Who Knows You Like I Do?

A Story by Brooke

You showed up at the door during the maelstrom, disheveled and doe-eyed, your ash brown hair matted against your forehead. I took pity on you, allowing you to come in with your heavy bags and silent thanks. You took my bed while I slept on the couch, and I wondered about you for the entire first night you were here. In the morning I was delighted to see you still had the same idiosyncrasies as before: brushing your teeth with the lights off, making the bed in the opposite direction, never fully shutting any door you close. I laughed beneath my breath, and you gave me that same fragile smile.

It was a few weeks into your stay. No one had called me in a while. I thought you had maybe lost my overdue phone bills or fouled up my number, but I didn’t want to accuse you. You were always cleaning the apartment and cooking meals in your quiet manner, and I was grateful for your help. I let you stay for longer.

On a night where I was caught up in my potpourri of thoughts, I sat outside in the air suffused with the crisp musk of autumn’s passing. You joined me outside, and I felt your firm arm snake around my shoulder. Neither of us said a word, but we sat there on my fire escape for hours, watching the city lights scintillate and the bars overcrowd. After a while, I felt the slight want for you to leave me alone.

On weekdays you rode the subway with me to work. You always sat on my left side, paying attention to nothing but the concrete subway walls. As the train descended, you would always begin to speak about Anne (eyes still on the walls), a friend you visit every year in Poughkeepsie at about the same time. You would never finish your story, always being distracted by the train going deeper, deeper, deeper, the lights getting brighter, brighter, brighter. I would drone you out for the rest of the ride, paying no mind to your odd tendencies. Anne crossed my mine occasionally; I wondered how she responded to your lengthy anecdotes. I pitied her.

I came home from work one Wednesday night, and you had changed the curtains to a rotting-mustard yellow. I found you sitting at the kitchen table, and I let loose a barrage of shouts even though I knew the curtains were nothing. Something about me was off; my tongue was suddenly alive with venom, but my mind was steeped in its swamp. You cringed, said nothing, and sulked towards your room when I ordered you to leave. You emerged an hour later with suitcases, and you left with a look of bitter shame. A long-held sigh of relief escaped my lips.

Two months later, my friend from work moved in because her apartment was flooded. She unpacked her things in the bedroom, and for an impossible moment I was content. But you came stumbling back, unexpectedly barging in through my door when I hadn’t spoken to you in some time. My friend stared at you, you stared back at my friend, and then both of you stared at me in a moment of unbearable misunderstanding. The tight pain of regret--damn, I knew I should have confiscated your key--began to stockpile within my chest. You started to stammer an apology. I cut you off, walked out onto the fire escape in the dead of winter, and sat down. I felt sick.