Fiction / Allegra Solomon
:: There’s Nothing Left For You Here ::
I realized my neighbor was seeing the guy across the hall around the time things were getting rocky for them. Someone more astute may have put the puzzle together sooner; may have correlated the unvaried echo of the two doors closing. His, having freshly left her. Hers, after having watched him go. How one day their animalistic, guttural moans came crooning from my left, then directly across from me. It was electric the way their connection presented itself to me. The presentation itself was a slow crawl, but when it came, it was gleaming.
Earlier that year, I heard them arguing through the thin wall that separated my neighbor’s unit from mine. My ear was cold against the plaster. I was addicted to this coldness; it was soothing, medicinal even. The argument wasn’t a shouting match. It was coated in subtext—it was something quiet and brewing. Glimmers of the spat echoed to me—my neighbor’s puppyish prodding, her boyfriend’s stoic, male indifference— and then I heard the sound of her front door closing.
We’re okay right? He said.
She said, Of course.
The interaction was almost lost to the white noise of my heater. It was in that moment I decided to take out my trash.
In the hallway, I saw him pushing her against her door with his hands in her hair as they feverishly kissed. A pink mess of lips and skin, missing the mouth more than making it. I made a note not to look at anyone too directly—to beeline for the trash room—but I have never been good at resisting temptation.
There it was: His black nails. Her shut eyes. I drank it up quickly, in one passive blink and the afterimage of them burned behind my eyelids in a crisp orange outline. When the girl saw me coming, she squeaked a noncommittal plea of resistance that dissipated as soon as it appeared I didn’t care.
It was quite the opposite; the two of them compelled me beyond belief. There isn’t much else to it than this: I was awfully bored back then.
All of my closest friends had moved out of state the year before and none of us were good at maintaining emotional closeness over that much of a distance. My childhood best friend and simultaneous ex-boyfriend of five years decided that what we had was not a romantic love and never was. There were no good shows on TV and the midwestern winter was a force. What else was there to do? I let my home swallow me whole.
In my boredom, I’d started to toy with the concept of reinventing myself. This was originally out of entertainment. Not appearance-wise. I moreso wondered what would happen if I went against all my natural instincts and did what was thrilling rather than what I usually did, which was what was right. Act on impulse for any level of gratification without thinking of the effects, just to move my blood around. It wasn’t always anything big. Sometimes I would steal candy from Walgreens and then throw it away because I could. Eavesdrop on my neighbors. Stare at people real long in public and watch them unravel before me. When I got delivery food I would either tip entirely too well or not at all, depending on the day and my mercurial temperament. It felt like I was grabbing my life by the neck and choking it out, deadpan.
Work had become the only social aspect of my life. I worked at Best Buy, recommending printers and televisions to fill the dead air. There was a guy I worked with named Josiah who would flirt with me in the breakroom—call me cute, short versions of my name while everyone else addressed me by every letter. Run his fingers up and down my forearms while we sat in the Nintendo aisle and argued about the most effective character to use in what game. His girlfriend was a nearly six-foot brunette. She lifted regularly at the gym and could kill me if she wanted, but—to her disadvantage— had the sweet, soprano voice of a Sesame Street character. She always picked him up at the end of the day or brought him lunch when her law school schedule allowed. I went out of my way to strike up a cordial friendship with her; ask her how the first year was going, make subtle jabs at Josiah to seem like a non-entity. Some days we would sit and talk for half an hour alone before she went over to him. On my birthday in January, she brought me a cookie with my first initial on it in icing. My complex relationship with her was one of my main sources of entertainment. The rush it gave me was too addicting to stop.
At home I would usually watch old episodes of New Girl or Everybody Hates Chris until my neighbors started up again. Some days my ex-boyfriend would stop by to collect some of his old things, but he always left quickly, without much word or touch.
Things with my neighbors became most enticing in February. There was a night where I heard the front door slam hard as they walked in the house; coming from—what I’d decided was—a dinner. I heard the bass in his voice, followed by the hard, undulating treble of hers.
I turned down New Girl and returned my ear to it’s home on that cold wall.
What about Christmas? She said. You wouldn’t want to spend it with my family?
That’s ten months from now, the guy said.
And?
And so, we don’t have to worry about that right now.
You don’t think we’ll be together in ten months?
I didn’t say that.
There was a soft, barely discernable whimper and then things were quiet again. I went back to my show and turned the sound all the way up.
I never heard the guy leave her house that night, or if he had, I missed it because my ex-boyfriend had called and asked if I still had his Cavs jersey.
