At night, the bathroom is the only room in my apartment that doesn’t expect anything from me.

That’s not fully true. It still expects basic hygiene. But it doesn’t want me to answer emails, text anyone back, make a choice, or perform competence. It just wants me to wash my face and leave.

The mirror is less rude after 10 p.m. It still shows me everything, obviously, but the light stops doing that morning thing where I catch one look at myself and immediately start itemizing: chin breakout, weird dry patch by my nose, hairline grease, under-eye circles like I haven’t slept right in a week.

I’m standing there in my cotton robe, damp from the shower, not belted because I never belt it. The belt has been hanging from one of the loops for so long it looks less like I forgot and more like evidence in a case against me.

So I look around the bathroom instead of at myself.

There’s always a wet ring around the bottom of the soap dispenser. I hate it. It makes me think of mildew and soft things rotting. The toothpaste cap is loose again, so there’s a little pale blue stripe drying down the side of the tube and onto the counter. The hand towel is crooked. One corner hangs lower than the other, which is stupid to notice and even stupider to care about, and yet.

I line the bottles up.

Not because I have a problem. I mean, probably I do, but not in the official little ritual way. I just need my hands doing something. So I turn the labels outward like I’m staging a tiny depressing skincare ad. Cetaphil with the clogged pump. The huge tub of CeraVe I bought because some redditor with suspiciously expensive skin swore by it. Vitamin C serum from Ulta because a nineteen-year-old with a ring light said it would make me “glow.”

I keep my eyes below the mirror while I pick up my toothbrush.

Blue toothpaste. Too much of it, because somehow, I’m not a child and I still can’t gauge a pea-sized amount. I start brushing and count strokes because if I don’t give my brain a task, it starts freelancing.

The faucet drips. Then stops. Then drips again.

The overhead light makes a tiny buzzing sound and flickers once.

I freeze.

Toothbrush halfway to my mouth, foam starting to slide down the bristles, shoulders up around my ears like I’m in a horror movie made specifically for women who are tired and underfed.

I wait for it to happen again.

Nothing.

I keep standing there anyway, listening too hard.

The bathroom goes weirdly quiet after that. Not haunted. Just the kind of silence that makes you aware of your own breathing. I spit, rinse the sink, rinse my mouth, rinse the sink again because there’s still a little toothpaste foam clinging to the porcelain and I can’t leave it like that.

Then I fold the hand towel.

Once. Then again, because the corners don’t match.

It’ll be wrecked tomorrow. I know that. I still smooth the edges with the side of my hand until it looks like the kind of towel that belongs to someone who has her shit together.

I close the medicine cabinet.

It’s not flush with the wall.

It never is. It sticks out on the right by maybe half an inch, enough that I notice every single time. I push it. It clicks. I open it. Shut it. Click. Again. Click.

My fingers are starting to ache from pushing the door closed, so I stop. My chest still feels bad. Tight, but not dramatic. More like there’s a fist around something important and it keeps squeezing whenever I get too close to thinking.

The bathroom smells like eucalyptus body wash and steam and damp cotton and the faint old-building smell that never fully goes away.

My phone is on the counter, face down.

The edge of the case is cracked. It keeps collecting lint in the split, which makes it look like the phone itself is molting. I pick it up out of reflex. Not because I’m expecting anything. Nobody texts me this late. Nobody texts me early either, honestly. I still flip it over and wake the screen because I’m apparently committed to humiliating myself in tiny private ways.

No texts.

No emails.

No notifications except DoorDash trying to convince me that ordering dumplings at midnight is “self-care.”

I open Instagram. Watch somebody I’ve never met in Tulum hold up a cocktail that costs more than my electric bill. Close it. Open Gmail. “No new mail.” Great. Open Instagram again because my brain is basically a lab rat hitting the lever.

I don’t even want to be on my phone. I just don’t want to stand still in this bathroom and let a thought land all the way.

So I open Photos and start deleting garbage.

