Then I looked up.
My door was open.
Not all the way. Just an inch, maybe two. A sliver of darkness where the door should have been flush against the frame.
I stopped breathing.
I locked that door. I always locked it. Checked it twice, three times, a habit so ingrained it was automatic. Lock, check, check again. Every single time.
But the door was open.
I didn't move. Didn't call out. Just stood there in the flickering hallway light, staring at that crack of darkness, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I could feel it in my throat.
He was here. He'd been inside my apartment.Touched my things, breathed my air, stood in the space I'd convinced myself was safe.
I thought about running. Thought about turning around and going back to the café, back to Joanna, back to anywhere that wasn't here.
Instead, I turned to the door across the hall.
Cal's door.
My hand was shaking when I knocked.
He answered in seconds, like he'd been aware, like he'd been waiting. Sweatpants and a faded station T-shirt, barefoot, hair damp like he'd just showered. His face shifted the moment he saw me, from tired to alert, something sharpening behind his eyes.
"Lucy?"
It was the first time he'd said my name in six months. The sound of it in his voice, low and rough, almost undid me completely.
"My door," I managed. "It's open. I locked it, I know I locked it, but it's open, and my ex has been texting me, and I didn't know where else to go, I'm sorry, I just?—"
He was already moving. Past me, across the hall, his hand catching my wrist as he went. "Stay here. Call 911 if I tell you to."
I started to protest, but he was already pushing my door open. He grabbed a flashlight from the table by his door as he passed and clicked it on as he disappeared inside.
I should have called 911 anyway. Should have stopped him from going in alone, unarmed, breakingevery safety protocol he'd spent fifteen years learning. But I just stood there, frozen in the hallway, listening to him move through my apartment.
Footsteps in the living room. The bedroom. The bathroom. Closet doors opening and closing. The sounds of someone trained to clear a space, to check every corner, every shadow.
When he came back, his expression was carefully neutral.
"No one's there," he said. "But your window was unlocked. The one in the bedroom that faces the fire escape."
I hadn't unlocked that window. I never unlocked that window.
"Okay." My voice sounded strange, too high, too thin. The hallway tilted slightly. I pressed a hand against the wall to steady myself. "Okay. Thank you. I'll just—I'll figure it out. I'm sorry to bother you."
I turned toward my apartment, toward that open door and the darkness beyond it. My legs felt disconnected from my body, shaking so badly I wasn't sure they'd hold me. I took one step, then another, and the floor seemed to shift beneath my feet.
His hand caught my arm.
"Lucy."
The way he said my name stopped me cold. His grip was the only thing keeping me upright.
I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do with my hands, my eyes, the trembling that wouldn't stop no matter how hard I tried to hold still. So I just sat there on Cal's couch, in Cal's apartment, surrounded by Cal's things. I remembered again that he used to be my fiancé’s best friend and captain, so I tried to remember how to breathe.
I kept replaying it in my head, trying to make sense of how I'd gotten here.