Yes, I said, because you gave it to me.
He asked for it back calmly, and when I didn’t say anything, he said, I’m kind of worried about you, by the way.
I laughed. Why?
Because you seem very lonely. Who do you talk to all day?
My neighbor.
Anyone else? he asked. You’re not being self-destructive, are you?
Not yet, I said. Maybe it would be good for me.
I don’t think that’s true. You’re a very logical and empathetic girl.
You worry about me a lot for someone who ended things.
He sighed.
Love is not exclusively romantic. I can still care about you. Quit isolating yourself—the pity party is getting boring. Then, he hung up.
The next day at work I realized I didn’t really know what my neighbors’ faces looked like, and I didn’t know their names. This was exciting—it still is, remembering that mystery and what was possible inside of it. How my impositions still held water. I had just learned the girl had orange hair—I caught a glimpse in the hallway the night before. I knew the guy had jet black hair and pale skin, but that was all. Before I’d seen them, I had imagined them to both be blondes—that maybe they’d look eerily similar. They seemed like the type of white people to be attracted to a version of themselves. I imagined her apartment had pastel monograms of her initials on any bare wall space and a tank for ill cared for goldfish. Through the wall my neighbor had the muffled voice of a petite, five foot, stick thin sorority girl. In reality she was this tall, round, redhead with freckles. In terms of stature, the two of them looked each other square in the eyes.
Where’s your mind at, Josiah asked. He was leaning back against a row of Mario games that avalanched onto the floor while he played with the hem of my polo. I was standing in front of him, spacing out into the open air over his shoulder.
I’m just thinking about my neighbor, I said, as though I was far away. She’s dating the guy across the hall. I think they’re fighting.
She your friend?
I nodded.
Relationships are complicated, he said. My girl and I fight all the time.
Because you’re a cheater?
I’m not a cheater, he laughed. If I was a cheater, we wouldn’t be standing out on this floor right now.
Josiah held my eyes for a long time before I broke the gaze and poked his chest.
I like your girlfriend, anyways.
Right. You two are all buddy buddy now. What’s that about?
I don’t know, I said. I could feel him affectionately tugging on my shirt as I began to disappear into my mind. I think it makes me feel powerful.
He flashed his teeth, laughed, then said with a mix of edge and intrigue, Most people wouldn’t admit that.
I came home later than usual that night, having been stuck in traffic. The guy across the hall usually went to my neighbor’s place around eight, and I was afraid if I was late I would miss an essential storyline. There had been many. I’d counted about three. A pregnancy scare, a forgotten birthday, unmatched love languages. (I wish you would compliment me more, she’d said once. I just told you that your earrings look cool, he said.) The pregnancy scare made me celibate for weeks, though, I suppose that had less to do with agency and more to do with the way things just were. When she forgot his birthday it wasn’t a big deal, but it was obvious to me, a room away, that he was downplaying it. One time he waited in her house while she was gone to the store and he talked on the phone to one of his friends about it. (Yeah, we didn’t do anything, he said. No, no, it’s not a big deal. You know I’m not big on birthdays anyways. Yeah, it would have been nice but, you know.)
It was certainly a relationship forged by attraction alone, and the mess of this reality began to creep up behind them. Though, none of this was important. This was a matter of self; I did not want them to break up.
When I got to my floor, I could already hear them as I passed by her door to get to mine. Desperate sobs. Akin to the pregnancy scare sobs, but less existential—more heartbroken. Long, deep, drawn out—like being pushed out of a brass instrument. Underneath those sobs was the guy saying, Come on. Are you serious? You knew this!
I stopped in front of her door and pressed my ear to it—a high-risk urge much easier to succumb to than you might expect. I could hear much better out there; the sounds were crisp and alive, like I was standing in the living room with them.
You knew this. Like—I told you that at the start, the guy said.
I didn’t know you were still seeing other people, though. I thought we were past that.
Her sobs got caught in her throat.
I am. I am, but I like you both. That doesn’t take anything away from you.
I can’t believe this.
Come on.
I can’t believe this.
To be fair, I had assumed she knew. Occasionally when she wasn’t home, I would hear him walk into his place, laughing along with a voice that wasn’t hers. It was always so conveniently timed that I assumed it was an arrangement. Her heaving proved otherwise, but it was entertaining, nonetheless.
There was an abrupt sound of heavy footsteps and the telltale sign of a lock being undone. I slowly and as unpanicked as possible, walked to my door and began to put the key in.
The two of them were suddenly outside with me. It felt familial, though neither of them noticed my presence.
