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The couch had swallowed her whole, or she had swallowed it, hard to say which. Lenore lay flat on her back with her head tipped up onto the armrest, her ponytail squashed sideways underneath her skull in a way that would have bothered a normal person and didn't bother her at all. Her legs were folded up, knees bent toward the ceiling, ankles crossed loose and lazy in their black thigh-highs. The frayed denim shorts had ridden up a little, exposing the pale skin of her thighs, but she made no move to adjust them. Her phone hovered above her face, held in both hands like a little glowing prayer book, and her thumb moved in its slow, methodical scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Pause. Scroll. She was deep in a thread about a woman who had married a ghost and then divorced him for cheating with another ghost. Legitimately incredible content. The corner of her mouth did the thing where it almost moved. Then the door opened. Her eyes didn't leave the screen, but her ears tracked him: keys hitting the bowl, the soft thud of shoes coming off, the specific weight of his footsteps that she would have known anywhere. Something warm unspooled low in her chest, quiet and automatic, the same way a cat's tail flicks when its person walks in. "Hi," she said, monotone, to the ceiling. Then, after a moment, softer: "You're home." She let one hand drift off her phone and hang off the edge of the couch in his general direction, fingers curling and uncurling once. A summons and a greeting. "Guy at the bodega give you shit again?" she asked, still scrolling. "'Cause I've been thinking about that. In the background. Like a tab I didn't close." Her toes flexed inside the sock, ankles recrossing the other way. "Ghost lady got divorced," she reported, her phone tilting slightly toward where she assumed he was. "Read it to you later. It's insane." She paused, and the smallest exhale escaped her, almost a laugh, almost not. "Missed you. Come here."

The afternoon light had gone that thick honey color that meant it was past three and nobody had done anything with the day. Lenore was on her stomach on the couch, elbows planted in the cushion, phone braced between her forearms. Her chin rested on one wrist. Her ponytail had slumped sideways, a few dark strands hanging in her face. She hadn't moved in maybe forty minutes. Except she had, a little. Subtle things. The kind of things she wasn't quite admitting to herself. Her thighs had been rubbing together, slow, in that lazy scissor-motion, one thigh-high hushing against the other. The frayed shorts had crept up so far that the entire round underside of her ass was out, pale and soft, the black thong straps riding high and tight over the dip of her lower back. Her hips had this little roll happening, barely perceptible, grinding down into the couch cushion in a rhythm that had nothing to do with what she was reading. Something about a haunted McDonald's. She wasn't really reading it. Her phone thumb had slowed. Almost stopped. He's right there, she thought, though she didn't say it. She could feel him in the room, the shape of his attention, the specific quiet of him doing whatever he was doing on the other side of the coffee table. Her whole body was oriented toward him without her having decided it. Back arched a little deeper than necessary. Feet flat on the couch behind her. She shifted. Rolled her hips into the cushion again, longer this time. Bitten the inside of her cheek. Then, slow, she looked back over her shoulder at him. Chin ducked. Lavender-pink eyes half-lidded through the strands of hair falling across her face. Her mouth was doing that soft resting pout that wasn't quite pouting. She held his gaze for maybe three full seconds, which for her was a monologue. Her hips pressed down into the couch one more time, small, almost involuntary. "Nothing," she said, flat and preemptive, to a question he hadn't asked. Then, a moment later, quieter, s

The apartment smelled like garlic and butter and something searing in a pan, and it was the smell that finally got her off the couch. Her stomach had been making offended little noises for the last twenty minutes, quiet at first, then louder, then finally loud enough that even she couldn't ignore it. She swung her legs off the cushion, sat up slowly in stages, then pushed herself upright with a soft grunt. Phone still in hand, obviously. Some things were non-negotiable. The shuffle to the kitchen was exactly that: a shuffle. Thigh-highs slipping just slightly on the hardwood, thick socks whispering against the floor. Frayed shorts riding up with every step, one hand tugging absently at the hem before giving up entirely. Her ponytail was even more crooked than it had been an hour ago. She didn't fix it. you was at the stove, back to her, doing whatever it was he did that made food happen. She watched him for a second from the kitchen doorway, phone lowered, eyes half-lidded. The line of his shoulders under his t-shirt. The way he stood with his weight on one leg. She felt that soft, feral little tug in her chest she always got when she looked at him and thought nothing in particular. Then she moved. Bare thighs, sock-tops, the pad of her feet on cold tile. She came up behind him quiet, no announcement, and slotted herself against his back like she had been doing it her whole life. Arms sliding around his waist, hands linking loosely over his stomach. Her cheek pressed flat between his shoulder blades, phone still dangling from one hand against his hip. She was short enough that the top of her head barely cleared his shoulders. Her chest pressed soft into his back through the thin cotton of her shirt. She breathed in. He smelled like him and like whatever was in the pan, and it was kind of the best combination that existed. "Mm," she hummed, low, muffled into the fabric. Her fingers spread a little against his stomach. A slow, absentminded pet. She rocked

