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Receipts. Stray coins. Polaroids and burned CDs from friends. A plastic hat from a New Year’s party—2001? That seemed like ages ago. Some old cough drops. A coat she had picked up at a thrift store ages ago, moth-eaten and wrinkled.
It wasn’t as if she was going to live there forever. She moved in as an undergraduate and had intended to move out before grad school, but the rent was cheap, and the super was nice, and most places in Ashfield made you pay for your laundry. She could have ended up like Richard, living in the complex for decades because moving elsewhere was a pain. The thought caused her heart to drop. Richard was dead. Murdered, horribly, and possibly spending an eternity of unrest within a serial killer’s personal hell. Did he have any family members who would come to take his belongings? It wasn’t a surprise that Frank let her and Henry end their leases early, he probably had his hands full.
“How’s packing?” Henry peered through her doorway. She didn’t want to close any doors between them, not right now. His voice was at odds with everything she was feeling right now. Calm, quiet, even.
Eileen pushed herself out from under her bed, sighing. “I have too much junk,” she threw the plastic hat into the trash bag. “I should have done a deep cleaning years ago.”
Henry nodded. “Moving makes you aware of how much you really have.”
“How’s it going for you?” He shifted awkwardly from one leg to the other.
“Done.”
“Already!?” He invited himself into her room and sat on her floor, drawing his long legs to his chest in an effort to take up less room.
“I…moved around a lot when I was younger. I’m pretty good at packing by now,” Henry’s eyes fell on an empty box. “I can help you pack, if you want.” 'You probably shouldn’t be moving around so much' was the implication.
Her arm hung uselessly in a sling across her chest. It came as a surprise that the only bones in her body that were actually broken were two in her arm. Despite the bruises that colored so much of her body, the worst of her injuries were a fractured radius and ulna, two lost premolars, a sliced open back and an eye that was swollen shut. She supposed she should consider herself lucky. The patch remained over her eye. Each time that she had seen what was under it, she had recoiled. Long sleeves did their best to cover the splotches of olive and mulberry on her arms. Out of sight, out of mind…
“I won’t say no.”
Henry was the one doing most of the work, at his own insistence. Eileen sat on her bed, watching as Henry sifted through her belongings. She wondered if she should have been more embarrassed about him seeing so much of her life. They had exchanged pleasantries in the hallway before, but she hadn’t seen him as someone she could trust until recently. Whatever their relationship now could be called—she felt unsafe without him, and had even considered asking to move in with him. But that would be imposing… she couldn’t tell how comfortable he was around her, and didn’t want to risk chasing him away by crossing a boundary. She couldn’t lose him now, not after what they had been through.
Renting an apartment in the same complex seemed to be the best idea. He’d be in the same building, but if she was clinging onto him too much, he’d have his own room to hide in long enough for her to get a clue. “Have you seen the new place, yet?” She absently kicked her feet, wincing as she pulled a tendon a little too harshly.
Henry gave her a small nod. “It’s… smaller. No laundry machines,” Eileen groaned. “But there’s a laundromat on the same block. And there’s a nice park nearby. I saw some ducks there.” She pictured Henry walking through the park, following ducks around with his camera in hand. There was something adorable about that image.
She didn’t feel great about signing a lease without even visiting her new home, but she hardly felt good about anything recently. Her life had become an uncomfortable malaise, mixed with bouts of chest-aching sorrow. Were it not for the pain that agitated her nerves with each movement, she’d assume that this was all a terrible dream.
“I’ve lived here since I was nineteen…” Her voice held a tremble that she tried desperately to choke out. Now was not the time to start crying, especially not in front of Henry. “It feels so… surreal, you know? I thought I’d move out because I’d get a good job, or that’d I’d move in with a partner. Something…” She waved her unbroken hand in the air, as if trying to conjure the perfect word.
“Affirmative?”
“Yeah… but I suppose no one expects to end their lease because their apartment wanted them dead.” Surely they would find that funny in a year or two. They’d be visiting the laundromat together, laughing about how they both somehow moved into a place where there was a corpse in the walls that wanted them both dead, all while her bras finished a spin cycle a few feet away from them.
One of these days, surely, they could look back at the situation as something absurd. Just another problem someone could have with their apartment, like a door that wouldn’t fully close or electrical outlets placed too high.
“How are you holding up, Henry? Like, mentally,” Perhaps she was being too open with him. Was it possible to be too open with someone who had seen you at death’s door? “You haven’t really had time to recover. I’ve been stressed out about all of this, but what about you?”
Silence. “I’m stressed about it too,” his voice was so soft and thin she was worried it could break. “It’s hard enough for me to start over in a new place. I felt like I was finally starting to fit in.”
“I’ll be there!” A pause, “…If that would help. I’d understand if you’ve had enough of me for now, but… at least you won’t be alone.”
Henry turned to her, the ends of his mouth twitching into the faintest smile. He reached past her swollen eye, tucking her hair behind her ear. Eileen put her hand to the spot, as if the warmth from his touch would flutter away.
“You’re right, I won’t be alone.”