Thin Walls by Laura O’Meara

Thin Walls by Laura O’Meara

“Is this it?”

She wants to think he tried to keep the disappointed, almost accusatory tone out of the last word. Is this it? But it’s late and dark and unfamiliar. They had been at work all day and travelling all evening. Irritation is understandable.

“I think so,”

She will admit – but only to herself – that the building in front of them doesn’t look worth the five hours it took to get here. She checks the emailed instructions again.

“Yep. This is it,”

The gates open without needing a key. All the lower floor windows are in darkness. No automatic light clicks on to help when they reach the main door. She needs her phone to illuminate the rows of letterboxes, looking for the lockbox that is next on the instruction list.

To the left of the letterboxes, you will find another box with a code: 9467. The key will be inside.

“Is it there? It’s freezing,”

He stutters this through theatrical teeth chattering. He shivers, stamps his feet.

The box is where it should be. Panic rather than cold unsteadies her fingers as she turns the dials. The code will be wrong. They will be stranded outside, him growing increasingly irate while she tries to sort it out. But the box opens without complaint. There is a key: “Apartment 23”.

“Thank God,”

No lights in the entrance hall. They fumble for, but can’t find, any switches. Her phone light bounces ahead of them up the stairs. Dust textures the railings. The spectre of damp threatens from unseen corners. Their steps echo. Nothing else to be heard.

Outside Number 23, she expects the key to stick or the door to jam. But it opens without complaint. She lets out the breath she’s been holding, possibly since the airport.

“We’re here,” 

Inside, is just an apartment. The slightly fadedness of somewhere lived in. The sofa shaped by other bodies. Rugs worn down by someone elses feet. Where someone wasted Sunday afternoons and cooked dinner. The pictures on the holiday listing had elevated it to “quirky”. Hidden, authentic location in Berlin, the advert had said. It has a post-Soviet vibe she had told him, when she had been planning everything. We can listen to post-punk and shot vodka. He hadn’t been keen then. He seemed even less now.

“Could be worse,” is his review “At least it’s warmer than outside,”

They enter their names in the registration book on the table: Mike Weaver and Cassie Kennedy.

A corridor leads off the main room towards the bedroom and the bathroom. Their open doors leak the floral fresh of recent cleanings. At the far end of the corridor, next to the bedroom, is another door, closed.

“I thought it was just a one bed?”

He tries to open it, but it’s locked.

She opens up the rental listing again. None of the pictures show another door at the end of the corridor.

“Strange,”

He shrugs, more interested in the bedroom. It’s late. The time for leaving things unthought and/or unsaid.

They unpack the cases in the bedroom. The bed is smaller than theirs at home. They are uncomfortably close lying in there, elbows almost touching.

“Night,” she says, switching off the lamp.

“Night,” he replies. He stays sitting up, phone out, its glow etching strange hollows on his face.

& & &

She is awake too soon. A binary switch from sleep to not sleep. It’s nowhere near morning. She sighs. Not again. She tries to will sleep back, before thought catches up. But something is off.

There is a scratching along the wall next to the bed. Rhythmic and continuous. It’s not the passive noises of an old building. It’s uncomfortably localised. Vibrations carry through the wall, far too close to her head.

She pulls back. That noise has to come from claws. It’s not disintegrating plaster or the settling of old wood. There might be rats squirming behind there or a horde of pincery beetles. Nothing between her and them but thin plasterboard. She tries not to let this thought spiral. She tries the pillow over her head instead. Dream logic. If it can’t see me, it can’t hurt me. It works to vaguely muffle the sounds, to let her drift back to sleep with thoughts of: If only I had booked a hotel, there would be a front desk to complain to.

& & &

When she wakes again, it is mercifully morning. The coffee machine in the kitchen looks old enough to have watched the Wall fall. It does not respect her broken sleep’s need for caffeine. It drips with infuriating slowness into her cup. While she waits, she flicks through the pictures of the listing again. They made it look so much more colourful and vibrant. Like stepping into someone else’s far more interesting life for a few days. Instead, its putting up with someone else’s dust and pest infestations. The last picture lingers: the image of the corridor all the way to the end, with only two doors.

