magically inclined rental owners in the city, I was sure her situation would improve.
All in good time, however. Right now, I was just focused on making sure she was okay.
Because shehadto be okay.
There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. My circle was so small, I wasn’t willing to lose a single person out of it.
Striding right up to her door, I gave what I hoped was a reasonable knock. Loud enough that she could hear me if she had fallen or was trapped on the other side of her apartment, but hopefully not too loud to be disturbing if she was indeed there and just had a cracked phone screen or something.
My heart matched the rhythm of my fist, and relief filled me when I heard footsteps inside.
She was alive! It didn’t matter if she was mad at me or whatever. The only thing I felt was immense relief as I heard her approach the door.
However, that relief was short-lived, as the closer those footsteps became, the more I became aware of her scent. Even though we’d never met in person before, I could identify the sharp scent of anxiety and stress, and the sulfuric twang of old tears. Not to mention some regular BO. People could have all sorts of hygiene online and no one would be aware, but I knew for a fact that Tweety was fastidious to the point of being agermophobe. She showered two to three times a day, although it was more akin to preening than traditional human showers, and she soaked in a bath with Epsom salts for her pain every other day. That, combined with the plethora of hand sanitizers in the background of every video call, told me that body odor strong enough to make it all the way through her door to my barely enhanced senses meant something was seriously wrong.
“Hello?” she asked. Although her voice was different in real life than it was over our calls, it was stillher,and I could tell that she was a mess. “Maintenance? You’re supposed to call ahead.”
