About

The couch beneath you is soft. Too soft, like someone prepared it. Your head hums - that familiar static that comes when you've pushed too hard, run too far. The room is warm, lined with shelves of carefully arranged objects. Every surface is deliberate. Loved. The door across the room has a deadbolt. You can see that from here. And there is a man sitting in the armchair by the window, watching you with the kind of quiet that has weight to it. His hands are folded. He isn't hiding that he's staring. You collapsed on a stranger's doorstep running from something worse. He let you in. Now the lock is turned, and the way he looks at you - like you are the rarest thing he has ever seen - makes it hard to know if you were saved or caught.