Chapter 7 — What she leaves behind

I stood in front of the closed door longer than necessary.

Not very long.

Well.

Long enough for the word necessary to lose some of its meaning.

Behind me, the studio was returning to its usual shape.

The couch. The lamp beside the bookcase. The papers on the coffee table. The guitar against the wall.

Eugène was sprawled out with the indecent satisfaction of someone who had just witnessed an important scene from the best cushion in the room.

The rabbit was eating.

That was how he dealt with events.

I wished I had a method that reliable.

I looked at the door handle.

Liora had closed it softly.

No slamming. No leaving the door trembling with the cheerful violence of the apartment next door.

Softly.

I didn’t like that detail.

It gave the scene a weight it shouldn’t have had.

I finally moved away and started putting things in order.

A simple activity.
Rational.
Necessary.

I needed to put away the papers, check Lapin’s water, pick up the cardboard Eugène had moved.

Return to normal life.

Fine.

I picked up the drawings from the coffee table.

Then stopped.

Liora had touched them.

Not for long. She had looked at them with too much attention, then placed them back almost exactly where they had been.

The drawing of the kitchen was slightly crooked.

I straightened it.

Too straight.

I shifted it a little.

Then stood in front of the table with the unpleasant realization that I had become someone capable of thinking about the angle of a sheet of paper because a neighbor had looked at it.

Excellent.

Concerning personal development.

Eventually, I placed the kitchen drawing on top.

Facing upward.

Not because Liora had said my drawings looked as though they were waiting to be seen.

Obviously.

It simply needed to dry.

There was no paint on it.

Secondary detail.

I refilled Lapin’s water.

“You okay?”

His nose twitched, and he went back to his hay.

No official complaint.

Demitrius had survived Liora.

She had entered with her bag, her energy, her cat allergy, and her habit of asking questions as though the answers already existed in the air.

She had seen Eugène, Demitrius, my drawings, the guitar, the page covered in crossed-out words.

Far too much.

And nothing had exploded.

It was almost insulting.

I had spent months building a space where every object had its place and its distance.

Not out of obsession.

Or at least an acceptable form of obsession.

The studio was small. A badly placed stack became a piece of furniture. A forgotten cable, a trap. An abandoned mug, evidence against myself.

Liora had come in.

She had looked.

And everything was still there.

That was precisely the problem.

Everything was still there.

But some things seemed to have been named.

The guitar was no longer simply the object I picked up when sentences refused to hold together. It was something she had noticed.

The drawings were no longer just personal files kept beside my desk. Someone had looked at them long enough to see them waiting.

Even the silence of the studio seemed slightly compromised.

Before, it hadn’t needed a witness.

Now I knew it could be heard from outside without sounding empty.

An inconvenient piece of information.

I returned to my desk and woke the screen.

The client file was still open.

A children’s book cover. Blue forest, glowing cabin, the silhouette of a child in the foreground.

The client wanted “a more intimate atmosphere, but less sadness.”

Beautifully phrased.

The cabin looked like it had seasonal depression.

I picked up the stylus.

Work.

Right.

Work was a healthy structure. Clients were absurd, but within a budget. You could answer them, produce revisions, save, continue.

I changed the light in the window.

Too cold.

Too warm.

Undo.

My gaze drifted toward the page of lyrics beside the screen.

My own hand was working against me.

I folded it in half and slipped it inside a sketchbook.

Fine.

Gone.

Two minutes later, I reopened the sketchbook to see whether it was sticking out.

It was.

I pushed it farther in.

Pathetic.

Eugène jumped onto the desk and sat in front of the screen.

“I’m working.”

He blinked.

Then looked toward the door.

I turned my head despite myself.

Nothing.

“She’s gone.”

Eugène didn’t move.

“Don’t start.”

He continued staring at the door with perfect solemnity.

Fine.

Even the cat was participating in the creation of an atmosphere.

I gently pushed him aside. He resisted through sheer inertia, an extremely effective feline method, then climbed down with offended slowness.

I worked for half an hour.

I improved the window, made the cabin worse, saved three versions, and answered an email explaining that I understood perfectly how a leaf could look “more confident.”

Then I went to make tea.

The sound behind the wall came while the kettle was heating.

A drawer.

Footsteps.

A muffled voice.

Liora.

