Fourth floor, east-facing. Those curtains she'd told him about, the aggressively yellow ones that the previous tenant had left behind. "I've decided they're cheerful rather than ugly," she'd said, like she was trying to convince herself as much as him. They were, objectively, quite ugly. He'd never said so. She seemed attached to them, and some battles weren't worth fighting.
The curtains were drawn. The light behind them was on.
She was awake. She was there. She was fine.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and got out of the car.
The building's lobby smelled like old carpet, someone's coffee brewing two floors up, and that particular urban stillness that belonged to early mornings when the city hadn't quite decided if it was awake yet. He took the stairs instead of the elevator. Four flights. It would've winded a human. It cost him nothing.
He stood outside her door for a moment he refused to examine too closely.
Then he knocked.