She is restless waiting for him to wake. Checking corners and backs of cupboards for anything that might suggest infestations. There is only dust. No noises but the window panes rattling the wind and the suggestions of footsteps and chairs scraping in the flat upstairs. Outside, the morning is strangled by a stubborn wall of cloud. Trees flail against the constant, wind.

When Mike wakes, he finds her on her knees in the living room, pulling books off the shelves, looking behind them. The books are all in German. She doesn’t have the excuse that she was looking for something to read.

“Morning,” he says.

“Morning,”

He doesn’t question what she’s doing. He goes to make a coffee while she dusts herself off.

At least he shares her eagerness to leave as quickly as possible. The austere lines of the sofa and the blankness of the walls don’t invite relaxation. And they were never going to to spend the day lounging around in bed.

“Why is it so cold?”

He’s complaining before they have made it through the apartment block gates. The clouds have not lifted. The morning weighs down on them.

“Because it’s Berlin in February? I said it wouldn’t be warm,”

“You didn’t say my face would freeze off within the first 10 minutes,”

They shelter in a that will serve them bagels. They have to share a table too small for two people with another couple, coffee cups indecently close. At least the other couple’s conversation makes up for the lack of theirs. Mike fixates on his screen. She stares out the window.

Why had she suggested they come here?

“Well, we’re losing at breakfast,” he says, once the food arrives, showing her his screen. It’s a portal to a different world. A picture of two couples, their – well, more his – friends on a simultaneous holiday. The four of them are decadent on sun-loungers next to a pool, cocktails in one hand and croissants in the other.

“They look like they’re having a wonderful time,” she affirms.

“And we could have been there with them. In the sun. Paying £3.50 for mojitos. Instead, I have just paid £15 for breakfast and I think some of my fingers are about to drop off,”

“It’s not that cold,”

He points out the window, to the hooded, huddled figures persevering through the morning. As if to say: No one here is in bikinis. No one here is radiant with sun. She picks at her plate, unable to argue.

He decides that the only thing they can possibly do, given the Arctic conditions, is find the place with all the museums. They can spend the day there and not have to worry about being outside for more than 5 minutes. This is not what she wants to do. She wants to explore a city she has not been to in so long. Rediscover old places, find new ones. But her plan of let’s just have a wander and see what happens it’s too vague to fight for.

Last year, they had joined his friends on their sun/sand escape. Five days of white box buildings and the same roll of umbrella-studded sand. Five days of trying to maintain the level of drunk needed to not mind where she was. But he’d had a good time. It would have just been easier to join them again, instead of trying something new.

“OK,” she concedes, finishing her coffee. “Let’s go museum crawling,”

They exhaust the museums. The actual city is glimpsed from queues outside grandiose entrances or from windows while she waits for him to decide on the next exhibit. One masterpiece blends into another. They lose direction among the overly decorated corridors. Exploratory panels become a blur of too small, uninterpretable words.

After there is no more art to see, they escape to drinks and dinner along the river. It takes several glasses of wine to dilute her irritation at spending most of the day looping in the same few square meters. He declares it bedtime once its nearing 11pm and their last round of glasses are empty.

On their way back, the metro carriage is overflowing with people heading out for the night. All dressed up and expectant. They are pushed together up against a window. The wine’s made it easy to be close to him. She grasps for his hand, keeps hold of it on the walk back to the apartment, on the way up the empty stairs. In the front room, they throw down their bags and she pulls him in. She has to steer him towards her. He’s not gripping back with the same need. When they kiss, his hands hover over her. His lips press back with the same amount of enthusiasm as the statues they spent too long looking at this afternoon. This reluctance makes her feel like she is forcing herself on him. But they’re on holiday and they will behave like they are. She directs him in an awkward stumble to the bedroom.

 And then stops. The corridor has three open doors now. As well as the bedroom and the bathroom, the door at the very end is swung wide.

“Did you open that before we left? I thought it was locked?”

“I didn’t touch it,”

“Then how is it open?”

Has someone been inside? Is the question she does not ask.

