At midnight, the first suitcase lay open across my bed.
By twelve-thirty, I had filled it badly.
Clothes were folded in some places and shoved into corners in others. I packed work shoes beside sweaters, underwear beneath notebooks, toiletries wrapped in an old towel. I had no destination. No plan beyond the strange certainty that if I remained in the apartment until morning, fear would talk me out of leaving.
The second suitcase was harder.
It forced choices.
Photographs or documents.
Books or shoes.
The blue ceramic bowl my mother had given me or the winter coat I rarely wore.
I stood in the middle of the bedroom holding a framed picture of Adrian and me from our second anniversary.
We were on a balcony.
His arm circled my waist.
I was laughing at something outside the frame.
The woman in the photograph looked relaxed.
I tried to remember whether she had actually been happy.
The frame went into the trash.
At 1:06 a.m., Adrian’s post had more than a thousand reactions.
I looked once more.
Then I deleted Instagram.
Twitter next.
TikTok.
Reddit.
I did not deactivate them temporarily. I removed the accounts completely.
My thumb hesitated over Adrian’s number.
Three years lived inside that contact.
Thousands of messages.
Birthdays.
Photographs.
Arguments.
Apologies.
Directions to restaurants.
Grocery lists.
The first time he called me beautiful.
The first time he said he loved me.
The last message was mine.
I messed up. Please don’t ignore me.
I pressed block.
Then I called my phone provider.
Changing the number took less time than I expected.
The woman on the line asked whether I wanted the old number forwarded temporarily.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause while she typed.
“All right. Your new number should be active within a few minutes.”
That was it.
Three years of access ended with a customer-service representative telling me to restart my phone.
At 1:41, I opened my laptop.
The resignation letter took longer.
Mr. Carter had treated me well. Leaving without proper notice felt irresponsible, but staying meant remaining in the same city, keeping the same routine, making myself easy to find.
I typed, deleted, rewrote.
Finally:
I’m sorry for the abrupt timing. Personal circumstances require me to leave immediately. I’m grateful for everything I learned here and for the kindness you showed me.
I scheduled it to send at seven.
Then I searched apartments in cities I had visited but never lived in.
Nothing glamorous.
I did not have the money for reinvention in Paris or New York or anywhere cinematic.
I needed somewhere reachable by car, large enough for work, inexpensive enough that my savings would survive several months.
Three hours away, I found a furnished studio above an old row of shops.
The photographs showed pale walls, a narrow kitchen, one crooked window and hardwood floors scratched by previous tenants.
The deposit was low.
The lease could begin immediately.
I called the number.
A sleepy woman answered.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s late.”
“It is.”
“I saw your listing.”
A silence.
“The studio?”
“Yes.”
“You want to see it?”
“I want to rent it.”
Another silence.
“Without seeing it?”
I looked at my suitcases.
“Yes.”
She laughed softly.
“Either you’re very adventurous or having a terrible night.”
“Maybe both.”
Her name was Mrs. Alvarez.
She told me to arrive after nine.
By four in the morning, I had packed everything that mattered into two suitcases and four cardboard boxes.
The boxes would go into storage.
The suitcases would come with me.
At 5:20, I sat on the kitchen floor because there were no more tasks available to keep me moving.
Dawn had begun thinning the darkness beyond the windows.
I expected grief.
Instead, I felt terror.
Leaving sounded strong when other people did it.
When it was you, leaving felt like stepping from a familiar burning building into fog.
The fire might hurt you.
The fog might contain anything.
My phone lit up with my new number.
No messages.
Of course.
Nobody had it yet.
For years, silence from my phone had meant Adrian was withholding something.
That morning, silence belonged to me.
At six, I showered.
At six-thirty, I carried the boxes downstairs one at a time.
The landlady saw me on the third trip.
“Moving?”
“Yes.”
“So suddenly?”
I shifted the box against my hip. “Something came up.”
She looked at my face longer than I liked.
“Need help?”
“I can manage.”
I had said those words often in my life.
This time they were nearly true.
At 6:58, I slid my keys into an envelope with my forwarding email but no forwarding address.
At seven, my resignation reached Mr. Carter.
At 7:04, he called my old number.
I knew because the provider sent an automatic notice to my account.
At 7:09, he emailed.
Paula, I received your resignation. I won’t pressure you for details. Please tell me you’re safe.
I stared at the message.
Then replied.
I’m safe. I’m sorry.
His answer came almost immediately.
Then don’t apologize. Take care of yourself. If anyone calls here asking where you went, I will not give them information.
My throat tightened.
Had he guessed?
Maybe everyone had understood more than I had.
I drove away at 7:30.
The city looked offensively normal.
Delivery trucks blocked lanes. A man walked a golden retriever along the sidewalk. Workers waited at a bus stop holding paper cups. Somewhere, Adrian was probably sleeping.
His birthday was the next day.
He believed I would return before then.
That thought kept my foot on the accelerator.
Mrs. Alvarez met me outside the building just after eleven.
She was small, silver-haired and wore bright green glasses.
“You actually came.”
“I said I would.”
“People say many things at three in the morning.”
She looked at my car.
“Is that everything?”
“Everything I need.”
That answer seemed to satisfy her.
The apartment was smaller than the photographs suggested.
