Beck and I rented a two—bedroom apartment off campus. The building itself was old enough to be labeled historically charming, and it had certainly been an upgrade from the cramped dormitory.

It had taken me considerate effort to keep a single room after my supposed roommate miraculously never showed. I'd made her up, figured that sharing a small space with someone would make it needlessly more difficult to keep my secrets in tact and, truth be told, I had grown accustomed to faring on my own. I thought that going to college, like my mother had, would somehow make me feel closer to her. Understand her. Fit in her world. Even if I had been posing as someone else.

     Beck had been the first person who'd gotten more out of me than a kind—of—friendly smile in years. I hadn't realized how badly I'd needed a friend until she'd come along.

     As the elevator screeched to a slow halt on the seventh floor, I dug out my key and waited for the doors to slide open. Something about confined spaces always made me fidgety. I'd caught myself numerous times opting the stairs instead, even if climbing seven floors was ridiculous. Some days I managed a better grip than others, clearly. I had not yet decided if me facing one of my minor fears said something about today.

     The hallway ahead of me was straight and long with anonymous, hardwood doors on either side. I vaguely knew the faces living behind them (I had, at the very least, done some research before moving in someplace new) but had long learned that neighborly friendliness was as much as giving a stiff nod of acknowledgment.

     I stopped in front of our door at the end of the hallway, located next to the fire escape, stuck my key into the lock and gave it a sharp twist. The door jammed, as expected, but did allow me in eventually.

     I had told Beck I'd have it fixed ever since we moved in. She kept forgetting how many times I'd told her that little, white lie, though, because the door really wasn't the problem. It was one of the few wards I'd put in place for safety.

It was meant to keep anything not—human out. That was why Beck had no trouble at all walking in and out.

     If I had to take a guess, my roommate would be messaging me soon enough to tell me she wouldn't be sleeping in her own bed and I could lock it all up properly, but until then I turned on the lights in our cozy yet practical living space, shaking the last of my uneasiness.

                                                         * * *

     I was staring at the netflix screen when my phone lit up in my lap. It was three in the morning. I hadn't moved from the fort that I orchestrated after changing into my PJ's. Every time I started to drift off, my body flash backed to that rigid feeling I'd experienced inside the bar. I knew it had been my mistake. I had lingered in this small city despite knowing the many consequences of what could go wrong for a silly attempt at connecting. Running could be so tiresome, I had taken my chances on hiding.

     I picked up my phone, read through the typos, and wished Beck a good night before I forced myself off my butt and into the kitchen. My thoughts wandered to the bartender, Gus, as I poured milk into a bowl with sugarcoated cereal. Maybe I should've been cockier and asked for his number. I shook my head, climbed onto the counter top and stared out over the blotches of light still illuminating bits and pieces of the neighborhood visible from the narrow window.

     I asked myself how Beck would feel if she came home in the morning and I was gone. If every trace of me, or the Tiffany Boscher she'd come to know, had vanished as if I'd never existed at all. I felt grim at the idea that, in a sense, that girl never had. This had all been a dream, a beautiful lie I'd spun myself, from which I inevitably had to wake.

I had postponed that heartbreak for my own, selfish reasons. I kept hitting the snooze button on every hint of alarm. Maybe I'd started to eat my own lies and became reckless to a fault.

     I finished my cereal, turned off the lights and retreated into my room, where sleep pulled me under sooner than I thought it would.