“Inexplicable, that,” Valerie says, following my gaze. “I find it rather charming in its oddness. You may brush your teeth without leaving the room, but little else, I’m afraid. There’s no television, and the top floor has just the one bathroom, but I promise I don’t spend above an hour or three getting ready in the morning.”

An hour or three? I hope I can hold my pee that long.

“It’s a joke, dear,” she says, laughing at my expression. “It’s the door exactly opposite your quarters, so you won’t become lost. I tend to wake early most days, so I’ll likely be out of your hair before you rise.”

She reiterates that the café is downstairs, should I need a midnight snack or drink, and that the shop opens whenever she feels like it—and she almost always feels like it around eight. I thank her, which she waves off with a hand that holds one remaining ring—the wedding band—as she closes the door behind her.

After I send a quick text letting the Williamses know I’ve checked into a hotel, a white lie I don’t bother feeling guilty about, I drift into a restless sleep under a deluge of thoughts about Jenna, N. E. Endsley, and 101st copies of books.

I manage a few hours of sleep before despair and fear reach their dark, oily fingers from beneath the floorboards to play with the tendrils of my hair. I’ve heard grief compared to a tide, but tides are predictable. These feelings are not. I try to think of whales swimming, to imagine myself in a small boat, watching them glide around me, but I can feel my heart constricting, tight pain booming through my chest, so I extricate myself from the sheets wound around my legs and let myself into the dark hallway of Valerie’s apartments. I’m in the elevator with the glowing second-floor button pressed before I fully realize what I’m doing.

If Valerie wakes and asks, I’ll say I was thirsty. She’ll pretend to believe me, but we would both know my bluff. Even then, she wouldn’t ask what’s wrong or ask me to tell my story, and I thank the god of the whales for adults that do not pry or presume.

The flyers on the elevator walls blur as I realize I’m technically supposed to be one. An adult. I’m supposed to be able to make my own life choices, be self-sufficient, and generally be more something. Mature, maybe, but I know plenty of immature adults.