A memory from long ago: us exploring abandoned houses together on summer nights, creeping around the thresholds, shouldering open stuck doors. Wrapping a stray brick in a jacket, something we’d seen in a movie, tapping at a window until it spiderwebbed. The empty rooms inside echoed our excited laughter. We used to hold hands as we walked through those places. I would always go first, cautioning her where to step.

I stood there, waiting for her to turn around. Somehow I believed she would see me. Even through the darkness, even through the whipping rain.

But suddenly, to my surprise, she stepped out of the light and vanished.

I went very still. I waited a moment to see if she had simply stepped around to get into her car again. But the car stood alone, still running, untouched. The wind, which had quieted in the last few seconds, picked up again. Thunder rumbled overhead. I sensed something worse, something more sinister, was happening.

Krystal hated me now. All the nasty things she had said to me returned unbidden. Picking up the canary cage, I ran through the exit door and toward the main house. By this time the rain was pooling on the ground, and I struggled to keep my footing. My pants and shoes were soaked, pulling me down as if rocks were tied to me, but I kept going, trudging toward the headlights, feeling as if I were running in a dream, in slow motion. I believed she had gone around the back, was maybe trying the doors and windows there. My fear multiplied the closer I came to the house, picturing her breaking into the back of the house, lying in wait, springing upon me as I entered. Holding me hostage in my own house. That was Krystal’s way. She would have liked nothing better than to hold on to me, to tether me to her pathetic version of the world.

But halfway across the lawn, I heard the car door slam, and the car started moving again. I stopped abruptly, the canary cage bouncing against my thigh and falling out of my hands, the canary tweeting in protest. The rain had blurred my vision; the car was now turning around, its headlights aiming away from me, and it slowly moved back down the driveway the way it had come. As soon as its red lights disappeared into the rain, I started running again for the house, forgetting the poor canary, desperate to face whatever booby trap she had left for me there.

Walking in the front door, I adjusted to the shocking stillness, flicking on the flashlight. Rain drummed on the windows. I searched the entire house, front to back, but saw nothing amiss. The back door was still locked. No windows were broken. While I was there I checked the basement, which miraculously had not flooded yet, and tested the breakers there. Nothing worked. Nothing looked disturbed, either.

Still, I could not shake the unpleasant feeling that Krystal had done something to bring on this misfortune. I left the basement behind and made my way back through the kitchen. I got a plastic garbage bag and filled it up with cans of food, candles, an emergency lamp I had stashed in a cupboard years ago. My movements were mechanical, numb. I only wanted to return to my true home, Apartment 201, and get out of this night.