The following evening was heavy in that slow, muffled way that made sound seem thicker than air.
Elliot sat at his desk, a cup of coffee cooling beside him, the faint hum of the refrigerator filled the background. He'd tried to read, then to write in his notebook, but neither had taken. The words refused to form; the lines stayed stubbornly blank.
He'd written three sentences already, then crossed them all out.
I think I'm alright today.
I think I'm tired.
Maybe she's at work.
He stared at the page, pen balanced in his fingers, then exhaled and pushed the notebook aside. It was ridiculous how aware he'd become of the silence outside his apartment — the way the hallway carried every small sound. A door closing. Footsteps. The faint echo of laughter somewhere distant.
His mind drifted back to Friday night — Val on his couch, a bowl of popcorn between them, laughing so much at a scene in Moneyball that she'd nearly spilled her drink. He hadn't found it that funny, but watching her laugh had made him smile anyway. She'd looked over at him once and said softly, "You're getting good at this, you know — hanging out."
He'd told her he was trying. And she'd said, "It shows."
That memory had stayed with him. It felt warm. Safe. Simple.
Until Saturday night.
Now, whenever he closed his eyes, he saw her standing in the hallway across from him, that man's hand holding hers, her red dress catching the light as she turned to lock her door. The image looped in his mind like a film he couldn't stop replaying.
The sound of her laugh had hit something raw in him — not anger exactly, but something sharp and restless that wouldn't settle.
He'd told himself it didn't matter. She was allowed to date. She was allowed to laugh with someone else.
But knowing that didn't stop the ache that came with it.
Now, the evening pressed close around him, the clock ticking too loudly in the stillness. He poured another cup of coffee, forgot to drink it and tried Dr. Harper's exercise: Pause. Breathe. What am I feeling? What do I need right now?
He wrote the question in his notebook, underlined it twice. Then stared at it until the words blurred.
What was he feeling?
He closed his eyes, tried to name it — sadness, maybe, or confusion. Something tangled between the two. A knot that wouldn't undo itself.
He looked up when a sound drifted through the quiet — the creak of the elevator, the soft click of a door. Val's voice, light and familiar. She was laughing again.
For a moment, his whole body went still.
He wasn't sure why it hurt. It shouldn't. He told himself that.
But the sound stirred something fragile and unwanted in his chest. He stood, moved to the door and hesitated. From where he stood, he could hear the voices beyond her door across the hall. Two voices talking and laughing — hers and someone else's. The man from last night, maybe. His stomach turned.
Something in him — that old instinct to fix what he didn't understand — kicked in like a reflex.
His hand twitched toward the doorknob.
He wanted to go across the hall and knock. To ask if everything was alright. To tell her he didn't like this feeling — whatever it was — and didn't know what to do with it.
But Dr. Harper's voice echoed in his memory: Pause. Don't react. Just breathe.
So he stopped.
He stayed there for a long time, hand hovering in the air, before letting it fall to his side. Then he went back to the couch and sat down heavily, his heart thudding in his chest.
He counted as he breathed. In for four, out for six. The quiet between them stretched long and unsteady.
He could still hear faint voices from across the hall — some movement, a door closing. Then nothing.
He pressed his palms to his knees.
"Pause," he murmured to himself. "What am I feeling?"
The word came slowly, almost like a confession.
"Jealous."
He froze after saying it. The sound of it startled him. He'd never spoken that word about himself before — not even as a thought he'd allowed to linger. But it fit, as uncomfortable as it was.
He felt foolish for it, ashamed even, but naming it gave the ache a shape.
It wasn't a monster now — just a feeling.
It didn't own him.
He sat there for a long while, breathing through it, waiting for his heartbeat to slow.
The apartment was quiet again.
The coffee had gone cold.
The air felt less heavy.
After a while, he stood, walked back to his notebook, and wrote:
I felt jealous tonight.
I wanted to knock on her door.
But I didn't.
I stayed.
I breathed.
I think that's progress.
He looked at the words, their plainness almost comforting. There was no analysis, no logic to sort through. Just truth.
He set the pen down, turned off the lamp, and crossed to the window.
Outside, the city shimmered under the weight of night — car lights moving like slow rivers down the streets.
He pressed his palm to the glass, the cold seeping through and thought, this is what it means to care — to feel something even when it hurts.
He didn't feel the need to clean. Or pace. Or exercise. He just stood there until the ache softened into something gentler.
Something he could carry.
When he finally went to bed, the quiet didn't feel so lonely. It just felt… real.
Across the hall, Val lay on her side, eyes open in the half-dark.
The man beside her — Joe — was already asleep, his breathing steady, one arm draped loosely across her waist. He was kind, funny, easy to talk to. There was nothing wrong with him.
She should've felt content.
But her mind wouldn't stay still.
It kept drifting — to the man who lived opposite her, who always answered the door like he'd been waiting just behind it, who made tea for guests, but forgot to drink it himself.
She thought about the way he'd smiled during their last movie night — small, tentative, but real. How he'd said, "I'm not very good at this," and she'd told him, "You're getting better."
He'd looked proud, almost shy about it.
That look had stayed with her.
She shifted on the pillow, careful not to wake Joe and stared at the ceiling.
There had been something in Elliot's eyes that night — a quiet focus, like he was paying attention to every word she said, even the unimportant ones. She wasn't used to that kind of attention. It wasn't flirtation; it was deeper, steadier. And somehow, it mattered more.
She told herself it was just friendship.
That she was helping him.
That the small, strange pull she felt whenever he looked at her was nothing to dwell on.
But when she rolled onto her other side, she wondered if Elliot was still awake.
If he ever thought about her the way she was thinking about him now.
The thought made her chest tighten.
She closed her eyes, trying to will the feeling away.
Tomorrow she'd be busy. Work, errands, life. Everything ordinary.
But for now, in this quiet hour between heartbeats and decisions, she let herself admit the truth — just once, silently, to the dark.
She liked him.
More than she thought she would.
And that scared her too.