She abandons any thoughts of sex and goes to the bedroom. Their passports and emergency euros are still there. Good. Nothing happened. Then why this seeping panic?

“What’s inside?” he asks, not panicked, only curious.

Don’t! she wants to scream. She had forgotten about the noises from last night. But back in the quiet of the apartment, she has the feel of them again. There’s no need to go looking for the source. But he doesn’t notice, or just ignores, her reluctance. He pushes the door wider. She creeps behind, expecting the door to shut and seal him in.

Inside is just a room. A single bed. An empty set of shelves. Dust is an extra layer of upholstery, covering everything.

“Oh. It’s just empty. Probably too small to fit with a proper bed,”

A disappointing anti-climax.

“Yeah,”

She should be relieved at the nothing in here. But…the noises? The room is right next to theirs. The single bed frame pushed right up against the adjoining wall. The dust is time thick and trackless. What had been in here? She pulls at him to come away. She has never pulled at him so urgently. Losing interest, he shuts the door.

They get ready for bed. He brushes his teeth, staring at his phone. She arranges her pillow as far away from the wall as possible. She searches through her bag on the bedside table and finds the pack of tablets she thanks her past self for remembering.

“Is that a sleeping pill?” he asks.

He’s finished in the bathroom and is putting on his pyjamas one handed, phone in the other. Those beach holiday photos must be riveting.

“No,” she says.

She finds earplugs and an eye-mask, prepares to cocoon herself. He turns the lamp off, but his screen stays luminant.

“Night,”

“Night,”

& & &

The tablet does not work. Again, she is snatched out of sleep, far too early. She keeps her eyes closed and tries to concentrate on Mike’s breath beside her, regular and undisturbed. Her own breath is misbehaving. When that doesn’t work, she starts counting backwards: 10…9…8…7…6

Something joins in. A long rasp follows every number, something sharp drawn along the thin plasterboard behind her head. It’s a sound of long nails, of piercing fingers. She stops counting, stops breathing. She pulls the covers tight and the the pillow closer. The scratching continues on her rhythm, regardless.

Just breathe. She gathers the thought around her, like an extra layer. It’s nothing. Mice in walls. Pigeons stuck somewhere. Old brick crumbling. Just let it be. But breathing is hard. Her heart is too busy to let her lungs inflate. Throat too tight. She’s afraid her breaths are coming in rasps. Choking, panicked sounds that might wake him.

Something else starts. A clicking or a scuttling. Like tiny feet skittering over wood. A tap tap tapping of claws against a hard surface. It’s unplaceable. Far, then near, then far again. Surging and retreating.

She puts her hands over her ears but it doesn’t help. The scuttling intensifies, changes direction. No longer from the wall next to her, but somewhere to the right. It can’t be coming from outside the door, can it? It can’t be making that click, crack, click, along the rough carpet of the hallway.

This is her fault. This is what she gets for wanting “an authentic experience” rather than a plain hotel room. With one hand still clamping the pillow over her, she finds her bag, clawing for the packet of tablets. The snapping of the plastic makes him sigh and roll over. How can that disturb him, but not whatever is shambling down the corridor? She puts the packet back, as carefully as the tremble in her fingers will allow. Waking him up would only cause more distressing sounds: Well, this wouldn’t be happening if we’d rented a villa by a pool, would it?

It takes a while. But sleep comes. A violent tug.

& & &

She struggles against the next waking, trying to keep the comfort of not quite consciousness around her. She flinches at every sound. A bump from somewhere. A creak of a neighbour’s door, maybe. But they stay benign. They don’t mutate into anything more.

She doesn’t move until she’s sure that it’s morning, then gets out of bed and edges into the living room. Nothing unusual or disturbed. The door to the spare room is closed. At least it didn’t open itself.

She opens all the blinds and curtains, hoping for sun to dispel any traces of last night. But the morning only offers the same cloud strangled sky as yesterday. She makes coffee and stands on the threshold between corridor and living room. The corridor is indeed carpeted. A mud brown, with darker, ragged stripes. If she taps with her feet, if she tries to creep along, the sounds are muffled. It wouldn’t have been possible for anything to scuttle over this. Again, she checks the rental listing, skipping straight to the last picture. The corridor with only two doors. There is a number that can be contacted in case of emergencies but, is this what this is? She approaches the door, forcing brave steps. When she turns the handle, it doesn’t open. Locked again. She turns, pulls, rattles. It stays closed.

