The detective was right. I lived exactly thirty minutes away from Noah. The suburb we drove into was very different to Noah’s, though. His had trees and green sidewalks; this was a built-up suburb that contained row after row of apartment developments and hardly any greenery. This struck me as odd. Why would I choose to live in such a place? But maybe there were other reasons I hadn’t considered. Maybe this was close to my work? Maybe this was all I could afford? So many questions that were surely about to be answered. We parked in the visitors’ parking lot and walked into the building. I was just minutes away from putting the last pieces together and finding out who I was. I’d solved much of that mystery already. I was just waiting for the final pieces to fall into place. I saw a doorman and quickly made a beeline for him.
“Hey,” I called out happily, sure he would know me.
And he did! I could see it the second his eyes met mine. His eyes widened as a look of recognition swept over his face. He’d probably been wondering where I was this last week. I smiled, hoping to match his smile, the one that was surely about to come. Only it didn’t. He didn’t smile. At all. Not even vaguely. Not even a little twitch of one on the corner of his lips. The shadow of a twitch even. Instead, he looked down and picked up a pencil and paper. He tapped the pen against the desk, as if . . . he was avoiding me?
“Hey,” I said again, and this time he mumbled something that I couldn’t quite hear. This would be the first person I’d met that knew me. The real me.
“Sorry, what? I didn’t hear you,” I said.
“Good evening, Miss Small,” he said, not making eye contact.
“Good evening!” I looked behind at Noah and shot him a thumbs-up. “Did you hear that? He called me Miss Small!”
“How are you today?” I asked, turning back to him. At that, his eyes flicked up quickly, he scrunched his face, crinkled his brow and then he looked over my shoulder at Noah. He seemed to stare at Noah, and I wasn’t sure why. Finally, after what felt like forever, he looked up at me briefly and then back down at his pencil.
“Fine,” he said flatly, as if he was putting as little effort as possible into his answer. It didn’t sound like a warm “fine” or a happy “fine.” In fact, it didn’t sound fine at all.
“That’s great,” I declared, waiting for him to ask me if I was also fine. But he didn’t. He started tapping his pencil against the paper instead and then, with his other hand, reached for his phone. Well, maybe we weren’t so close. Maybe we didn’t know each other that well. Maybe he hadn’t worked here for that long. Maybe our paths hardly crossed. Maybe we didn’t have conversations at all. He was a doorman—maybe he liked to maintain a level of professionalism. I could respect that.
Noah walked up to me and I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was a very brief squeeze, but I could feel he was trying to convey something in it.
“Let’s go,” he said softly. His tone had taken on a cadence that I hadn’t really heard before. There was something in his voice. An anticipation of something. Of what?
We walked to the other side of the hall, where the elevators were, and when I reached out and pressed the button I wondered how many times I’d done this. But when the elevator doors opened . . . I froze.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Noah said, reading my body language.
“It’s okay. I think I can do it.”
“Are you sure? I mean, there’s no pressure. If you’re afraid of something, it’s fine. It can take a while to get over it. When I was five, my parents got a clown for my birthday party and I was so terrified of it that I screamed and ran away and I’ve never been able to look at one again. So I get it.”
“No. I can do this. Besides, I’m too excited to see the inside of my apartment. I can do this.” I must have said this with a little more confidence than I was feeling inside, because Noah didn’t look convinced. But he gave me a warm, supportive smile as we walked into