Go. She pointed to his door.
Oh my God.
I’m serious. Go play with your other toy.
At this, I went into my apartment, only to get a better visual through my peephole. That was the money shot. At first, I could only see him—his back pressed against his front door, and his arms spread eagle, grasping for a way out.
We talked about this. You know monogamy isn’t for me.
Then go—be free.
She walked so she was standing in his face, forehead to forehead with him. They yelled at each other for another five minutes before she said, I’m done, and walked back into her apartment. There were her footsteps; the click of the door opening; the slam; and then nothing.
The silence that followed was the quietest it had been in a month or two. I laid in bed and watched the ceiling fan turn until the arms of it liquified into one solid circle around the lights. I stared at the lights until it hurt my eyes; the bright circles, blinking residually in my view as I assessed my room. I had already been through both New Girl and Everybody Hates Chris’ entire series respectively five and four times; there were no surprises left. There was nothing. Not even a drone of white noise or leaking faucet water. I checked my phone and I had no texts. Instagram was mostly people I didn’t talk to anymore. One of my friends that moved away slid up on a story I posted about Insecure ending and said: I guess Lawrence can stay. I liked it and said: Girl, I guess. I scrolled through the rest of our messages since she moved away. They were all about as inconsequential as that. YouTube proved to be temporarily mind numbing and I watched a video essay about Mark Rothko. When that video ended, I stared at my reflection in the black screen and traced the outline of myself in the collected dust.
I found myself knocking on my neighbor’s door before I could think better of it. Like a quick flash—my knuckles were against the hardwood, and then she was twisting the knob.
Her face was all red—freckles disappeared in the tear stained, inflamed skin. A mane of curls cascading down to her shoulders.
Yeah? She looked me up and down.
Hey. I live over there.
She just nodded, prodding me for the point.
I’m sorry, I began again. I just wanted to know if I could borrow a tampon.
She broke an apologetic smile that was crooked on its left side. Her face fell in a way that seemed she was embarrassed of her brashness.
God. Yeah, sorry. Here, just, um— She opened her door and motioned for me to come in. What do you want—light? Super?
She lived in a one bedroom that mirrored mine. The bathroom was in that first hallway, and I scanned her place as she disappeared into it. There was none of the personalized monogrammed art I’d expected. No goldfish. In fact, the walls were mostly empty aside from a few stock Ikea paintings and one lone, practically vintage One Direction poster right above her bed. The apartment smelled of nothing—no candles, no sprays, no oil diffusers, which was so un-twenty-something-year-old-girl like of her I wondered if there was something wrong with her. There was one withering set of flowers on the kitchen island, but that was all. I decided I liked my version of her place more—it felt truer.
I’ll take what I can get, I said.
What’s your name?
She was rummaging through the cabinet under the sink, pulling out hair straighteners and hair ties alike. I told her what it was.
That’s funny, she said. You look like one.
Then she told me her name was Darleen, and I told her she looked like one too.
It’s supposed to mean Darling—loved one, she said. Which, I don’t feel much like right now.
Mine means “Filled heart,” I said with air quotes.
Accurate?
I shook my head. No. Not right now.
She walked out of the bathroom with three tampons—two light, one super. Her body was swimming in an oversized Mets t‑shirt, as if it was nightgown. As she placed them in my hand, she said, I know you can probably hear us. Sorry about that.
Don’t worry about it. Seriously. I put the tampons in my pocket.
I used to hear you, too, actually. That guy.
Ah. I nodded my head. Sorry.
No, it’s okay. I thought about you, actually. I hoped you were alright when I noticed he stopped coming around.
There was a moment of silence that sat a bit too long, but it maintained a softness I felt could be useful to me.
It’s that guy right? The one that lives across from me?
She smiled and nodded her head—still fond at the thought of him, despite everything that had just happened.
Yeah. It’s a funny story, actually. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.
Sure. Thanks for these.
I walked back into my apartment and put the tampons in the box with the others I had.
For a while, it did not seem like they were going to get back together. Because of this, it was silent in my apartment for three weeks. This was bad for me—I needed them to occupy my mind while home. I started taking extra shifts at work just to stay out the house. I would hope to come home and hear anything—them laughing, talking, fighting, fucking. But there was nothing. My ex-boyfriend had stopped coming by because he’d effectively gotten back everything that he wanted—excluding the Cavs jersey—but would call occasionally. It was always out of concern; out of the platonic love we’d built since we were children. At some point I stopped answering him. It felt like the wrong decision to make, so I made it. The residual high satiated me for a while. I called some of my old friends a time or two, but it was always brief and mostly unexciting in the way things never were when they still lived in town. Podcasts became important to me quickly. After work, I would sit outside the store and watch the cars go by.