The bed had been removed by the previous tenant despite the listing calling the unit furnished.
Mrs. Alvarez looked embarrassed.
“He was not supposed to take that.”
“It’s okay.”
“You can’t sleep on air.”
“I’ve slept in worse situations.”
Her eyes narrowed.
I immediately wished I had not said it.
“I’ll deduct the cost of a mattress from the first month,” she said. “Or I’ll get one delivered tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is fine.”
She handed me two keys.
“Apartment 3B. Laundry downstairs. Don’t leave clothes overnight unless you enjoy donating socks to strangers.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
“Understood.”
“And the man across the hall plays music on Sunday afternoons.”
“Loud?”
“Good.”
That made me laugh.
Mrs. Alvarez pointed a finger at me.
“There. Better.”
“What?”
“You looked like someone coming to identify a body when you walked in.”
My smile vanished.
She touched my forearm lightly.
“I don’t need your story,” she said. “Rent is due on the first. Everything else is your business.”
After she left, I sat on the bare floor.
Two suitcases.
No bed.
No job.
No friends nearby.
No Adrian.
The last absence hurt in a physical way.
My hand moved toward my phone before I remembered that I could not call him.
I had arranged that deliberately.
For ten minutes, I hated myself for being clever.
Then someone knocked.
I froze.
My first irrational thought was Adrian.
Impossible.
Nobody knew where I was.
I approached the door quietly and looked through the peephole.
A man stood in the hallway holding a toolbox.
He was tall, maybe early thirties, with dark hair that looked as if he had pushed his fingers through it repeatedly.
I opened the door a few inches.
“Yes?”
He looked at the door number.
“You’re not Trevor.”
“I hope not.”
He smiled.
“Good. Trevor owed me forty dollars.”
I opened the door slightly wider.
“I just moved in.”
“I gathered.”
He lifted the toolbox.
“Matthew. Across the hall.”
“Paula.”
He nodded toward the ceiling.
“Mrs. Alvarez said the kitchen cabinet sticks.”
“She told you that already?”
“She treats me like unpaid maintenance.”
From the stairwell below, Mrs. Alvarez shouted, “I heard that.”
Matthew raised his voice.
“Then start paying me.”
“Fix the cabinet.”
He sighed dramatically.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stepped aside.
The kitchen cabinet did stick. Matthew fixed it in four minutes, then tightened a loose handle I had not noticed.
He glanced around the empty room.
“Minimalist.”
“My furniture is arriving later.”
It was a lie.
He looked at the two suitcases.
“Sure.”
I crossed my arms.
“Do you always interrogate new neighbors?”
“Only suspicious ones.”
“What’s suspicious?”
“You have no furniture and you keep looking at the door like someone might kick it in.”
My stomach tightened.
He saw the change in my face.
Immediately, his tone shifted.
“Sorry. Bad joke.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
He packed the screwdriver into his toolbox.
Then he pointed toward his apartment.
“If you need anything, I’m across there. If you don’t need anything, even better. I’m very committed to minding my own business.”
“Mrs. Alvarez said you play music.”
“She lies.”
“She said it was good.”
“She’s occasionally truthful.”
I almost smiled.
Matthew headed for the door.
Before leaving, he looked back.
“Reporter?”
“What?”
“You look like a reporter.”
“I’m unemployed.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I frowned.
He nodded at the notebook sticking from my suitcase.
“Notebook. Observant stare. Suspicious personality.”
“I’m not suspicious.”
“You opened the door three inches.”
“You were a strange man with a toolbox.”
“Exactly what Lois Lane would say.”
I stared at him.
He grinned.
“Welcome to 3B, Lois Lane.”
Then he left.
I locked the door.
For several seconds, I stood there listening to his footsteps cross the hallway.
It was the first conversation I had had with a man in weeks that did not make me feel as if I had failed an invisible test.
That frightened me almost as much as it comforted me.
By evening, exhaustion had settled into my bones.
I bought a blanket, a pillow and food from a convenience store two blocks away.
I ate crackers for dinner.
At nine, I checked my email.
Julia had written.
Please tell me where you are.
I replied only that I was safe.
Another message waited from Mr. Carter.
Adrian called the office.
My stomach clenched.
I opened it.
He asked whether you were working today. I told him you resigned and that I would not provide further information.
For a few moments, I could hear my own pulse.
Adrian was looking for me.
Yesterday, that would have been everything I wanted.
Today, it felt different.
Not comforting.
Not romantic.
Something closer to pressure against a locked door.
I closed the laptop.
Across the courtyard, someone opened a window.
Matthew.
He was watering a plant on his sill.
He noticed me looking through my own window and lifted the watering can in greeting.
I gave a small wave.
Then I turned off the light.
I slept on the floor beneath a borrowed blanket.
Hours later, in the city I had left behind, Adrian finally realized my old number no longer worked.
He searched my social accounts and found nothing.
He tried my workplace.
I had resigned.
The following morning was his birthday.
At 12:01 a.m., he checked his phone expecting my name.
It never appeared.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Adrian Had Built His Confidence on One Certainty—That No Matter What He Did, I Would Always Find My Way Back
The Night Adrian Expected Me to Apologize Again, I Finally Saw How Easily He Had Learned to Lose Me
Part 2 of 18
