Page 4 of The Quiet Tenant

“Your name is Rachel,” he said, “and no one knows who you are.”

You nodded. Not eagerly enough. His hands left your face and grabbed onto your sweater. He pushed you into the wall, arm lodged against your neck, wrist bones embedded into your trachea. There was no air, no oxygen at all.

“I said,” he said, and the world started slipping from you, but nothearing him wasn’t an option, “no one knows who you are. No one is looking for you. Do you fucking understand?”

He let go. Before you coughed, before you wheezed, before you did anything else, you nodded. Like you meant it. You nodded for dear life.

You became Rachel.

You have been Rachel for years.

She has kept you alive. You have kept you alive.

—

BOOTS, DEAD LEAVES,deadbolt. Sigh. Heater. Everything as usual, except him. Tonight, he rushes through his ritual as though he’s left water boiling on the stove. You’re still chewing your last bite of chicken pot pie when he takes the Tupperware from you.

“Come on,” he says. “I don’t have all night.”

It’s not eagerness, this haste of his. More like you’re a song and he’s fast-forwarding through the boring parts.

He keeps his clothes on. The zipper of his fleece digs a crevice into your abdomen. A strand of your hair lodges itself in the clasp of his watch. He pulls his wrist away, wrestles himself free of you. You hear a tear. Your scalp burns. Everything palpable, everything real, even as he hovers over you like a ghost.

You need him here. With you. You need him relaxed and comfortable.

You need him to talk.

You wait until after. Your clothes back on for good.

As he prepares to leave, you run a hand through your hair. A gesture you used to deploy on dates, the elbow of your biker jacket on a restaurant table, your white T-shirt livened up by a cluster of silver pendants.

This happens. You remember bits of yourself, and sometimes they help you.

“You know,” you tell him, “I worry about you.”

He scoffs.

“It’s true. I mean—I just wonder. That’s all.”

He sniffs, stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Maybe I could help,” you try. “Find a way for you to stay.”

He snorts but makes no move toward the door. You have to hold on to that. You have to believe this is the beginning of a victory.

He talks to you, sometimes. Not often, and always reluctantly, but he does. Some nights, it’s bragging. Other nights, it’s a confession. Perhaps this is why he has bothered keeping you alive at all: there are things in his life he needs to share, and you’re the only one who can hear them.

“If you tell me what happened, maybe I could figure it out,” yousay.

He bends his knees, brings his face in front of yours. His breath, minty fresh. His palm, warm and rugged against your cheekbone. The tip of his thumb digs into your eye socket.

“You think if I tell you, you’ll figure it out?”

His gaze trails from your face to your feet. Repelled. Scornful. But always—this is important—a little bit curious. About the things he can do to you, the things he can get away with.

“What could you possibly know?” He traces the outline of your jaw, his nail grazing against your chin. “Do you even know who you are?”

You do. Like a prayer, like a mantra.You are Rachel. He found you. All you know is what he has taught you. All you have is what he has given you.A chain around your ankle, nailed to the wall. A sleeping bag. On an upturned crate, the items he has brought you over the years: three paperbacks, a wallet (empty), a stress ball (really). Random and mismatched. Taken, you inferred, by this magpie of a man from other women.

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