During the third week of silence, I burned my hand badly at work. I was heating up water in a mug to make tea, and while taking it out of the microwave, I spilled it all over me. The skin temporarily became flimsy and loose, and the pain reduced me to a child. Whimpering and jumping as I shook my hand, like I’d fallen off my bike and needed a kiss. A few of my co-workers helped me get ice until Josiah came in and said, You’re not supposed to ice it. Here, run it under room temperature water. He took my hand in his and ran the water over both of ours like it was his pain too. We stood there like that—his thumb gliding over the inside of my hand, soothing it— until I told him I felt okay. He then sat me down and rubbed Neosporin on my palm. Nice and slow, to savor the moment. We didn’t talk much. I sat still and let him take care of me. It was then that I realized I had not touched anyone in a long time. I had not kissed anyone, hugged anyone, had my hand delicately loved on. It was a sudden but alarming revelation— discovering I was willing to do anything for it.
There was not much else. I attempted to build a bookshelf. Picked up a poetry book an old friend posted on her Instagram story. I started going for walks. Any control I felt I had dwindled into a thin string I could hardly tie. I had a close call stealing a candle from Bath & Body Works. I wasn’t able to sleep all the way through the night, even with melatonin. I laid in bed most nights and filled the absence with my mind. I imagined they were talking on the other side of that wall, or perhaps, they were talking to me. Those moments felt awfully normal.
In that forth week, Darleen knocked on my door. Her face was hardly visible in the overgrowth of her hair. When I opened the door she had a bottle of Cabernet in her hand, dangling like a weight. Before I could speak, she just said:
I’m kinda drunk, so kick me out if you want— but I need to talk to someone and no one is answering my calls.
I would have been more offended under different circumstances, but my need for company was stronger than my pride.
The girl scanned my walls inquisitively, walked right up to a candle I had burning and took a strong whiff—told me the candle smelled like “man.”
It’s fennel and pine, I said.
Fennel and pine, she repeated absently. Her voice was softer, and raspier than I remembered. She took her free hand to scratch her forehead and began to lazily walk through the room, picking up notebooks before putting them down—opening and closing the blinds like they were some kind of puzzle. She thumbed at the tape holding up a Sade poster over the couch and I fought the urge to tell her to stop.
You’re not busy? she asked, rolling one of my pens around the inside of her wine-stained fingers. I shook my head. Can I just vent to you? She asked.
Of course. I repressed my excitement.
Literally stop me anytime. She then sat down at the kitchen table and began tearing up.
She and the guy started seeing each other in November. He had knocked on her door to see if she had a bottle opener. He never gave it back to her, so a week later she went over to get it—I had bottles to open too, you know—and he was like, I can’t find it. Here, come in. She sat at his counter, and they talked for two hours. I remember thinking he smelled like a forest, she said. Right after rain.
The opener was in the kitchen drawer the entire time. And then they fell into a routine. She said at the beginning he did mention he was seeing other people, though, of course, she assumed it was for the time being. When they started seeing each other every day she assumed she was the only one, and all those nights he didn’t come home she thought he was out being a drunken man with his friends at bars.
He’s been texting me, but I haven’t texted him back, yet.
Yet? I sat up.
I know it’s bad. I like him, but I don’t love him. We aren’t entirely good for each other but, sometimes you just take what you can get. You know?
I do, I said. I looked at her; body perched in one of my kitchen chairs, sipping directly from the bottle.
You seem to be coping with your breakup well, though.
I shrugged. I wondered how she would feel knowing how much I knew about their relationship, or the role she played in the coping.
He was the last person close to me that still lived in town, I added, rocking back on the hind legs of my chair. All our other friends slowly got city jobs and moved away one by one.
So, what do you get up to now?
Nothing. I’m very bored these days. I try to find ways to entertain myself.
What’s that thing? She said, in a bubbly, burpy giggle. The idle mind being the devil’s playground?
She drank more of her wine, and I watched it fall down her throat in cartoon-like gulps. It occurred to me that this interaction might not be significant to her. Just a drunken therapy to exorcise her thoughts on her boyfriend—I, the only person present enough to help her do so—and in the morning, this would all be a hazy half memory, which could be qualified as a dream.
I was a place holder. She was white noise. I suppose we all do what we must to get by.