By the time Mike emerges, yawning, from the bedroom, she is sat at the front door of the apartment. Shoes on. Bag packed. As ready to leave as she can be.

“That door is closed and locked again,”

This bursts out before anything more morning appropriate, such as Morning or Sleep well? or I love you, dear.

“Oh. Weird,”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What’s there to say? Maybe it locked itself again?”

He pokes at the coffee maker.

“That’s not how doors work,”

He shrugs. A perfectly rational explanation has been provided. It’s not his fault she’s refusing to take it.

“Why does it matter? There was nothing there,”

He dusts off a cup and unwraps the bread they bought at a bakery yesterday.

“But how did it open in the first place?” she asks

“I don’t know. A draught?”

He cuts two neat slices and places them in the toaster that looks as old as the coffee machine.

“That’s not how air works,”

“Why does it matter?” He sighs out the question, not wanting an answer.

“I thought… I heard something coming from there last night,”

The words barely make it out. As if saying this too loudly will make it real. He’s kept his back to her this whole time. Her rising panic is unnoticed.

“It’s an old building. It’ll make strange noises. Just forget about it. You – ”

She crosses her arms, waiting for, willing, whatever accusation is about to come.

You always make a problem

He picks his toast out of the toaster and finds a plate.

“So,” he begins, sitting down on the sofa “I’m going to have to do more prep for the work call this afternoon than I thought,”

He tells her this without looking at her. Alternating between his breakfast and his phone. “So I won’t be able to do anything until this evening,”

“Oh,”

This is a lie. He’d told her there would be a few calls to dial into, but no actual work to do. He could even join in on his phone if needed. That wouldn’t change overnight. He just doesn’t want another day freezing and forcing conversation. He will tap on his laptop until she has gone and then watch films until his call at 3pm.

“Oh no. What a shame,”

This is also a lie. Sudden delight or relief that she tries to keep secret. She can just leave now. She can do whatever she wants for the day. All those unsaid things won’t have to fester behind clamped jaws.

“Yeah. Sorry,”

The world’s most unenthusiastic apology.

“So, what are you going to do today, then?”

He looks away from his screen to ask this. He can feign interest now that he doesn’t have to do anything about it. She shrugs, pulling on her coat. The door at the end of the corridor is always on the edge of her vision, whatever angle she sits at.

“It’s Berlin. There’s always something to do,”

She escapes down the staircase. All the doors are closed, lights off. Something stirs, a clanking from higher up. The ancient elevator groaning into life. She hurries, not wanting to be at the bottom for when the doors slide open.

She takes the metro into the city centre, straight to Alexanderplatz. She wants modern, open spaces. Chain stores. Buildings made for buying things, where everything is on display. Nothing hidden or strange.

It’s not long before her fingers and face start to numb and disconnect from her. She hunches in on herself, squeezing her bones together for warmth. It’s a punishing cold, not one to be drifting and directionless in. Although a museum would be the best way to wait out the day – somewhere warm and safe with background noise – she can’t admit this. And how could she walk along those corridors split with shadowed alcoves. Doors in all directions. Paintings trailing their eyes behind her.

Instead she finds a tour group and spends the rest of the morning being led around by a bright, cheerful woman with a lanyard. Obedient like a duckling, like a school child, she nods at everything the woman points out. Listening to this flood of facts and dates and names takes a comforting lack of thought. Mike would roar with laughter if he knew. Now who’s the dutiful tourist?

When the tour ends, she finds the nearest, noisiest cafe and passes the rest of the afternoon. The book she brought is impossible to concentrate on. Instead, she finds herself zombie-fixed to her phone, scrolling through Mike’s friends’ latest holiday photos. Impeccable sea/sandscapes and faces luminous with joy. Or maybe just tequila. She huddles over the screen, as if the sun could shine through and warm her. Insisting on coming here had been so stupid. She had just wanted to be in a place she had enjoyed once. But it was just a city. Unwelcoming and bent with winter. Towering buildings and people in a rush.