I couldn’t make out the words.

Only the rhythm.

I still recognized the end of a sentence, a slight lift, almost a laugh.

I poured the water too quickly and splashed my finger.

“Perfect.”

On the other side, a door closed.

Normally.

Not softly.
Not violently.

Which annoyed me more.

I returned to my desk with a very clear decision.

I wasn’t going to listen.

I started playing music through my headphones.

Without putting them on.

Technically, I wasn’t listening to the neighbors.

A questionable concept, but defensible if no one asked questions.

I picked up the stylus again.

The cabin was still there.

So was Liora, only in the form of a sentence.

It isn’t empty.

I looked at the drawn kitchen.

Then the real one behind me.

A sink. A mug. Two dish towels. A plant moved during the balcony crisis.

Nothing remarkable.

Except someone had looked at my spaces and said they breathed.

Difficult information to file away.

Later, while feeding the animals, I found a small black hair tie beside the foot of the coffee table.

Completely ordinary.

Probably slipped from Liora’s wrist.

I picked it up.

The rabbit approached immediately.

“No.”

He stopped.

“That isn’t for you.”

I placed the hair tie in the dish by the door.

Item to be returned.

Neutral category.

My keys.
A two-euro coin.
A crumpled receipt.
A black hair tie.

The studio was producing evidence now.

The afternoon moved forward in pieces.

Revisions.
Cold tea.
Emails.
Eugène meowing for no defensible reason.
The rabbit asleep beside his hay.

Me attempting to recover the silence from before.

It almost returned.

Then one sound behind the wall was enough to change it.

I wasn’t waiting for Liora to come back.

That seemed like an important distinction.

I was simply unusually aware of the door, the hallway, and the hair tie.

Which was different.

Maybe.

At around six, I decided to take out the trash.

Sanitary motivation.

Not social.

I took the bag, my keys, and the hair tie.

It would be absurd not to return it if I happened to see her.

I slipped it into the pocket of my sweatshirt.

Eugène watched me from the middle of the studio.

“It’s a lost item.”

He blinked.

“I’m returning a lost item.”

He wasn’t making any expression.

That was the worst part.

The hallway was empty.

I went downstairs, threw away the bag, and came back up.

Action completed.

Mission accomplished.

No neighbors.

No interaction.

Almost disappointing.

No.

Not disappointing.

Simply efficient.

I reached the fifth floor just as the front door slammed below.

Footsteps came up the stairs.

Quick.

Tired too.

I could have gone inside.

I had plenty of time.

My hand searched for my keys with the slowness of a man who was lying badly to himself.

Liora appeared on the stairs with a sports bag over one shoulder, her sweatshirt open, her hair tied very high, and a water bottle beneath one arm.

She slowed when she saw me.

Enough for the rest of the world to call it stopping.

“Aurèl!”

“Hi.”

Brilliant.

She climbed the final steps and placed one hand against the wall.

For a second.

I noticed her breathing.

Not the breathing of someone who had only climbed five floors.

“You look like you’ve come back from a fight.”

“I did intervals.”

“An answer that explains everything and nothing.”

“That’s exactly what intervals are.”

She pulled the bag higher onto her shoulder.

“Have you seen Demitrius?”

“I live with him.”

“I mean since earlier.”

“He ate, drank, and probably drafted an internal review of my organizational skills.”

She smiled.

Not her usual immediate, wide smile.

A tired one.

Slower.

“So he’s forgiven me?”

“He hasn’t filed a complaint.”

“Excellent.”

I took out the hair tie.

“You left this behind.”

She looked at my hand.

Then the hair tie.

Then me.

“Oh. I was wondering where it went.”

She took it.

Her fingers brushed mine.

Barely.

My brain commented anyway.

Management failure.

Liora slipped the hair tie around her wrist.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The silence remained between us.

Not heavy.

Present.

The landing was lit by the yellow light of late afternoon. Someone was cooking downstairs. Tomato, garlic, onion. A television spoke behind a door.

The world continued.

Despite the hair tie.

Liora remained on the top step with the bag still high on her shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from the cold or the exertion, and there was a small dark mark near the knee of her pants.

I looked at her without being able to decide whether she seemed exhausted or simply more visible than usual.

Behind the wall, I always heard her moving.

On the landing, I could see what that movement cost.

