Page 9 of The Quiet Tenant

He sits next to you with a groan. You wait for him to pull at the zipper on your jacket, wrap his hands around your neck. Instead, he reaches around his waistband. There is a glimmer, a flash of metal.

You recognize the gun. It’s the same one he pointed at you five years ago, a black pistol and the glossy length of a silencer.

Your toes twitch as if to prepare for a sprint. The chain tightens, cold and heavy against your ankle. Dragging you down as if to suck you into the ground, first your foot and then the rest of you.

Focus. Stay with him.

His chest moves up and down, one deep breath after the other. Without the fuzz of dehydration, you read him more clearly. Tired but not weary. Dizzy but not sick. He’s a mess, yes, but he’s happy. Like after an exhausting task, a long run or a steep hike.

Like after a kill.

He reaches into his pocket and drops something on your lap, a cat offering up a dead mouse.

Sunglasses. Designer, judging by the heavy frame and the logo on the side. Entirely worthless inside the shed, but the sunglasses aren’t the point. The point is these used to belong to someone, and she doesn’t need them anymore.

You feel it on him now. The triumph. The boundless thrill of a successful hunting trip.

She calls out to you. What kind of a job did she have to be able to afford sunglasses like these? What did her fingers look like when she slid them up her nose? Did she ever use them to hold her hair back? Did she wear them one summer afternoon in the passenger seat of a convertible with the top down, loose hair whipping at her cheeks?

You can’t go there. You can’t think about her. You do not have time to be shocked or devastated.

This is a chance. His hubris. Tonight, he will believe himself capable of anything.

“So, listen,” you say.

He takes the sunglasses back. Probably second-guessing his choice. You could break the lenses, turn them into weapons.

“I’ve been thinking. About your move.”

His hands go still. You are in danger of ruining his fun. You are pulling him back to the annoyances of daily life, when all he wants is to ride his high for as long as it will go.

“You could take me with you.”

He looks up, lets out a chuckle.

“Come on,” he says. “I don’t think you understand.”

But you do. You know his light and his shadow. You know that he comes to see you almost every night, certainly every night he’s here. You know he’s become used to certain things. It’s not you he likes, not exactly, but you at his disposal. What he wants, whenever he wants.

What will he do without you?

“I’m just saying,” you tell him. “We could still see each other. It wouldn’t have to end. It doesn’t have to.”

He folds his arms across his chest.

“I could be right there,” you tell him. You tilt your head toward the door. Toward the outside, the world he took you from and its myriad of people. “And no one would know.”

He smiles. Brings his hand to the back of your head. Strokes your hair with the soft, poised gesture of a man who knows himself to be safe, then tugs. Just enough to hurt.

“And of course,” he says, “you’re just looking out for me.”

You freeze under his touch.

He slips away, releases the deadbolt, invites the cold air of the night into the shed. Outside, the padlock clicks into place. He’s heading back to the house, to his daughter, to whatever is left of light and warmth inside their home.

Rule number three of staying alive in the shed: In his world, you are the purest thing. Everything that happens must happen to the two of you.

CHAPTER 6

---