His call is meant to finish at 4pm. She checks her messages every five minutes, wondering when was the last time she had waited so eagerly for something from him. By 4:30pm, there is still no message.

The cafe closes and deposits her out onto streets now unfriendly with dark. She finds a bar and orders wine to balance out her coffee jitters. By 5pm, she starts to worry.

–Are you done? I’m bored with touristing. Want to meet for dinner?

He doesn’t reply. She checks and checks again. The message is not marked read. More wine doesn’t help. The worries run away with her. But what is she even worrying about?

At 5:45pm, he replies: –Sorry. Got dragged onto another call. Want to meet here? In an hour?

She almost cries with relief. Shaking hands make it difficult to reply.

–Sure. See you later xx

& & &

The restaurant he suggested is modern. There is a surgical quality to the too bright lights, ideal for excising things. No corners to hide in here. Mike is already sat at the mostly empty bar. His half drunk beer suggests that he might have been here for a while already. That he maybe had his own afternoon of freedom. She ignores this thought and kisses him.

“Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah. Fine,”

“Did you have much work to do?”

“No, not really,”

He doesn’t ask about her day and she doesn’t tell him. They get lost in the drinks menu that is more like a catalog.

“Did you hear anything this afternoon?”

She tries to make it sound like a throwaway question. Nothing requiring a specific answer.

“No. It was really quiet,”

Of course, he has forgotten what she told him this morning. She doesn’t want to remind him.

“How did the calls go?”

She doesn’t ask this out of interest but because there can’t be silence right now. Silence has its place, but not over a dinner table. It suggests dysfunction. That they are both thinking about other places or other people they would rather be with. This makes him look up, surprised, almost suspicious. Why the sudden interest?

“Fine. Got a couple more again tomorrow. But that should be it,”

He looks down again at the menu.

“What are you drinking?”

A safe topic. She can’t order her thoughts enough to wonder if he was being evasive. Is he trying to hide something? Or is there really just nothing to say.

The waiter takes their order. Drinks then food arrives. They struggle through conversation, slog away, like it’s a heavy weight passing between them. It’s still early, the restaurant too empty. There isn’t enough background noise to patch up their profound silences. His phone comes out while the waiter is clearing away dishes. More beach pictures. The ones she saw earlier, but she can’t admit to that. He shows her a collage of beaming faces. No distance there. They’re pushed together, bodies intertwined. They’ve transcended, melded into one mojito-fueled, fun-loving entity.

“They look like they’re having fun,” he says

This is just something to fill the space gaping between them. He’s not trying to show it would be better if they were somewhere else, with other people. This is not how he means it. But this is how she chooses to take it.

“OK. They win. They’re having a wonderful time at the beach. We’re having a terrible time in our creepy apartment. Next time, you choose the holiday again,”

He is unsure how to react to this and slides the offending phone away.

“We’re not having a terrible time. The apartment is fine,”

After a slight delay, he reaches out, but lands on his beer glass instead of her hand. She folds her fingers around her wine.

& & &

The apartment building is dark again as they come back from dinner. In a normal building, there would be some lights on. There are people here: families, working couples, elderly aunts. Not everyone can be out partying.

“I’ve not heard anyone else in here,”

Her whisper is too loud in the empty stairwell.

“What if it’s just us in this building?”

“There are like 30 apartments. Someone must be here,” He doesn’t bother to hush this practical answer.

Inside, everything seems normal. The door to the spare room is closed. It’s the first thing she looks at. Then she checks the listing again, for the nth time

“Why are you so obsessed with that door? It stayed closed all day,”

Words obscured by toothpaste. He’s already started brushing his teeth.

“It’s not in any of the photos on the listing,”

“Why would they photo a random door?”

“But there’s a picture of the corridor, right up to the end. There’s only the bedroom and the bathroom door,”

“Different angle?”

“Maybe,”

She enters the bathroom he has vacated. It’s not worth the argument.