“You’re coming back from practice?”

A normal question.
Basic.
Socially acceptable.

She looked down at what she was wearing.

“Is it obvious?”

“You have a water bottle, a sports bag, and the expression of someone preparing to take legal action.”

“That’s my post-eight-hundred-meter face.”

“Two laps, right?”

She looked at me with immediate intensity.

“Never say ‘two laps’ as though it’s simple.”

“Sorry.”

“Two laps are a scam. Too long to sprint, too short to pretend you’re being strategic, and painful enough to make you question every decision you’ve ever made.”

“Sounds appealing.”

“You should come watch one day. Just so you understand how terrible an idea running two laps is.”

The sentence entered the landing.

Invitation.

Joke.

Athletic threat.

Probably all three.

“Watch what, exactly?”

“A practice.”

“Do you often invite your neighbors to watch people suffer on a track?”

“Not yet. You’d be the first.”

“A troubling honor.”

She smiled, then ran a hand over her forehead.

She looked tired.

Actually tired.

Something denser than training seemed to be resting on her shoulders.

“Do you train every day?”

“Almost.”

“On top of classes?”

“Yes.”

“And everything else?”

“Everything else is a very broad phrase.”

“That’s why I chose it.”

She gave a short laugh and leaned slightly against the wall.

Not enough to settle in.

Enough to admit that her legs had an opinion.

“Three track sessions a week. Two lighter sessions. Sometimes strength work, sometimes an easy run. Classes. And I work two evenings at the café near campus. Saturdays too, when they need me.”

I looked at her.

The information piled up.

Not like her usual noise.

An organization.

A real system.

I had placed her too easily inside movement, as though moving quickly meant living at random.

Mistake.

Liora didn’t overflow because she lacked structure.

She overflowed despite the structure.

Or through it.

“When do you sleep?”

She thought about it.

Bad sign.

“Sometimes.”

“Concerning answer.”

“I sleep efficiently.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“You sound like someone who saves his files three times.”

I froze.

“How do you know that?”

She pointed vaguely toward my door.

“You have the face of someone who saves his files three times.”

Fine.

A serious attack.

Probably accurate.

She shifted her bag to the other shoulder and grimaced slightly.

The movement was quick.

Almost erased.

I saw it.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

I looked at her.

“A little,” she corrected. “My calf. Nothing serious.”

I nodded, then realized I probably looked like her father.

Very bad development.

“Are you icing it?”

“Yes, Mr. Responsible Neighbor.”

“I was asking a question.”

“You had the tone.”

“What tone?”

“The ‘this will be entered into a medical file’ tone.”

I closed my mouth.

She smiled.

“See?”

A man’s voice sounded behind her door.

Her father.

Bureaucratic even through wood.

Liora turned her head.

“I should go inside before he decides I’ve collapsed in the stairwell.”

“He seems capable of checking.”

“He’s capable of writing a report.”

She searched through her bag for her keys.

One pocket.
Then another.
Then the pocket of her sweatshirt.

She finally pulled them out with a disproportionately triumphant expression.

“Perfect organization.”

“I have a lot of systems.”

“Do they communicate with one another?”

“Rarely.”

She put the key in the lock, then stopped.

That moment again.

The one where she could leave and chose to add something.

“Friday,” she said.

“What about Friday?”

“Practice. Six o’clock. Municipal stadium.”

I didn’t answer.

She continued, probably because she had prepared the instructions.

“Tram B, Delorme stop. Walk five minutes. Entrance by the trees. There are some slightly ugly bleachers. You can sit there. No one will talk to you if you use your normal face.”

“My normal face?”

She studied me.

Far too closely.

“The face that says, ‘I’m here by mistake, but I’m assessing the emergency exits.’”

I didn’t answer.

Because that was unacceptable.

And probably accurate.

“You don’t have to come,” she added.

“I didn’t say I was coming.”

“I know. I’m giving you information.”

“Dated, located information with access instructions.”

“The best kind.”

Behind the door:

“Liora?”

She looked at the ceiling.

“I’m coming!”

Then, more quietly:

“He’s going to think I recruit strangers in the hallway.”

“Would he be wrong?”

“You’re not a stranger.”

I didn’t find an answer quickly enough.

She didn’t seem inclined to emphasize the sentence either.