The bedroom was doing that early-morning thing where everything was washed in pale blue-gray, the kind of light that made the room feel underwater. Cars hummed faintly on the street outside. The blackout curtains were doing about sixty percent of their job. Somewhere in the apartment the fridge cycled on, then off. Lenore was a lump under the comforter. A very warm, very content lump. She was on her side, curled toward the middle of the bed where you was, one bare thigh hooked lazily over one of his under the blankets, thigh-highs long since kicked off in the night. She was down to just the black bra and the thin straps of her thong, and even those felt like too much this early. The comforter was pulled up to her armpits, her free arm tucked underneath it, warm against his ribs. Her phone was six inches from her face. Brightness turned all the way down. Thumb doing its slow work. She had been awake for maybe twenty minutes. She had not moved. She had not spoken. She had been scrolling through a thread about people whose houseplants "started acting weird" before an earthquake, and honestly the science was shaky but the vibes were immaculate. She had also been stalling. She knew she had been stalling. She had known for two days. She had rehearsed the sentence in her head at least eleven times, always in the same flat little cadence, and every time she had decided later, later, five more minutes, and now it was later, and now it was basically right now, and her mother's Volvo was going to be pulling into the parking lot in something like six hours, and. Fuck. She sighed. Just a small one. Barely a sound. More of a decision than a breath. Her phone lowered a fraction. She rolled her head on the pillow, ponytail long since destroyed into a soft dark tangle across the sheet, and looked at him. Her lavender-pink eyes were still soft with sleep, lashes heavy, one cheek pink from being smushed into the pillow. "Okay," she said quietly, to the side of his fa

The bathroom door wasn't fully closed; it never was. Steam curled out through the gap in a lazy ribbon, fogging the hallway mirror she never looked in anyway. The sound of the shower was a soft, steady wall of white noise, and somewhere inside it was the specific sound of him: a shift of weight, the wet slap of a hand against tile. She pushed off the couch with the effort of a woman being drafted into war. Ugh. But her phone was in her hand, and her boyfriend was naked and wet approximately thirty feet away, and somewhere in the sludge of her brain, a little gear turned. A plan formed. Barely. The bare minimum of a plan. A plan-shaped smudge. She padded down the hall on quiet socked feet, peeled the thigh-highs off one at a time in the doorway and let them fall wherever, then the shorts, dragged down over her hips and stepped out of like a shed skin. Shirt over her head, hair tie yanked halfway free and abandoned. Bra unhooked, thong pushed down her thighs with her thumbs. All of it in a small pale pile on the bathmat. Choker stayed. Phone stayed. She slid the shower door open. Steam billowed out around her, warm and thick, immediately fogging the screen in her hand. She squinted at it, wiped it on the only dry thing available, which was a small patch of her own forearm, and stepped in. The water hit her shoulder. She flinched once, adjusted, moved closer to him without a word, and settled her back against the tile on the opposite wall, phone held up above the spray, both hands cradling it like it was the baby Jesus. "Hi," she said, to the phone, not him. Then, "Wash me." Water beaded down her collarbones, ran in fat slow lines between her breasts, pooled in the little dip of her navel and kept going. Her hair darkened fast, sticking to her neck and shoulders in wet ropes. She tilted her chin up just enough to keep the phone dry, screen glowing against her face through the mist. "I was gonna do it myself," she informed the ceiling, deadpan, "but then I t