I have this idea of hitting rock bottom and becoming a worse version of myself, to then come back refined, I said.
She stared at me blankly. Why would you do that?
It might be fun. Keep me busy. It’s like playing a video game. Making all these bad decisions, but they’re mine to make.
Okay.
It was said as a half thought—her mind was elsewhere. She set the wine bottle down on the kitchen table. It was mostly empty and left a nice red ring on my white tablecloth. Then she said, I think I’m going to take him back soon.
Even if he’s still seeing that other girl.
She nodded.
I’ll just deal with it. I’m not good at being alone. Does that make me a bad person?
I’m not the best person right now, so you’re asking the wrong one.
You keep saying that. She drunkenly tilted her head to the right, and it made her whole body sag a little. What do you mean? She asked smally. Like, what are you doing?
I mean, I sighed. I might fuck my co-worker.
That’s not bad.
He has a girlfriend, though. And she’s really nice. I like her.
Oh.
She squirmed a bit in her chair and averted eye contact. I realized that maybe her version of a bad person and mine weren’t exactly mirrored definitions, but we were operating from the same core.
After a moment of silence, I saw her face tighten. She said, Please don’t remind me of any of this in the morning, okay? Then stood up to throw up in the bathroom toilet. I could hear it echoing and splattering against the porcelain sides all the way from the living room. The retching was violent. I knew she would remember none of this the next morning.
I joined her on my knees, gathering her hair in my once burned hand like rope, and held her as her body lurched forward. After, I wiped her face softly with a towel, gave her water, and walked her back to her apartment. Inside, she climbed into a big sweatshirt—It doesn’t even smell like him anymore, she said— and I laid her down in bed, pushing a trashcan to her bedside.
Lock the door, I called back. She said nothing.
Once back in my apartment, I wrote on a piece of paper: BUY HER FLOWERS. SHE WILL TAKE YOU BACK and slid it under the guy’s door.
Work was slow the next day because there had been an ice storm. The roads were slick and empty, which gave us all free reign to be on our phones or take turns playing different consoles when our managers weren’t looking. Josiah and I hung at the back of the store, standing as close as possible to the HD screens to see what it did to our eyes.
The thing is, I genuinely liked him as a person. He was dark skinned, had a head full of hair, and was twice my size—which was just my type. Our humors aligned in a way he often told me him and his girlfriend’s did not. I’m sure it was an intentional manipulation, but I didn’t mind—it felt warm.
There was an HQ replay of a Steelers game unfolding before us. I was making a comment about how it felt like 4‑D Smell-o-vision when he took my hand and used it to touch my hair.
You do it yourself? He asked, eyes not leaving mine once.
I smacked my teeth. Come on now.
He smiled. You know how do to cornrows?
Obviously.
He then took the hand and touched it to his head. I could feel the minute coils on my fingertips, already working themselves to burrow under my hangnails.
You think you can do mine? My girl’s out of town.
I paused.
When? I asked.
Tonight.
Around that time, I often felt like I was suspended somewhere in the air, watching myself live and act and breathe. Observing my body move around powerfully from outside my body, like a video game—removed from my actions, my consequences. In that moment, I returned to my bones.
Except for Darleen, no one new had been to my apartment in a long time. When we walked in, I become hyper aware of the rolled up, dirty white mountain of socks in the corner by my vinyl—the way the couch frayed white where leather should have been. Where it once was.
Josiah walked to the front of the room and thumbed through a poetry book that was sitting on the TV stand, skimming page seventy.
Are you gonna show me around? He asked.
There’s only two rooms, I said, more soft and less assured than anything else I’d ever said to him.
So, show me them.
He motioned me towards him. When I was standing in front of him he playfully turned me around by my shoulders and pointed to the painting above the couch. What’s this?
I showed him the black and white Pollock imitation—left out that it was something my ex-boyfriend and I had worked on together, long before we’d even dated. I showed him the candles I hoarded and how they lived in the box under the TV stand, because I don’t burn them faster than I buy them.
And this? he asked, picking up a golf ball sitting on my desk.
An old friend and I found it on a walk a long time ago.
You seem like a sentimental person, he said, earnestly in a breath. I shrugged and became very hot suddenly.
I have been one at times.
We walked onto my balcony and spit off of it onto the cement—it was his idea. He said he used to do that a lot in the place he grew up. A small apartment not too different from mine.
I felt it again then— a pinch of control while up there wielding our agency like gods. The pinch felt too much a moment later when his hand touched my back and asked if we should wash his hair.
