The parking lot is empty when I step outside, unlike my head which is about to explode. What did she mean? Why did she say she took me? For over an hour I sat there trying to get her to explain, to drag her mind back to where it was when she said those words: I took you, Becca. But it was a complete waste of time. Her thoughts had moved on to whatever dream, hallucination or flashback had decided to visit her. Turning the key in the ignition, I drive the expressway, watching the dark clouds gather in the distance above Boston city. What I’d really like to do is go to the nearest liquor store, get the biggest bottle of red wine I can find and saturate my anxiety. Maybe later, when I finish my shift.

I go through the shadow of the Hancock Tower and negotiate the tight space that leads to the underground parking lot of my very expensive one bed apartment. ‘It’s the location,’ the realtor announced when my face couldn’t hide the shock at the rent. ‘By the river, Fenway Park just a short stroll away, and the famous Cheers bar,’ which for some reason he felt important to mention, ‘just a few blocks to the left.’ If it wasn’t for my second job, working behind the bar at Mattie’s a couple of nights a week, I’d never be able to afford it.

After parking my car, I stand in the lobby waiting on the elevator to arrive. Jeff, the guy who lives for free in an apartment a few doors up from mine, comes rushing in. He’s house sitting for his sister, an environmental lawyer who is currently living in Europe and needs someone to feed her rabbits. Nice work if you can get it.

‘Hi Becca,’ he says, his long, lean body towering over me. ‘Are you in Mattie’s tonight?’

‘Sure am. Are you coming down?’

The elevator screeches to a halt and we step inside. Jeff punches the button for the tenth floor.

‘Not tonight, sorry. Big date.’

Jeff always has a big date. Fit and tanned, his black hair shaved tight around the edges but dangling like a cocker’s ears on top, he goes through women like he’s testing them out for someone else. Which means I shouldn’t really like him, but I do. We met the day I moved in when the bottom fell out of the box I was carrying, scattering my privacy across the floor in the lobby. Jeff arrived at the scene, helped me gather up my belongings and carry them to my apartment. Later that day he called in with a bottle of wine and we’ve been friends since. Just friends. Jeff is one of the few people I speak to in this building. Ms. Cannister is another – an old lady, who hasn’t realized it yet.