Liora sometimes said things with a natural ease that left everyone else to deal with the consequences alone.

Me, in this case.

“I’ll see.”

“Okay.”

She turned the key.

Then turned back again.

“And Eugène isn’t invited.”

“He’ll be devastated.”

“Tell him it’s because of my respiratory system.”

“He has very little respect for systems.”

“Like me.”

“You follow your own systems just fine.”

The sentence came out before I checked it.

Liora remained still for a second.

Her smile changed.

Calmer.

“Not always.”

“Enough to voluntarily run that two-lap scam.”

She laughed softly.

Her father called her again.

“Yes, yes.”

She opened the door.

The light from her apartment spilled onto the landing. Shoes approximately lined up, a coat on a hook, a bag against the wall.

A dense life.

Full.

“Friday, six o’clock,” she repeated.

“I heard you.”

“Good.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“You said you’d see.”

“That isn’t a commitment.”

“Maybe not to you.”

She smiled.

“See you, Aurèl.”

“See you.”

The door closed.

Softly.

I remained there for a second with my keys in my hand.

Inside her apartment, I immediately heard her father’s voice. Too muffled to make out the words. Liora answered more quietly than usual.

Then the sound of a bag being placed on the floor.

A shoe being removed.

A life continuing on the other side without needing me to watch it.

The hallway immediately seemed emptier.

I didn’t like that sentence.

I went inside.

Eugène was waiting in the middle of the studio, his tail curled around his paws, looking like a judge who had not received every document in the case.

“I returned a hair tie.”

He looked at the door.

“And we talked.”

No reaction.

I placed my keys in the dish.

It still contained the two-euro coin and the crumpled receipt.

No hair tie.

That detail bothered me more than expected.

I crossed the studio.

The kitchen drawing was still facing upward. So was the guitar.

The rabbit continued his ongoing food-related project, which existed outside human concepts of beginning and end.

Eugène climbed onto the couch and lay down in the exact spot where Liora had been sitting earlier.

Exactly.

I looked at him.

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

He rested his head on his paws.

No remorse.

Maybe Demitrius was already getting used to her.

Maybe Eugène had adopted her during the first allergic reaction.

Very bad signs.

I returned to my desk.

The cabin was still waiting to become more intimate and less sad.

Friday.
Six o’clock.
Municipal stadium.
Entrance by the trees.
Ugly bleachers.

I hadn’t agreed.

I had only left a possibility open with a girl who knew my rabbit, my drawings, my guitar, and believed my normal expression could function as a social barrier.

That was not an acceptance.

It was a calendar incident.

I unlocked my phone.

Friday was free at six.

Obviously.

I created an event.

“Go out.”

Very vague.

Perfectly defensible.

I placed the phone facedown on the desk.

Then turned it over to check that the event really existed.

It did.

“Go out.”

No location.
No name.
No compromising evidence.

Perfectly neutral for an activity that had already rearranged half my evening.

I locked the screen.

For real this time.

There was no sound from the other side of the wall.

Liora was probably drinking water, answering her father, icing her calf, checking her schedule, or moving on to another task at an indecent speed.

She had an entire life behind the noise.

I had already known that.

In theory.

Now I had seen part of it.

Enough to understand that her movement wasn’t only disorder.

Enough for the noise behind the wall to sound less like a disturbance and more like a sentence whose words I was beginning to recognize.

I picked up the stylus again.

The cabin still looked sad.

I added a small light beside the door.

Nothing dramatic.

Just enough to suggest that someone might return.

I saved.

Twice.

Financial anxiety had its traditions.

Later, I fed Eugène, checked Lapin’s water, and folded the blanket on the couch.

I left the kitchen drawing visible.

Mistake or decision, I couldn’t tell.

Before turning off the main lamp, I looked at the door again.

Not because I was waiting.

Simply because it had become one of the places where something might happen.

Important distinction.

The studio was quiet.

Not like before.

I was beginning to understand that the quiet hadn’t disappeared.

Its contents had changed.

It still contained the fridge, the pipes, the city, Lapin’s quiet breathing, Eugène’s weight on the couch.

And now, somewhere inside it, the possibility that Liora might come back.

Or that I, for reasons still poorly defined, might go out at six on Friday.

Part of my week had just been moved without asking my permission.