Chapter 72 BACK TO NORMAL
Chapter 72 BACK TO NORMAL
MIA
He left at eight-thirty and I waited until I heard the elevator before I moved.
"Free run of the apartment," he'd said over coffee as a joke and I'd smiled, saying imagine a d gen watched him go.
Sleeping here was actually very comfortable and made me feel safer even though I knew that was just a facade from him.
I went through the apartment room by room starting with the kitchen because that was closest and working outward. I searched the drawers, cabinets and even the space behind the refrigerator, the shelf above the oven. I wasn't looking for anything specific yet, just trying to check what had changed since the last time I wa since here.
The living room was the same as I remembered it. His books, the shelves, the photograph of me he'd printed and framed that I still couldn't look at directly.
Then as I walked, I noticed that his office door was open.
I stood in the doorway for a moment because it had always been closed when I lived here before and open felt like either a test or a mistake and I didn't know which but I went in anyway.
The desk was clear except for his laptop and a notepad with nothing written on it. Then I saw that the locked bottom one was still locked.
I picked up my camera from where I'd left it on the bedroom shelf weeks ago, before everything, and tested it in my hand. Almost sobbing at the familiar weight.
i walked through the apartment taking photos of everything I could think of that mattered and then I opened Instagram for the first time in over a month.
My account was still there and everything thankfully still in tact. I selected one of the shots I'd just taken, a wide shot of the living room that looked innocuous but had the window bars visible in the background if you knew to look, and I posted it with no caption but I tagged the building neighborhood..
Lin would see it if she was watching. Yuna would see it if she was watching. Someone would see it and understand that I was upstairs now and they could get me out now.
I put my phone in my pocket and went to the kitchen to figure out what to eat.
He came home at six-fifteen to the smell of garlic and the sound of something on the stovetop which I was cooking. I watched as he stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at me with an expression I recognized from a long time ago, before I knew what was underneath it.
"How was your day?" I asked.
"Good." He set his bag down slowly. "This is... nice."
"I found everything I needed in the kitchen."
He came in and looked at what I was making and kissed me.
We ate at the table and he talked about something to do with work that I half-listened to while I thought about the photos on my camera and how to get them somewhere he couldn't delete them.
The movie was his idea and I said yes because I had twenty-nine days left and yes was the right answer for now.
I sat close enough that he could put his arm around me and I let him as we watched the movie.
Then he pressed his mouth to my temple. "This is all I ever wanted. Just this. Why did it have to be so complicated?"
"Because you made it complicated."
A pause. "I know." Another pause. "I'm sorry."
I didn't say anything.
He went to his room while I went to mine, which he'd agreed to when I asked and as I sat on the bed i went through the photos on my camera, scrolling slowly, checking each one.
They were good, clear and exactly what I needed.
I needed to get them out.
Email, transfer, upload, anything that would put copies somewhere he couldn't reach. After a while the camera died and as i set the dead camera on the nightstand and looked at his laptop on the desk by the window. He'd left it here, which might be another test or might be carelessness.
But I didn't care as i opened it but was met with the password screen.
I tried his birthday. Wrong. His apartment number. Wrong. My name. Wrong. Marco. Wrong. A date from early in our relationship. Wrong.
I sat back and looked at the ceiling.
I had to be smarter.
I closed the laptop after a while and found it ironic how I was starting all over.