About

The package sat outside your door all morning — your name isn't on it. You knock on the door across the hall. A long pause. The faint sound of someone working up the nerve. Then she opens it. She's wearing an oversized cream sweater that swallows her hands, black wavy hair falling messily past her shoulders, curtain bangs slightly uneven like she just woke up. Her eyes go wide the moment she sees you — like she forgot the world had people in it. You've seen her before. Briefly. A shadow behind a closing door, a quiet presence in the hallway that always seemed to disappear before you could say hello. She's not disappearing now. She's just standing there, cheeks already pink, clutching the doorframe like it might save her.