sofa and spread across it as if marking territory. By noon, his guitar case was open on the floor, his socks were on her coffee table, and his phone was charging from the outlet beside her work desk. He ate the soup she had cooked for two dinners. He used her towel because his were “somewhere in the bags.” He asked for the Wi-Fi password three times because he forgot it twice.
That night, Mara lay awake behind her closed bedroom door while Caleb watched videos in the living room. Laughter from his phone rose and fell. At 1:12 a.m., he dropped something glass. At 1:18, he whispered a curse and opened a cabinet. At 1:23, the smell of her cleaning spray drifted under the door.
She did not sleep.
On Tuesday morning, she asked him when he planned to leave.
“Mara, I just got here.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He looked wounded. Caleb had perfected woundedness. It softened his face and made other people rush to repair the atmosphere.
“Do you know what it’s like to have everybody treat you like a screwup?”
Mara buttoned her coat for work. “Do you know what it’s like to be assigned responsibility for a screwup who refuses to leave?”
His face changed.
For half a second, the softness vanished and something resentful showed through.
“You always thought you were better than me.”
“No,” she said. “I thought you were allowed to be worse without consequences.”
That evening, he invited a friend named Troy over without asking. Troy wore a leather jacket that smelled like smoke and kept calling Mara “roomie” even after she told him not to. Caleb said they were only ordering pizza. By midnight, Troy was on the balcony flicking ash into the rosemary plant Mara had grown from a cutting.
Mara stood in the living room, her work badge still clipped to her sweater, and watched the tiny orange tip of his cigarette burn in the cold air.
“Put it out,” she said.
Troy raised both hands. “Easy.”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “It’s a plant.”
It had been a plant from the farmers market, then a plant she nearly killed, then a plant she saved by moving it into better sun. That was the thing no one in her family understood about small possessions. They were not expensive. They were proof of care. Proof she could build something and keep it alive.
She went to her bedroom and locked the door.
On Wednesday, she made a list.
Lease. Deposit. Utilities. Internet. Movers. Storage. Mail forwarding. New room.
By lunch, she had messaged a coworker named Priya who had mentioned an empty room in her aunt’s house in Quincy. By evening, she had called her landlord, Mr. Harlan, a careful man in his late sixties who fixed loose handles himself and always smelled faintly of peppermint. She told him the truth in a steady voice that surprised her.
“I need to end the lease early if you’ll allow it. A family member entered without consent. I don’t feel comfortable staying.”
Mr. Harlan was silent for a long moment.
“Is your name the only name on the lease?”
“Yes.”
“Then no one else has rights to remain there through you unless you grant them.”
Mara closed her eyes.
It was the
