Chapter 80: MOVING AGAIN

MIA

"You're not staying in that building."

Yuna was in my kitchen at eight in the morning with a cup of coffee in hand like usual and I was happy to see things with her going back to normal. Plus, she knew that when I was stressed I tend to not eat anything.

She had been staring there for over ten minutes saying the same thing while I sat on the counter trying to stay awake.

"I'm fine."

"You said that yesterday to a detective."

"Because I am."

"Mia." She set her cup down. "You've been back here for three days and you haven't left the apartment once. You check the door every time there's a sound in the hallway. You barely even use your phone like you are scared of it.”

"I'm readjusting."

"To what? To being back in the same building as whatever happened to you?" She pulled out a chair, sat down and looked at me directly. "Come stay with me. My spare room is small but it's comfortable and certainly not here where you shouldn't be right now."

"I appreciate that but I don't need to—"

"I am your best friend, Mia. I have been asking you to open up about what happned but you—." She picked her cup back up. "You didn't. So I'm not asking anymore, I'm telling you that you're coming to stay with me and you can be annoyed about it or you can pack a bag."

"Yuna—"

"Pack a bag, Mia."

I looked at her for a long moment, the text from last night flashing in my mind. I actually cant keep staying here or I would one day run back to him. She was right.

If I want to get over him then I need to be as far away from him as possible.

"Fine," I said. "Give me an hour."

She smiled. "I'll help you pack."

It took most of the afternoon.

Not because I had so much to pack but because I kept stopping, sitting on the floor and staring at my hands.

Yuna didn't push as she worked her way around me.

When I opened my door this morning, he had left a box of my camera things he had gotten from the basement.

A moving van was probably too much for what I had but she'd called one anyway because she said she wasn't making multiple trips and she was right so by four in the afternoon the van was parked outside while we loaded it.

When we were almost done, I looked up at the building before we got in the van.

I don't know why I did it. Some instinct, or maybe I just knew.

He was at the window, hands by his side with an unreadable expression as he watched us.

I waited, expecting him to do something. We stayed like that for a while and he did noting.

I looked away first, got in the van and didn't look up again.

Yuna's spare room was small like she had said. It had a beautiful bookshelf that took up most of one of the wall and a Window that faced the building across the street. It had a bed which was much softer than I had expected.

I sat on the edge of the bed after she said goodnight and just breathed for a while.

I texted Lin: “in case you are looking for me, I am at a new address. Yuna's place.”

She responded fast. “Good. Stay there.”

I put my phone on the nightstand and looked at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I'd fallen asleep somewhere that felt safe and came up with nothing. I was so glad she convinced me to come here.

I had almost fallen asleep when my phone buzzed with a text from Dante.

“I don't know how you prefer this smaller room to what you had in the apartment but it is decorated nicely.”

I sat up, turned the light on and looked around the room with my heart racing.

I checked every inch of the room for any lens, wire or hidden camera but couldn't find anything.

How did he know?

"Yuna!" I called out.

She appeared in the doorway in thirty seconds, already panicked. "What happened?"

I held up my phone so she could see the message.

She read it, looked at the room and then back at me.

"Okay," she said. "We're sweeping the whole apartment."