I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.

Usually, I can make a quick escape like nobody’s business: get up, grab my shit, and say goodbye, maybe with a little encore of the night before, if I’m up to it.

But when I open my eyes to find Levi’s hotel room, it’s so hard to leave. The bed is luxurious—not that I’d expect anything less from The Famous Acre Hotel—and the early light catches every opulent surface in the suite.

Then I turn over, stretching, and look at Levi.

He’s not a cute sleeper. It might be the liquor, but he snores, drools, and gets a twitch in his brow every so often that looks like he’s fighting somebody in his dream. There’s a sweetness to it all, though, that keeps me staring.

When I slip out of bed and begin the requisite Hunt for My Stuff, I curse. Everything’s still on the roof.

Go back to sleep.

It’d be easy. If I just hold still and focus on my breathing, syncing it to his, I could be out in five minutes flat. We’d wake up around noon, grab a late checkout, and enjoy whatever hangover foods the restaurant downstairs can make us.

It’s the part that comes after that would be hard. Saying goodbye is better with silence or a quick wink out the door—not over lattés and poached eggs.

The same deep, soft carpet of these halls we ran down last night, laughing and pulling each other along, leaves my feet rug-burned now. It takes me a long time to remember where the roof access is.

In daylight, the rooftop loses the shadows and mystery I loved about it last night. Instead of glittering lights and stars, I’m surrounded by dirty brick and dead-eyed windows. The warm air is nice, but smells like the patches of tar under my feet.

I find my shoes, purse, and Levi’s jacket near a vent. While I gather them up, I notice the ladder.

That’s about the only thing up here that looks the same in light as it did in darkness: the fire escape. It’s just as terrifying to peer over the edge, right through its metal bars and grates, and see the street below. I still can’t believe I followed him.

It feels like I’m forgetting something. I double-check my pocketbook: lighter, cigarettes, weed, makeup, and my dead cell phone.

The garter.

It’s still where Levi dropped it. The flask yawns open, empty and clattering, until I scoop it up and stuff it into my purse, trying not to miss the feeling of his mouth skittering down my thigh.

I hang his jacket on his room’s door handle. Then I slip the garter into the pocket—a souvenir. Something to remind him there are plenty of fish out there, and he’s got what it takes to catch them. Even if it’s only for a night.

On the street, I take one last look at the Acre. When I first moved here as a kid, classmates caught me up on all the rumors and legends about the Fairfield family: they had special hotel rooms for celebrities that cost five grand a night; they built secret tunnels underneath the entire city; every Fairfield baby was gifted a billion dollars at birth, just for existing.

Looking back, it was all ridiculous. Kids enjoyed the exaggerations and mystery. We made up stories as though the Fairfields were our living, distant Barbie dolls and the Acre was our Malibu Dreamhouse, pink splendor traded for gold and marble.

As I got older, though, I realized adults were just as weirdly obsessed with them. My mom would gossip with neighbors in the mornings, about how the Fairfields sustained their fortune by bootlegging throughout Prohibition, embezzling from partner companies, evading taxes, et cetera. They called Jeannie Fairfield “poor thing” whenever she appeared on the news for her latest charity gala or building dedication, sighing out rumors that her husband had eight or nine secret families.

I knew none of those things were true, or at least verifiable. People like to talk. They don’t care about what’s true. They care about what’s entertaining.

Still, when I met Cohen, I was surprised at how average he was. And after last night with his brother, I can’t even connect the Fairfields I know with the ones I always thought I did.

My ride-share arrives. I ask the driver who he’s here for; he says, “Mary.” Close enough.

The entire drive, I think about last night. Levi delivered a combination I’m not sure I’ve ever had: thoroughly satisfied, yet aching unbearably for more. I know exactly what I’ll be doing when I get home.

“Uh-oh. This your building?”

I snap out of my mental sex show. “Huh?” The driver points ahead through the windshield.

A fire truck is parked in front of my loft.

“Shit.” I unbuckle and lean between the front seats, struggling to see past the police cruisers on the perimeter. “Can you get any closer?”

“Sorry, road’s blocked up there. I’m going to have to turn over at the Boulevard and circle around.” He pauses, looking at me in the rearview. “Want me to take you somewhere else?”

“No.” I gather my stuff without looking away from the building. “This is fine. Thanks.”

My feet are killing me as I wind through the roadblocks and onlookers. A policeman intercepts; I dig out my ID to prove I live here. He hesitates, then lets me through.

The building was once a factory, reincarnated through the years. In its current life, it’s a bunch of industrial lofts. Painted across the front is an old bottling plant logo. At least, it used to be.

Black streaks weep across the paint and raw brick. I follow the lines to their source.

My window. My unit.

“Sir?” I grab a firefighter’s arm as he passes. “What…. This is my—my….” My breath balls itself up and tunnels into my chest. I can’t bear to ask.

He tilts his head. My expression must have asked for me.

No one was hurt, he says, which I know is good. No matter how horrible a disaster is, you have to take solace in the fact everyone came out okay. But the more he talks, the faster I forget about silver linings and counting blessings.

Source: unknown. Damage: extensive. Units totally destroyed: mine.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, and helps me sit when it becomes obvious I’m on the verge of a breakdown. My mind spins through an inventory of everything in the loft. My clothes, my computer. Hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands, in makeup and hair dye. My jazz records. My perfume bottles.

My curling iron.

Did I turn it off? Yes. Yes, I had to. I always do.

So why can’t I remember doing it?

“Your renter’s insurance should cover it,” he says. While I struggle to explain the fact I never bothered getting insurance, he goes on. “Your landlord tried to call you....”

I think of my phone dying, chiming from my purse on the rooftop.

I think of those sirens we heard, just before we fell asleep.

“Do you have somewhere else to stay?”

My eyes lock on the firefighter’s boots as they crunch the asphalt. There’s extinguished ash all over the place. The air reeks of charred wood.

“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him, and force a smile so he’ll leave me alone. Truth is, I have no idea where to go. All I’ve got now is my purse, my fanciest outfit, and a crop of new blisters on my feet.

But when I straighten my shoulders and look back up at the building—that scarred brick, the black cavity where my home used to be—I feel weirdly okay. I will figure it out.

Once upon a time, I started with even less.