No One Knows Us Here(54)

I shivered, rubbing my bare arms. My toes throbbed from the chill of the sidewalk. The snow was coming down in soft clusters. At the entryway, I pulled at the door to go back inside, but I’d locked myself out. “Damnit, Wendy,” I said out loud.

I pressed the button next to the label reading APARTMENT MANAGER, hoping to summon Carl or Jessica. Nothing happened. My finger hovered over the button next to S. FERGUSON, but I didn’t press it. Maybe I should freeze out here. Burrow under some bush and wait for death. I sighed and then, with a quick jabbing motion, pushed the button by Sam’s name. I stood in the snow, waiting, for what seemed like ages. Then I heard it, his voice. A little hoarse, deeper than normal, like he was recovering from a cold. “Hello?”

Even through the tinned, crackly sound of the intercom, his voice sounded real, like he was right next to me again, not separated by any walls. Just one word sent me on this split-second flashback of every moment we had spent together. Sitting on my floor eating waffles, telling him everything, throwing myself on him in the hallway, stumbling down to his room, tearing each other’s clothes off . . . This must be what it’s like when you die, I thought. When your life flashes before your eyes.

He said hello again before I snapped out of it.

“It’s Rosemary!” I yelled into the speaker. “I’m locked out—”

The buzzer sounded. I took the stairs instead of the elevator, to give myself time.

When I reached my floor, Sam was waiting in his doorway. He was smiling an amused little smile. I thought again about past lives, about being destined to meet someone. Maybe this was the pattern our two souls couldn’t escape, with me getting locked out and him letting me back in, over and over, across lifetimes. “Thanks for letting me in.” I had to concentrate to keep my voice sounding normal. I was afraid it might come out trembling—or worse, as a sob. “My sister ran off.”

Sam opened his door all the way and leaned against the doorframe. He looked good. He didn’t look sad or angry. I realized then that I’d feared exactly that, all this time. That I’d see the heartbreak written all over his face. He didn’t look heartbroken. He looked perfectly fine. “Ran off?” He raised his eyebrows.

I went over to him. The snow had formed a crust on the bottoms of my socks and then melted. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep my body from shivering. Briefly—very briefly—I entertained a fantasy that Sam, inspired by my pathetic performance, would wrap me up in blankets, gather me into his arms, and carry me to his bed.

Sam looked back inside his apartment, and I followed his gaze.

My eye caught a glimpse of something—someone, a shadow moving across the floor inside his apartment. “I’ve caught you at a bad time,” I said.

A voice rang out from inside his apartment. A woman’s voice. “Sam? You have any sugar?” She came into view then, a willowy woman with waist-length hair, jet black. “Oh, hi!” she said, noticing me in the hallway.

“Hey.” I couldn’t even try to smile. Imogene Wu—the cellist/vocalist from Ferguson, Sam’s old band. I recognized her instantly. I’d watched their videos enough. Over and over, some nights. She looked different in real life. Younger, maybe, like an ordinary person instead of the wild, hair-swinging personality she exuded onstage.

“I just have packets,” Sam said to Imogene. “They’re in the drawer next to the silverware.”

“Ta,” she said, faking a British accent. She wiggled her fingers at me in a wave and headed back into the kitchen.

“Anyway,” I said, “thanks.”

“Hey—” Sam started, but I darted over to my apartment and slipped inside before he could finish whatever he was going to say.

Thank god I’d left my door unlocked. I went inside, shut the door, and leaned against it, my eyes shut tight.

In dry socks and with a throw blanket draped over my shoulders, I set the kettle to boil. Someone was knocking on my door. “Just open the door, Rosemary.”

I swung the door open midknock. “Yes?” I said in an overly polite manner.

“Can I come in?” Sam asked.

I let him in, and we sat on opposite sides of my couch. Sam slung an arm behind the back of the couch and raised both eyebrows. He looked familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. His hair was the same rumpled mess, that same gray cardigan he had worn that first night, the night we made waffles. It was his expression that felt off-kilter. Like he was challenging me. “He’s not here?” Sam asked.

“Who?”

“Your boyfriend.” His head pivoted around in an exaggerated way, as if he expected Leo to pop up from behind a plant or crawl out from under a table.

“No,” I said carefully. “He’s not here.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“I wanted to meet him.”

“You wanted to meet him,” I repeated stupidly.

Sam nodded.

“You’re saying you want to meet my—my boyfriend?”

“I’d love to,” Sam said.

“He’s not here.”

“So you said.”

“You don’t think I have a boyfriend.” He hadn’t heard me, through the walls. Me and Leo. Thank god.

“It doesn’t seem like you have a boyfriend. He’s never around.”