The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional distant siren. Lenore was on the couch, phone in hand, scrolling through a thread about cursed objects. Her boyfriend had stepped out to pick up dinner, and she had been left alone with her thoughts and the internet. She didn't mind. The solitude was comfortable, like a second skin. Then the doorbell rang. She didn't move at first. The sound was an intrusion, a demand on her time that she was not prepared to honor. But after a moment, she sighed, pushed herself upright with a groan, and shuffled toward the front door. Her thigh-highs whispered against the hardwood floor, her shorts riding up with every step. She opened the door to find a delivery driver holding a bag of food. For a moment, she just stared at him, her expression blank. Then she took the bag, mumbled a "Thanks," and closed the door without another word. She stood in the hallway for a moment, the warm bag in her hands, the smell of Chinese food filling the air. Then she shuffled back to the couch, set the bag on the coffee table, and resumed her scrolling. The food could wait. The internet was more important.

The morning light crept through the half-closed blinds, painting stripes across the bedroom floor. Lenore was still in bed, a tangle of sheets and pillows, one arm flung over her face. The sound of her boyfriend moving around the kitchen drifted through the walls, but she made no move to get up. She was deep in a half-dream, half-scroll, her phone resting on her chest, a video essay on the history of highway hypnosis playing softly. Eventually, she heard footsteps approaching. The bedroom door creaked open, and the smell of coffee filled the room. "Mm," she hummed, not moving. "Put it on the nightstand." She heard the clink of a mug being set down. Then a pause. Then the weight of him sitting on the edge of the bed. "You're still in bed," he said, his voice amused. "Observant," she replied, her voice muffled by her arm. "I'm cultivating." "Cultivating what?" "A sense of peace. Go away. I'm busy." She didn't mean it, and he knew it. She felt the bed shift as he stood up, and she let out a small, contented sigh. The coffee would be there when she was ready. The world could wait.

The doorbell rang, and Lenore groaned. She was on the couch, phone in hand, deep into a YouTube video about a man who had built a functioning haunted house in his backyard. The interruption was unwelcome, but her stomach growled, and she remembered that she had ordered food. She heaved herself off the couch with a grunt, padded to the door in her bare feet, and pulled it open. A delivery driver stood there, holding a large bag. She took it from him, muttered a thanks, and closed the door. She stood in the hallway for a moment, the bag warm in her hands. Then she shuffled back to the couch, dropped the bag on the coffee table, and flopped back down. She didn't open it right away. She just lay there, phone in her hand, scrolling through the comments on the haunted house video. The food could wait. It always could.

It was late afternoon, and the apartment was filled with that golden, lazy light that made everything look a little more forgiving. Lenore was on the couch, her laptop open on her stomach, a documentary about elevator accidents playing. She was only half-watching; her phone was in her hand, and she was scrolling through a subreddit dedicated to photos of strange cloud formations. She heard the key in the lock, and a few seconds later, the door opened. Her boyfriend walked in, carrying a grocery bag. He looked over at her, and she looked up at him, her expression unchanged. "You're back," she said, her voice flat. "I'm back," he confirmed. She nodded slowly, then turned her attention back to her phone. "Did you get the thing?" "What thing?" "The thing. The thing I asked for. The thing I sent you a text about." He pulled out his phone, checked his messages, and then looked at her. "You sent me a link to a video about a cat that plays the piano." "That's the thing," she said, deadpan. "Did you get it?" "I... I didn't see the cat." "Then no. You didn't get the thing." She sighed dramatically and went back to scrolling. He could hear the faint sound of a piano coming from her phone. She was already watching the video.

The sun had set, and the apartment was dark except for the glow of her phone screen. Lenore was on the couch, curled up in a ball, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She had been reading a creepypasta about a hotel room that didn't exist, and she was feeling just the right amount of unsettled. Her boyfriend was in the kitchen, making tea. She could hear the kettle whistle, the clink of a spoon. She didn't move. She didn't want to. The story had her in its grip. "You want some?" he called from the kitchen. "Mm," she said, not answering. A few minutes later, he appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs. He set one on the coffee table in front of her, then sat down beside her on the couch. She didn't acknowledge him, but she did shift slightly, her body leaning into his warmth. "What are you reading?" he asked. "A hotel that doesn't exist," she said, her voice monotone. "The room number is 13. There is no 13th floor. It's very bad. I love it." "You're going to give yourself nightmares." "Good." She took a sip of the tea, still holding her phone with one hand. The warmth of the mug seeped into her cold fingers. She was content.

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