In bed, she turns her back to him and his permanently glowing screen. He doesn’t notice her taking one tablet and then another.

“Night,”

“Night,”

She pretends sleep, so she doesn’t have to pretend further conversation. He’s awake for a long time, tapping at his phone. Only 8 hours till morning. Only 2 days until she can be back at home. She repeats this mantra until the tablets take the choice away.

& & &

She doesn’t make it until morning. Another too soon, abrupt awaking. No! These tablets have never failed to work before. Beside her, Mike is so still and distant in sleep that he could be in another dimension. Whatever is in the next room has turned vicious. It’s clawing, rending at the wall. It doesn’t just want her to know it’s there. It’s trying to remove what’s between them.

She pulls the pillow over her head and replaces her earplugs with headphones. She plays something to soothe her back to sleep, but it’s no use. The volume won’t go high enough to drown out the noises. And it’s playing wrong. The songs skip and distort, like they are analog, like they are stuttering from a crumpled tape reel. The singers’ voices slowed and slurred. She pulls out the headphones, puts her fingers in her ears. But she can still hear what’s there. She can feel it. The bed vibrates in time with whatever is dragging itself along the corridor.

It’s probably only 4 hours until morning. 240 minutes. Not that long to go until it was light and she could get out of here and book into a budget something. How many breaths was that?

One…. two….

But the noises will not be ignored. Every calming breath she tries to take intensifies them. She can feel the scraping on her skin now. They are invading beyond the boundary of sound.

Rage overtakes fear. She will not be bullied by a cheap holiday apartment. She staggers out of bed, not taking care to be quiet. Clumsy steps around the room, looking for something that could be a weapon or a shield. If he woke up, he would have to hear this too. But there isn’t a stir. His peace continues.

Empty handed, she braves the living room. The clumsiness follows her, no longer intentional. Each movement has to be forced, like her muscles have seized, uncontractable. The air has a viscosity, hard to breathe. She is panting after only a few steps. She trips over nothing.

The corridor and the living room are empty, but not quite right. The walls have lost their structure. They waver. Lines are not lines anymore. They curve, no longer defining borders. There is a smell like something abandoned, belonging to a place fifty years older. The window draws her but she turns away. There will be something out there, staring back up at her.

The door to the spare room is closed. It’s different now to the other doors. Wood scratched, handle dark with rust. She takes a breath, turns the handle.

Inside is no longer empty. The bed-frame is now a bed, a mattress dribbling stuffing and the threat of springs. Something writhes there. Human shaped, patched together with tatters of skin and scraps of sheet. It has a head, turned towards the wall, but it’s the wrong shape, too spread out, flesh lumped on flesh. It’s pulling, trying to get off of the bed, but the whole of one side has fused with the frame. Metal twined with strings of muscle. Sinew stretching, snapping as it drags and heaves. Only one hand is free, beating against the wall. Long fingers, scraped down to bone, tear through a frenzy of well-worn gouges.

The door is still open. She backs towards it, before it closes, before that thing notices her and she has to see whatever face is left. From beneath the bed comes a lurching out of fur, bone, skin. Dog or cat once. It’s hard to tell. It no longer has a head. A mouldering throat space clicks towards her. Its claws are sharp on the damp-stained floorboards. The only things untouched by decay.

She throws herself out, kicking the door shut. She stumbles back through the living room, hands strangle tight around her mouth, but there’s nothing to hold back. It’s inside her that’s screaming.

Leave. Get out.

But the thoughts of those dark stairs. All the doors that had stayed closed. What would they open up to now? She makes it to the sofa, buries under the cushions for protection.

The noises run riot now. Maybe she’s released something. Things scrabbling heavy across the floor. Coming closer, then drawing back, then moving in again. Teasing her. Fingers scrape along the back of the sofa, sharp points needling through the fabric. A wheezing starts near her head. Wet sounds, breaths expelled from lungs that end too soon. The human body doesn’t have enough hands to cope with this. She can’t clamp something over both ears and mouth. She buries further into her mound of cushions.

Please. Please. Please.

