HER

"Come on!!" I let out a short dramatic sob and let my head fall on the dining table while I clutch my stomach as it rumbles in protest.

The smell from the pork chops staying warm in the oven has created a nonstop stream of drool in my mouth for the last hour. I tried to distract myself from the hunger by setting the table, but now, two intricate origami paper napkins later (thank you, YouTube), it's 10:30 p.m. and he's still not home.

"I'm soooo fucking starving!" I yell out to no one in particular, but irrationally I’m hoping the sound will travel down the elevator and out to his ears wherever he is, so he’ll take pity on me and come home so I can eat.

My stomach roars this time, to emphasize the point.

"Stubborn prick!" I yell out again, this time definitely for his benefit.

"Fuck it. He can eat when he gets home. Better than him finding my malnourished body dead on his kitchen island."

I get up and grab a plate, then pile it up with roast vegetables and a pork chop warming in the oven. 

Plonking myself on the living room couch, I lose myself in the food for a moment.

"Omygodsogoodahshittoohotttt!" I let the offending, steaming piece of squash fall from my mouth back on to my plate as I suck in some cool air to soothe my tongue.

I lean back against the sofa and stare back out at the twinkling lights, letting my food cool for a bit

The view really is stunning, but there’s something so... lonely about it. My apartment might feel like it’s in the middle of a fish market most of the time, but it’s part of the reason I love New York so much. You don’t live in Manhattan to be alone. You live here to throw yourself into the wonder of life and sound and people and new experiences. Watching it from up here makes me feel so detached from it. It makes me wonder if I’m only one thing on the long list of things that my hero is hiding from.

I stab the cooled piece of squash and let it melt into a sticky, orangey sweet goo in my mouth before I savor it as it slides down my throat.

I cut a juicy piece of pork off the bone and wave it around in front of my face, cooling it down, absentmindedly watching the steam draw little patterns in the air as I contemplate K’s life.

I wonder if he lives here alone, or even has a girlfriend. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want me waiting here for him. I bet she’s freaking gorgeous. Ugh, she’s probably a gold digger, I send out a glare to his imaginary money-grubbing girlfriend.

“Why do I even care?” I say, rolling my eyes at myself. I don’t even know his name.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I don’t even know his name, or really seen his face, or haven’t spoken more than three words to him. Something makes me want to be close to him. Not just to thank him, but to get to know him. Maybe there’s something to the myth that your life belongs to he who saves it.

Suddenly, I’m not hungry any more. It feels weird to feel so intimate with him, sitting here, making myself at home in his home and yet not knowing a thing about him.

I glance around the living room. It tells me nothing, except that he has money. More money than I can imagine, times ten probably, to even be able to afford a place like this. Money. And nothing on display that could tell me anything else about him.

Well, other than he cooks.

I push myself off the couch and carry my plate back to the kitchen. Scowling a little at the unused, set-up dining room table, I grab the plastic wrap from the cupboards I’m now familiar with and put my plate in the fridge.

He has to come home at some point, surely. I think. I busy myself with making up a plate for him and leave it on the kitchen island.

Least I can do for you, mystery man, I say to the empty rooms as I walk through them, turning off the lights and settling down on the couch to wait for him.

***

I’m hot. I don’t usually wake up hot. I usually wake up cool. With the sheets kicked off and the fan blaring over my sweaty skin. But right now, I’m hot.

I drag my eyelid open, and it takes a while for me to register where I am.

The blinds are pulled shut over the ceiling-to-floor window and I’m still scrunched up on the couch.

At mystery man’s apartment.

And there’s a blanket over me.

Wait.

What?

I search over my last thought.

There’s a blanket over me.

“Ahhh!” I jump up, standing on the couch, throwing the blanket from my body as if it’s a sheet over poison ivy. “Woah.” I exhale, pointing at the blanket to command it to stay in its crumpled-up place on the floor.

I did not fall asleep last night with a blanket.

And yet, there’s a blanket, right there. I point at it again, to confirm with myself I’m not going crazy. “What the flying hell happened?”

At some point last night, someone came and draped a blanket over me while I was sleeping. For a split second, I feel a melting feeling, oh how sweet of them, to be so thoughtful. And then it freezes. Not sweet. Creepy.

Um, creepy? You’re the one squatting at a stranger’s house, I remind myself.

“Shut up! I’m trying to think.” I yell.

I climb down from the couch and look around the apartment. Everything else looks the same, unmoved. Not that there is that much to move. I run to the fridge and throw open the door. The plate of food is still there, unwrapped, uneaten. None of the other food that was in there is touched.

There’s nothing else in the apartment that shows any indication of change.

Just me. Just the blanket.

That he must’ve draped over me in my sleep to keep me warm.

It would be sweet, if I wasn’t an oven when I sleep.

No.

It still is sweet.

Dammit.

I find my phone still lying on the coffee table and press “2” on the speed dial.

“Harold? It’s Jade. I’m okay, just letting you know I’m not coming into work today. I’ll explain later, there’s just someone I’ve got to see.”