Screenshot of a recipe I was never going to make because any meal that requires tahini, fresh herbs, and emotional stability is not for me. Delete.

Blurry picture of a cloud that looked like a dog at the time and now just looks like weather. Delete.

Accidental photo of my own hand, taken at some angle where my fingers look bloated and corpse adjacent. Delete immediately.

Lukewarm latte from three months ago. Delete.

The outside of a restaurant I can’t afford. Delete.

A mirror selfie where I thought I looked fine,

and now all I can see is that my posture makes me look apologetic. Delete.

I keep going.

I tell myself I’m freeing up storage, which is technically true. It just also feels a little like clearing evidence. Little pointless records of being alive and not enjoying it correctly.

I’m not sleepy. I’m not awake either. I’m in that disgusting in-between where your body is tired enough to be stupid but your brain is still sharp enough to be cruel.

That’s always when things get bad.

That’s when I start wanting to fix something without knowing what the something is. My face. My apartment. My inbox. My life. The grout in the shower. My personality. Anything. Just pick a target and go.

I swipe too fast and hit the wrong thing. The Share button.

A menu opens.

I try to dismiss it, but my thumb catches Save to Files instead. A list of folders appears over the photo.

I stare at it, frowning, because I don’t recognize any of it. There’s a folder buried among the others, in a section I don’t think I’ve ever used. The screen stalls for half a second, then catches up.

Unsent Drafts

I just stare at the words.

For a second I assume I’m too tired and reading it wrong. Or it’s one of those update features nobody asked for.

I try to remember if I ever made a folder like that.

Maybe half-asleep one night. Maybe drunk. Maybe during one of those 2 a.m. fake-productive spirals where I reorganize my Notes app instead of fixing my life.

But no.

That doesn’t sound like me at all.

I don’t save drafts.

If I write a text and don’t send it, I delete it. That’s the whole point. I don’t need evidence that I almost said something.

I cancel the save and open Files. The folder is there.

The folder icon blinks once.

I hate that.

Not in a supernatural way. In an electronics way. In a great-now-my-phone-is-doing-something-creepy-and-expensive way.

I tap it.

Messages.

Dozens of them. Maybe more. There are names and dates and broken little preview lines. Half-sentences. Fragments. The dates go back months. August. May. January. Last fall. One from over a year ago.

My stomach drops.

I should close the app.

I should absolutely close the app and go to bed and deal with this tomorrow when I’m less insane.

I don’t.

I keep scrolling.

The faucet has stopped dripping. Or maybe I’ve stopped hearing it. The bathroom feels too small and too bright.

Single lines. Long paragraphs. Threads. Messages to people I haven’t spoken to in months. Messages to people I avoid on purpose. Messages from nights I barely remember except as a general feeling of dread and dry shampoo and not enough dinner.

I sit down on the edge of the tub.

The porcelain is cold against the backs of my thighs because the robe has ridden up and I’m too distracted to fix it for a second. Then I do fix it, because of course I do. Even alone, apparently, I can still annoy myself with basic physical logistics.

My hair is still damp at the ends. My skin feels tight from the shower. My mouth tastes like toothpaste and panic.

I stop at the oldest draft.

The timestamp says 2:47 a.m.

I open it before I can chicken out.

At the top:

To: Mom

Of course.

Of course, the oldest one is to my mother. Naturally the first time I apparently almost told the truth, I aimed it at the one person most likely to respond in a way that would make me feel fourteen and defective.

February 14, 2:47 AM

Draft: I’m sorry I missed your call again. I know I’ve been hard to reach. You kept asking about the promotion and I didn’t want to ruin your weekend, but they gave it to Marcus. I’ve been pretending to be busy so I didn’t have to say it out loud. I wanted you to think I could do it. I still want that, and I just—

That’s it.

Not even a period. Just a dash like the sentence got tired and gave up.

I stare at the blinking cursor and my whole face goes hot.

I remember that night now. Not clearly, not like a movie. More like pieces.

Sitting on the hallway floor because for some reason I always end up in the hallway when I’m upset, like my body wants to become luggage. My knees up. My back against the wall. A loose thread in the runner rug wound so tight around my finger the tip went numb.

My neighbor cooking something with way too much garlic. The smell hanging in the air and making me feel trapped. The fridge kicking on and making me jump.

I remember opening a text to Mom and typing I got it.

Deleting it.

Typing it again.

Deleting it again.

Then typing some version of the truth and stopping halfway because once the words were in front of me, it became official. Not just a bad feeling. Not just a suspicion. Fact.

And what made it worse was that I already knew what she’d say.

She wouldn’t be mad. That would honestly be easier.

She’d go soft.

That soft, careful voice she uses with doctors or flight attendants or me when she’s decided I’m more fragile than the average person.

“Oh, honey.”

Which sounds nice unless you’ve heard it enough times to know it usually means: I have quietly revised my expectations of you downward.

Then she’d say something like, “Maybe this is a blessing.”

Or, “Honestly, maybe the timing isn’t bad.”

Or, “You were under so much stress already.”

And on paper that sounds supportive. Maternal. Loving.

In practice, it makes me want to put my head through drywall.

Because I didn’t want the silver lining. I wanted the thing.

But every time I fail, she gets this look. Not happy, exactly, but relieved. Like the world has restored me to the version of me she understands. The version that needs less. The version that shouldn’t overextend. The version that should maybe slow down and rest and be careful and not push too hard because she gets migraines and feelings and what if she burns out?

Sometimes I wish she'd worry less about what the job might do to me and more about how badly I want it.

Two weeks before they made the decision, I called her from my kitchen after the second interview. I was eating crackers straight out of the sleeve because I'd forgotten to buy groceries. When I told her I was one of two finalists, she made me repeat it. I heard the television go quiet.

“That's wonderful, honey.”

She asked what I'd worn. Then what they'd asked me. She wanted to know if I thought I'd done well, and for once I didn't pretend I wasn't hoping.

“I think I did.”

“Good. You worked hard for this.”

I kept finding reasons not to hang up. I told her about one question I'd answered particularly well, and she wanted to hear the whole answer.

Then she asked whether the position would mean longer hours.

“Probably at first.”

“You have to be careful with that.”

“Mom, it's a promotion.”

“I heard you.”

She said she was proud of me. She meant it. She asked me to call as soon as I heard anything, and I promised I would.

The day the email came, I sat at my desk with her name on my phone and couldn't make myself press it. She'd been so happy for me. I wanted her to stay that way a little longer.

If I’d sent that message, the phone would have rung in under a minute. She would have told me Marcus getting it might be for the best. She would have reminded me of senior year when I took too many AP classes and stopped sleeping. She would’ve brought up finals week when I had a migraine so bad I threw up in the backyard hydrangeas. She would have made it about how my body can’t handle pressure and everyone’s just trying to protect me from myself.

So I didn’t send it.

I left it rotting in this folder I didn’t know existed and apparently went on with my life.

I back out.

My hand is shaking now, which is embarrassing. I switch the phone to the other hand like that somehow makes it less obvious, even though there is no one here to witness me privately losing my mind in a robe.

The next thread I open is from Maya.

That already makes me tired.

March 22, 11:41 PM

Maya: I know you’re busy, but I really need you right now. Adam left. I’m at the apartment and I don’t want to be alone. Can you come over? Please?

11:58 PM

Maya: Are you there?

12:02 AM

Maya: Okay sorry. I’m just freaking out.

12:05 AM

Maya: Can you at least text me back so I know you’re awake?

12:11 AM

Maya: I can hear people in the hallway and I hate it. Please.

Then mine.

Draft: Maya, I saw your messages. I started typing that I was coming, but I can’t. I’m sorry about Adam. I know you’re sitting there alone, and I feel terrible, but I can’t spend another night talking about him. I’m exhausted. And I’m angry that you texted me, which is an awful thing to admit right now. I don’t think you realize how much I’ve been struggling too.

I just stare at it.

I read the sentence about being angry she texted again. Of everything in that message, that’s the part I wish I could take back. I meant it when I wrote it, which makes it worse.

I didn’t go.

I remember exactly where I was when her first message came in.

CVS checkout line. Contact solution and gum in one hand. Fluorescent lighting so bad it made everyone look recently divorced. The woman in front of me arguing about a coupon while the cashier did that retail-worker face that says I have mentally left my body.

My phone buzzed. I looked down. Saw Maya’s name. Saw Adam left.

And I typed I’m coming automatically.

Because that’s what you do. That’s what good friends do. That’s what I do.

Then I looked up at the line. The stupid gum. The contact solution. The bright horrible store. My own reflection in the convex security mirror at the back, tiny and warped and exhausted-looking. Hair frizzed up from rain. Concealer separating around my nose. Whole face with that stretched expression I get when I’ve gone too long without eating but kept pretending I’m fine.

And I felt this wave of total resistance.

Not fear.

Not confusion.

Just refusal.

Because if I sent that text, then I’d have to go.

I’d have to drive across town, find parking, climb her stairs, walk into an apartment that smelled like her expensive candle and old white wine, and then sit on her couch while she dissected every final interaction with Adam like she was doing forensics on a dead relationship.

She’d ask if his last text was cold.

She’d ask if the thumbs-up emoji was passive-aggressive.

She’d ask if his comment about her bangs two weeks earlier had secretly meant he was already pulling away.

And I’d play my part. Nod. Hand over tissues. Say he doesn’t deserve you. Say you’re going to be okay. Say no, you’re not crazy.

Meanwhile she would not ask me one meaningful question.

That hadn't always been true.

One Sunday the summer before Adam left, I showed up at Maya's apartment after a fight with Ben. I hadn't called first. My eyes were swollen, and I'd put my shirt on inside out without noticing.

Maya opened the door holding a fork, her dinner balanced on a paper plate. She looked at me, stepped aside, and let me in.

Her living room smelled like garlic bread. A fan on the floor kept pushing a pile of receipts back and forth beneath the coffee table. She gave me the couch and disappeared into her bedroom. When she came back, she had one of her oversized T-shirts in her hand. She pointed to the tag sticking out beside my collar.

I changed in her bathroom. When I came out, she'd put a second plate on the table and poured me a glass of water. She let me sit there picking at her pasta while she finished telling me about a customer who'd tried to return a vase without bringing the vase. I laughed once, although it came out sounding awful.

Later, when I finally started talking about Ben, she put down her fork. She didn't tell me to leave him. She didn't tell me to forgive him, either. She listened until I ran out of things to say. Then she got up and brought me a blanket.

I stayed until almost midnight. Before I left, she asked if I wanted her to come over the next day. I told her I'd be okay, but she made me promise to call if I changed my mind.

I still had her T-shirt. I'd washed it and meant to return it. It was probably in my dresser with three of her hair ties.

Maya was used to me picking up. I'd answer while I was cooking or getting ready for bed, tell her to give me a minute, then find somewhere to sit. Sometimes all I could do was listen until she got tired enough to sleep.

That night, I wanted to pay for my things and go home without anyone needing anything else from me.

So I didn’t send it.

I told myself I’d send it after I paid.

Then after I got to the car.

Then after I sat down.

Then after I took one breath.

Then the messages piled up and every new one made it harder because now I wasn’t just delayed, I was actively not showing up.

I was still sitting in the car when I deleted I’m coming. I typed the message I’m reading now, then sat with my thumb near Send. After a while, I locked the screen.

I drove home.

And when I got there, I didn’t call her. I didn’t text. I got in the shower and crouched down and started scrubbing the grout around the drain with an old toothbrush like a crazy person.

That part I remember vividly.

Water so hot it made my skin go pink and blotchy. Knees digging into tile. Hair plastered to the back of my neck. The little toothbrush handle cutting into my palm because I was pressing too hard. That animal feeling of needing one thing in front of me to become cleaner because everything else felt impossible.

I wasn’t being noble. I wasn’t frozen. I was angry.

Angry at Adam, sure. Angry at her for needing me. Angry at myself for not wanting to go. Angry that being “the reliable one” is basically unpaid labor with no PTO.

Sitting here now, looking at the draft, the guilt is still there. I didn’t want to spend four hours holding her hand through a breakup. I wanted to disappear into hot water and clean something microscopic until I could hear my own thoughts again. I back out before I can hate myself too much.

Next thread.

Ben.

I actually laugh when I see his name. Of course he’s in here too. Of course the whole folder is just a museum of me almost saying what I meant to people who had already decided not to hear it.

August 12, 11:45 PM

Ben: Hey. I think I left my external hard drive in the desk drawer. Need it for work. Can I swing by and grab it tomorrow?

Me: Yeah, I found it. I’ll leave it in the vestibule. Behind the planter.

Ben: Cool. Thanks for being chill about this.

Then the draft.

Draft: I’m not chill. I’m fucking destroyed. You don’t get to thank me for being easy to leave. I spent two years sleeping next to you and feeling lonelier than I do right now. Do you remember that night I was crying in bed and you put your headphones on? I kept waiting for you to take them off. I don't know why that was so much to ask. And now you're texting me about a hard drive like we didn't live together, like I was just somebody you borrowed something from. I told you I'd leave it downstairs because I don't think I could stand seeing you. I'm angry that you can leave and still expect me to be nice about it. And the worst part is that if you came upstairs tomorrow and told me you'd made a mistake, I would probably let you back in. I hate that about myself. I hate that after everything, I still want you to want me.

That one makes me put the phone down for a second.

Not because it’s badly written. Because it’s too clear. It sounds exactly like what I wish I’d had the nerve to say and exactly like something I would never actually send.

I remember the night.

Heatwave. AC dead. Apartment sticky and loud and disgusting. I was in my bra and underwear because anything else felt punitive. The window was open to the fire escape and all that did was let in city noise and wet hot air that smelled faintly like garbage and fried onions.

My skin was slick. I hadn’t eaten enough and ended up eating stale crackers at midnight. My hair was sticking to the back of my neck. I felt ugly in the least cinematic way possible. Bloated, sweaty, underfed, feral. Then his text.

Thanks for being chill.

That word.

I typed the draft fast. So fast I made typos. My thumbs kept slipping on the glass because my hands were sweaty. I dropped the phone once, picked it back up, kept going. Every miserable thing I’d swallowed for months came pouring out.

The headphones while I cried.

The sighing whenever I wanted to talk at night because he’d had a “long day.”

The way he’d use therapy language like body armor. Boundaries. Projection. Space. Regulation. All of it delivered in this calm, superior tone that made me sound irrational for wanting basic tenderness.

He loved talking about communication in theory.

In practice, he wanted me agreeable, low-maintenance, and available for sex but not emotional complexity.

But he hadn't always been like that.

One January night, my car wouldn't start outside a grocery store after ten. I'd bought milk, a bag of clementines, and a frozen pizza. By the time I tried the ignition for the third time, the inside of the windshield had fogged up.

Ben answered on the second ring.

“What's going on?”

I told him.

“Where are you?”

I gave him the address.

“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

He came wearing sweatpants with his winter coat thrown over them. He had jumper cables in his trunk, and we stood in the parking lot while he connected them. I held the flashlight on my phone because one of the overhead lights was out.

When the engine finally started, he knocked twice on my window and pointed toward the exit. He followed me all the way home.

At the apartment, he took the pizza out of my grocery bag and turned on the oven. I sat at the kitchen table with my coat still on. My fingers were so cold I couldn't get the cap off my water bottle. He took it from me, unscrewed it, and set it down.

“You should get the battery checked tomorrow,” he said.

“I will.”

He pulled out the chair beside mine and sat down while we waited for the oven to heat. His hand rested on my knee.

I'd missed having him do things like that long before we broke up.

I know exactly what would have happened if I’d sent that draft.

He would have waited just long enough to make me sweat.

Then: Whoa.

Probably literally that.

Then some version of: I was just asking about a hard drive.

Then: I’m sorry you’re spiraling, but I can’t be responsible for your emotional state.

Then maybe: For my own peace, I think it’s best if Matt handles the handoff.

Suddenly my devastation becomes an inappropriate escalation. My reaction becomes the problem. He gets to stay calm and I get to become Exhibit A in the case for why he was right to leave.

So I didn’t send it.

I left his stupid hard drive behind the fake fern in the vestibule in the middle of the night wearing underwear and sneakers, because I wasn’t going down there barefoot, I’m not an animal. I checked the peephole first. Checked the hall. Opened the door too fast anyway. The hallway smelled like old carpet and wet dog and somebody’s burned dinner. I shoved the hard drive behind the dusty plastic planter and went back inside before anyone could see me like that.

I pick the phone back up. My thumb is sore from scrolling. My shoulders are up again. I force them down.

Next thread.

David.

I don’t even have to open this one for my stomach to flip.

Work is different. Because heartbreak is one thing.

Rent is another.

October 14, 2:15 PM

David: Checking on the Q3 deck. Still on for the 4 PM walkthrough? Marcus has had his part done for over an hour.

Then mine.

Draft: Actually, no. I’m in trouble. Marcus moved my projections to the appendix while I was still in the file, and when I said something, you didn’t ask him why, you asked me if I was getting enough sleep. Stop acting like concern is the same thing as respect. I almost apologized to you for bringing it up. I still want to, which makes me feel sick. I need this job. I'm scared you'll decide I'm difficult and give Marcus the next opportunity too. I can’t do the walkthrough because if I have to sit there while you all politely erase me again, I’m going to lose it.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

The bathroom suddenly feels too bright and too clean. I remember writing that draft at my desk. Open-plan office. Cold coffee. Aggressive keyboard noise all around me. Everybody doing that corporate thing where they sit very straight and speak quietly.

Marcus had moved my numbers.

Not because they were bad. Because they complicated his narrative and David preferred a smoother story to an accurate one.

The deck was open on one monitor and the workbook on the other. I'd been checking a formula when the slide thumbnails jumped. My chart disappeared from the middle of the presentation. I found it below the BACKUP divider, three slides from the end. The note explaining the change from our original forecast was gone.

I checked the version history. Marcus's initials were beside the edit. He sat across the aisle, peeling the lid off his lunch with one hand.

“Did you move my forecast slide?”

“Yeah. It's still in there.”

“It's supposed to be in the main section.”

“David wanted that section tightened up.”

I looked back at the screen. In the space where my chart had been, there was a slide with a large upward arrow and a title about positive momentum. The arrow wasn't false, exactly. It just left out what we'd spent the past week trying to account for.

I could put my chart back. Marcus could move it again. We had less than two hours before the walkthrough, and I'd already been told once that I needed to work more collaboratively.

I opened the earlier version, printed the slide with my notes underneath, and picked it up from the copier. Across the room, Marcus asked somebody if they wanted coffee. I stood with the paper in my hand until David came back from a meeting, then followed him to his office.

When I brought it up, David got that face.

That gentle managerial concern-face men in expensive quarter-zips get when they’re about to use your humanity against you.

He asked if I’d been sleeping.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I wrote that draft and stared at it while the cursor blinked.  If I’d sent it, David would’ve gone very still. Leaned back. Laced his fingers. Used my first name in that calm HR voice that somehow sounds both intimate and disciplinary.

“Maybe this is too much right now.”

“Marcus has really been stepping up.”

“We want to support you.”

So, I backspaced.

I remember that too. Character by character. Erasing the truth while sitting upright in a pencil skirt and pretending that counted as professionalism.

Then I typed:

Sent: Yep! Just formatting the final slides. You’ll have it by 3:45.

And I did send that.

Then I went to the bathroom and dry-heaved in the accessible stall for ten minutes, rinsed my mouth, fixed my eyeliner, and came back out like a haunted administrative assistant.

I stare at the draft until my eyes blur.

Then I back out.

Now I’m looking at the full list again.

Mom. Maya. Ben. David.

My phone says 5:48 a.m.

I blink at it.

No way.

I was in here after midnight. I know I was. I’ve spent the entire night in this bathroom, going through this horrible glowing archive of all my almosts. My battery is at 4%.

That sends a nasty little bolt of panic straight through me.

Not because I need the phone right this second. Because I hate the idea of being unreachable.

I leave the bathroom because suddenly I can’t stand being in it another second.

The light stays on behind me. The fan hums. I don’t care.

The hallway is cooler. The apartment feels wrong in that early-morning way where everything you own looks slightly unfamiliar. I walk into the living room barefoot, then instantly regret the barefoot part because the floor has crumbs on it, and I can feel one stuck to the ball of my foot. Great. Gorgeous. Emotional collapse plus floor debris.

I sit on the couch.

No, not sit. Collapse a little.

Knees up. Phone still in hand. Neck sore. Hair half dry and frizzing at the back of my neck. My robe is twisted around me wrong, and the tie I never use is dangling off one side like a dead limb. I look at the charging cable trailing out from behind the cushion.

It’s right there.

Plug in. Problem solved.

That’s all it would take.

But the thought of plugging the phone in makes something in me recoil.

Because then the day starts.

Then the machine comes back online.

Then whatever texts, emails, reminders, alarms, calendar notices, and fresh humiliations are waiting for me get to have me again.

For one crazy second I think: if the phone dies, maybe I don’t have to be anybody.

Not forever. I’m not delusional. The world would still be there when I charged it later. Bills. Work. People. All of it.

But right now, in this exact second, the dying battery feels weirdly holy. Like a small door I could choose not to close.

The apartment is silent except for the old fridge hum and a bus sighing somewhere outside.

Then, in my head, all the voices start up at once.

Mom, soft and disappointed: Maybe this is for the best.

Ben, cool and benevolent: Thanks for being chill.

Maya, panicked and needy: I just need you right now.

David, smooth as a lawsuit: We’re concerned about your bandwidth.

Bandwidth. Chill. Best. Concerned.

I put the phone face up on the coffee table.

The screen glows red at the corner. 3%.

I stand up too fast and the room tilts. For one second I have to put a hand on the back of the couch.

I look at the front door.

No.

That would mean clothes. Bra. Keys. Contacts. Public. Morning. Maybe seeing my neighbor from 3B taking out recycling while I’m visibly unraveling. Hard pass.

I look at the window instead.

That feels manageable.

I go over and yank the blinds up. The rattle is insanely loud in the quiet apartment. Gray morning light leaks in, flat and ugly and honest. No flattering angles. The glass has fingerprints on it. There’s a dead gnat in the track.

I shove the window up.

Cold air rushes in.

Not freezing. Just cold enough after the shower-warm apartment to make me realize I’m barely dressed and kind of sticky and probably smell faintly like toothpaste and panic.

I swing one leg over the sill and then have to stop because my robe catches open at the thigh.

Perfect.

Exactly what every woman wants at dawn: to accidentally flash an alley.

I yank the robe closed with one hand, climb through with the other, and step onto the fire escape.

The metal is filthy.

And freezing.

And uneven against the bottoms of my feet. I sit down anyway because standing feels too dramatic and also slightly unsafe when you’re tired enough to feel separate from your own limbs.

I tuck the robe tight under my legs.

Not gaze meaningfully into the distance. Not have a cinematic moment. I make sure I’m covered because the building across the alley has windows, and I am not giving some stranger a free show because my nervous breakdown had poor wardrobe planning.

Then I grip the railing.

The iron is rough under my hand. Paint flaking. Rust gathering at the bolts. It smells like cold metal and wet brick and old rain. Somewhere below there’s the sour oily smell of the restaurant dumpster from the next building over. A delivery truck rattles down the avenue. Someone shouts. A pigeon lands on the rail one level up and makes a noise like a smoker clearing his throat.

The sky is turning that gross early color between gray and purple. The city looks half-built at this hour, like all the respectable parts haven’t been turned on yet.

I sit there with one hand clamped on my robe at the chest and the other around the railing and wait to feel worse.

That’s honestly what I expect.

I expect panic. Shame. Some big cinematic collapse. I expect to suddenly realize I’m cold and alone and insane and barefoot on a fire escape before sunrise because I found a cursed folder on my phone full of every truth I couldn’t say out loud.

But none of that happens.

I’m still upset, obviously.

I still look like shit, probably. Hair frizzing, face puffy, mascara residue under one eye because apparently, I missed some last night, knees goosebumped, one shoulder of the robe damp and cold.

Still.

Out here, with no mirror and no sink and no charger, I feel a tiny bit less trapped.

Out here, nobody needs anything.

The metal under my feet is real. The chipped paint under my thumb is real. The ache in my jaw from clenching it all night is real. My phone dying in the other room is real.

For the first time all night, that feels better than language.

I hear the phone buzz inside.

Loud against the wood coffee table.

Once.

Then again.

My whole body reacts. It’s disgusting how fast. My shoulders jump. My stomach drops. My brain immediately starts guessing.

Alarm?

Mom?

David?

Spam?

Another nothing from someone I’m stupidly hoping to hear from?

I could go get it.

I could climb back through the window, grab the phone, plug it in, check the notification, start the day, resume the role. Dutiful daughter. Good employee. Reachable woman. Human extension cord for other people’s needs.

I don’t move.

The phone buzzes again.

Then stops.

For one irrational second I wonder if the battery died right then. Like a tiny mercy killing. I picture the screen going black on the coffee table, all those drafts sealed back into dark glass.

It doesn’t really matter.

I’m not in there.

I look out across the backs of buildings. Water towers. Brick walls. Fire escapes zigzagging down facades.  The sky gets a shade lighter. Then another.

I don’t have a plan.

That should bother me more than it does.

Usually, I’m all plans. Backup plans. Scripts. Exit routes. The text I’ll send, the face I’ll make, the thing I’ll say if someone asks why I seem off. I am basically a woman-shaped contingency document.

No decision about Mom.

No apology for Maya.

No message to Ben because what would be the point.

No brave email to David.

Just me sitting on a freezing fire escape in a robe I should probably wash, with sleep in my eyes and crumbs still stuck to one foot, while my phone either dies inside my apartment or is already dead.

The city keeps waking up around me. Somebody starts a shower in the apartment next door. Pipes knock in the wall. A siren moves somewhere far off, then farther. A cab honks twice.

Out here, for one minute longer, they can wait.

For one minute longer, I do not answer.

Inside, the phone buzzes once.

Then again.

Then again.

Then again.

After that, nothing.

I stay where I am until the cold gets through the robe.

When I climb back inside, the phone is dead on the coffee table.

I pick it up anyway.

Nothing.

Then my laptop chimes from the kitchen table.

I turn.

The laptop is open.

I don’t remember opening it.

Four message windows sit on the screen, each showing the text of one of my drafts.

Mom.

Maya.

Ben.

David.

Each one says the same thing at the bottom.

Sent 5:59 AM

I hadn’t sent them.

I also knew they were mine.

My hand tightens around the dead phone.

Maya’s window changes first.

Three dots appear.

Then disappear.

Then appear again.