& & &

When she wakes again it is quiet. The world is struggling into daytime. Everything seems to be behaving itself. The walls are straight and structurally sound. The borders between bookshelf, floor and table are defined. The door at the end of the corridor is closed and looks like the rest of them again.

She wavers as she stands up. She does not feel structurally sound. But she needs to compose herself enough to not look a complete lunatic to whoever is at the desk of the hotel she escapes to. In the bathroom, she doesn’t dare look in the mirror in case something else stares back. Showering is not an option, leaving herself vulnerable to things peering over or under the curtain. In the bedroom, she packs her suitcase, again not being quiet about it. Mike is still asleep. She has never hated him so much before, for doing so little.

It takes another hour for him to wake. He is confused when he notices her sat by the door with her suitcase.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to leave. I can’t stay here. I hear noises all night,”

This tumbles out. Words sliding into and over each other. “What?”

“I can’t sleep. There’s-”

Something here. She can’t finish that sentence. Because he will want to know where and then he will open the door. And she isn’t sure what would be worse: having to see that thing again or seeing nothing at all.

Oh my god says his eye roll. His badly concealed sigh.

“It’s just old house noises. It’s nothing to worry about,”

Her concerns dismissed, he goes to start the fight with the coffee machine. This is a perfectly reasonable answer. But reason isn’t helping here. Reason won’t get her through another night like that. It takes him a long time to come back, coffee in one hand, some toast in the other.

“I can’t stay,” she says again as he sits down on the sofa. This time, she makes sure that each word has space. This is not hysteria. This is a reasoned response. “I’m going to a hotel,”

“Over some noises? Just ignore them. They’ll go away,”

He looks down at his phone, hoping maybe that she will go away, if he ignores her for long enough.

“You’re not listening,”

“I am listening. It’s just, what you’re saying is ridiculous,”

There are so many things she wants to say. But she can’t string her thoughts together. They keep disintegrating before she can get them out.

“I need to leave,” is all she can manage “I just need to leave,”

It’s not, We need to leave, though

However she turns her head, the door is always on the edge of her vision. He’s saying something about how she can’t leave a perfectly good rental apartment because of creaky pipes or floorboards or whatever. But she can’t focus. Is the door frame edging with dark? Is it pulling back, allowing something to slip through?

“If you’re feeling bad because you haven’t slept – just go back to bed,”

“What?”

“Now who’s not listening?”

She tries to stand. For a breath catching moment, she can’t move. She’s trapped. It won’t let her leave. Then her legs tingle back to life and she staggers up.

“I’ll text you later,”

She grabs her bag, fumbles with the lock.

“I just need to leave. I can’t have an argument right now,”

“Cass, this is insane. Don’t do this. Don’t ruin another -”

A half-hearted protest. He doesn’t move off the sofa to stop her. No calls of Wait! orCome back! spiral down the staircase after her. She takes as careful steps as her hurry will allow. Suitcase clutched tight, to stop it from bumping and echoing.

At the bottom, she expects the main door to have sealed shut. For the start of scuttling steps to chase behind her. But it opens as normal, lets her out into a morning that the sun is desperately trying to brighten, punching through holes in the leaden clouds.

Nothing is waiting for her on the path. The bushes either side behave themselves, none grasp out to stop her from leaving. As she hurries away, she almost collides with a man coming up the path, a loaf of bread and a bag of groceries under one arm. Guten Morgen is his cheerful greeting. Her reply is a sound that can’t pass for any language. The man enters the building without any hesitation.

She stops to look up at the rows of windows, unable to remember which one belongs to their apartment. There are no faces in any of them – human or otherwise – to watch her leave or call her back. He’ll have resumed his toast, after sending out half a dozen, long-suffering messages: Guess what she’s done this time (eye roll emoji). He’ll settle down, smug, self-righteous, expecting her to creep back, apologetic, once she’d calmed down.

She slams the main gate and wheels her suitcase towards the station. Fuck him.Let him stay in there. Let that door inch open. He wouldn’t notice. Those fingers would be fixed around his throat before he would even consider looking up from his screen.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Laura O’Meara 2025

Image Source: imperioame from Pixabay