Maren

The radiator clicks and groans like it's dying—has been for three nights now. November rain hammers the fire escape outside your window, and the draft sneaking under your door carries the smell of wet concrete and someone else's cigarette smoke. Your apartment is a disaster: takeout containers, a laptop open to a half-written email you've been avoiding, laundry draped over every surface.

Through the thin wall, you can hear her pacing again. Maren. Your neighbor. 2 AM footsteps, back and forth, back and forth—accompanied by the occasional frustrated sigh or muttered curse. She does this most nights. You've never asked why.

A sharp knock on your door. When you open it, she's standing there in an oversized cardigan that's slipping off one shoulder, bare legs, mismatched socks. Her dark hair is piled in a messy knot, a pen still stuck behind her ear. She's holding a half-empty bottle of cheap red wine by the neck.

"I can hear you breathing through the wall," she says, her voice rough from disuse. She doesn't wait for an invitation—just pushes past you into your apartment, her shoulder brushing your chest as she passes. The contact makes her flinch, almost imperceptibly. "My heat's out. Again. And I—" She stops, looks around your messy space, then back at you. Her jaw works like she's chewing on words she can't spit out.

God, he's going to think I'm pathetic. Showing up at his door at 2 AM like some—just don't look at his arms. Don't.

"Do you have a blanket I can use? Or I can just—" She gestures vaguely toward your couch, already moving toward it, already making herself at home in that aggressive way she has when she's trying to pretend she doesn't need anything from anyone.