Yes, I heard myself say. There was an electricity in the air. A shift had occurred. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I was still trying to decide what kind of person I was.
We stood in the kitchen—he in front of me, back bent, head under the sink faucet. The room smelled like argon oil and mint—strongly gripping at the nose.
I used to love when my mom washed my hair like this, he said. And then, in the most airy, sincere voice I’d ever heard from him, I think this just brought back a formative memory.
I’ve never done this to someone before, actually.
I feel lucky, he laughed. To be your first.
My fingers were tangled in shampoo, washing and lathering his hair from the back, hardly able to reach over his tall frame. He laughed when I used my nails to really get in there. We were so close. I could see the open brown skin of his scalp and the way his hair sponged and soaked up the product. Something about seeing the top of his head, vulnerably caring for him in this way, humanized him to me. Proved he was breathing, warm to the touch, with blood inside. A person, with aches, hungers, memories. When he was a kid his mother washed his hair over the sink, and he used to spit off balconies— the facts of a real person with a real life. He was himself, and a son, and boyfriend. He was a boyfriend, and I was cradling his head softly in my hands.
When I asked if he okay he said, Yes—please, keep going. This feels good.
It had been more intimate that I had expected; the act of washing his hair and feeling the heat of his body alone in my home as opposed to the open exhibition of our job. It felt concrete, not just a playful, casual teetering on an awful edge for our own pleasure. It was clear that this could be the beginning of a consistent complication.
When we finished, I sat in a chair—he sat on the floor at my feet, facing the television. As time went on, I became quieter. Treading cautiously. I blow dried his hair as slowly as possible, attempting to find out if I was more moral than desperate, more selfish than kind, all while watching his hair go smooth in my hands.
When I clicked the blow dryer off, behind the sound of the television was my neighbor talking. There were two voices, dripping with the specific affection that comes post-reconciliation. She cooed and the guy laughed. I love them, I love them, she said loudly, and I wondered if she wanted me to hear. Yeah? He replied.
They don’t sound like they’re fighting anymore, Josiah said.
Yeah, I guess they’re not. She’s weak for him. I ran the end of a rattail comb down the middle of his head to form a part. They probably shouldn’t be together if I’m being honest.
Who cares? Everyone’s just doing what feels best to them, he said standing up.
He turned towards me and asked if the part looked straight, extending a hand so I would stand up too. His eyes scanned me as I stood in front of him re-drawing the part, pushing some hairs to the side, avoiding the warmth on my face and what I’d like to do about it if I was, in fact, more desperate than moral. His shoulders and my forehead were level with each other. Suddenly, my face was being held in his rough hands, pulling my gaze up so we were looking at each other. I took the comb and adjusted all the zig-zagging parts, making it as straight as possible. He licked his lips.
Remember what you told me you weren’t, I said, quietly. At work that day.
I do.
What are you now?
In this moment? He laughed. I’m still not.
It just seemed like in that moment, us being out on the floor was the deciding variable.
I suppose you’re right.
Josiah and I stood in a charged silence, and then he added, You don’t have any roommates that are gonna come knocking, right? I shook my head. Any friends that just show up?
No, I said. No friends that show up.
Boyfriend?
No, I said. No boyfriend.
He nodded as his hands travelled cautiously to my lower back. Josiah’s lips brushed against my neck as he leaned down to my ear.
That power you felt, he whispered. Do you still feel it?
His fingers pressed into my back slow and soft, as if playing a chord. My body knew that movement. It hummed. I exhaled as he inhaled, and I felt it as one.
To be honest, it all happened very quickly. I couldn’t bring myself to speak—I just leaned into the touch.
From the writer
:: Account ::
This story came to me in 2021 as the pandemic was still present, but the culture and precautions were not the same as they’d been the year before. I’d become hyper aware of my isolation and all the futile ways I’d attempt to feel connected to others. Escapism at the time seemed to be the only bit of refuge—whether that be escaping online, in media, books, or my own imagination. I could often hear my neighbors through our adjoined wall, and I would wonder about them.
I’d spoken to many people about how they’d dealt with their loneliness at that time, and it became clear to me that desperation lived with many people. I am always interested in what desperation leads a person to, and after the lonely period that followed 2020, this felt like a story I needed to write.
Allegra Solomon is a Black fiction writer from Columbus, Ohio. She received her MFA from the University of Kentucky and her B.A. in Creative Writing from Ohio University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, New Ohio Review, American Literary Review, Lolwe and more. She was the University of Kentucky’s 2022 recipient of the Fiction MFA award. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky