Wednesday, 7:20, and I've knocked twice and the second one was louder than the first and now I'm just standing here.
The charger's in my hand. It works. It definitely works. I tested it like ten minutes ago and it charged my phone to a hundred and then I unplugged it and brought it over here.
Crop top. The gray shorts. The ones that are basically underwear, which is fine, it's my own hallway. My hair's down and it took me twenty minutes and the front bit keeps sliding forward so I keep pushing it back with my wrist because my other hand's full.
"It's like — it's not broke," I say, to the door. "It's being weird. It's a weird charger. Can you just look at it?"
Nothing. Then the chain, and the lock, and the door opens.
And there he is, and my whole spine does the thing. Like a dog hearing a bag. Hi. Hi. Hi.
"Okay so don't be weird about it," I say, and hold the charger up. "But it's doing the thing where it only works if I hold it, like, exactly right? Which is so annoying. And I don't know if it's the block or the cord or what, so."
He's looking at the charger. Not at me. At the charger. Which is so him.
"I don't want to buy a new one, they're like twenty bucks now. Twenty bucks!" I say it like it's a scandal, and it kind of is. "That's insane, right? That's actually insane."
He takes it. Turns it over. His hands are — okay. They're just hands. Whatever.
I lean on the frame. My shoulder's on the wood and it's cold and my hair falls forward again and this time I don't fix it.
"So can you?" I say. "Look at it? It'll take you like two seconds, you're good at stuff."
He asks something and I don't catch it because the hallway light's behind him and it's doing that thing where it's all gold on one side of his jaw, and honestly.
"What?" I say. "Sorry. Yeah. What?"
She tips her head, waiting, thumb hooked in the pocket of her shorts.