Novels by Leemerh

Friday arrived with two men I didn't recognize carrying my bed frame down the hallway.I stood frozen in the doorway of what used to be my room, watching strangers wrap their arms around my mattress like it was furniture nobody had ever slept in, ever cried into, ever needed. My nightstand went next, drawers hanging open, my things sliding loose onto the floor in front of anyone who happened to be walking past — a hairbrush, a folder of assignments, the small framed photo of Ephraim from before he got sick, all of it scattering across the hallway tile like it meant nothing to anyone but me. One of the movers stepped over the photo without looking down, his boot missing the frame by inches, and I had to swallow hard against the urge to scream at a stranger for something that wasn't even his fault.A neighbor two doors down stood in her own doorway watching, not even pretending not to stare."I'm sorry," the landlord said, and to his credit, he actually looked like he meant it. "I gave

I asked for extra shifts the moment the café opened."I can't," my manager said, not unkindly, already shaking his head before I'd finished the sentence. "We just cut hours last week, remember? There's nothing extra to give you.""Even one more shift a week would help.""I wish I could, Zéphyrine. I really do." He looked like he meant it, which somehow made the answer worse instead of easier. "Try again next month, maybe."Next month wasn't going to help me by Friday.I spent my break doing math on a napkin, the kind of math that never comes out right no matter how many times you rearrange the numbers. Wages. Savings. What was left after Ephraim's medication, after the fee I still owed the university, after the two months of rent that had apparently vanished somewhere between my hand and Maevra's. Every column ended somewhere short of what I needed, no matter which numbers I moved around. I pressed the pen hard enough into the paper that it tore through on the last line, and I sat the

The landlord was waiting outside my door when I got home, arms crossed, his expression already set in a way that told me this wasn't a friendly visit. I felt my stomach drop before he'd even opened his mouth, some instinct recognizing trouble before my mind had caught up to the shape of it."Ms. Aderyn. We need to talk about your account.""My account?" I set my bag down slowly, my pulse already climbing before I understood why. "I'm current. Maevra paid this month, same as always.""Nothing came through." He said it flatly, like he'd said it a hundred times before to a hundred other tenants who'd tried the same excuse. "Not this month. Not last month, actually, now that I'm looking closer. You're two months behind."The words didn't land right away. They just sort of hovered there, refusing to fit into anything that made sense. I stood in the hallway with my key still in my hand, the metal biting into my palm from how tightly I'd been holding it, waiting for some part of this to star

I woke up and nothing was wrong.It felt so unfamiliar that I lay there a full minute just checking, running through the usual list out of habit — Ephraim, rent, Valerian, work — waiting for the day to hand me its first problem. Nothing came. Just morning light through the blinds and the quiet, strange sensation of a day that hadn't already gone wrong before I'd even gotten out of bed.I didn't trust it, exactly. Some old instinct in me kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the way it always eventually did. But for once, I let myself have the quiet anyway, instead of spending it bracing for what might come next.I made tea I actually sat down to drink instead of gulping between tasks. I picked out clothes without rushing. Small, ordinary things that shouldn't have felt like victories, and somehow did. By the time I left for campus, the sky had that particular soft blue it gets before it fully commits to being a good day, and for once I let myself believe it might actually stay that

I opened the door because the alternative was letting him keep pounding on it until my neighbors started asking questions I didn't have the energy to answer.Valerian's expression was already arranged for a specific version of this night — apologetic, maybe, or determined, some carefully chosen face meant to work on a Zéphyrine who was alone and raw enough to let him back in. The face didn't survive past the doorway.He saw Rhydian first. Sitting in my chair like he belonged there, unhurried, watching Valerian with an expression that gave away nothing at all.For a second, nobody spoke. I watched Valerian's eyes move from Rhydian to me and back again, recalculating, the way he always did whenever a scene didn't unfold the way he'd rehearsed it."What is he doing here?"Not are you okay. Not even my name. Just the question that mattered most to him, delivered before he'd fully stepped through the door."He's making sure I'm okay," I said. "Which is more than you did tonight."Something

He didn't leave.I kept waiting for the moment he would — some polite excuse, a glance at his phone, the natural point where a person decides they've done enough for one night and steps back into their own life. It didn't come. He just settled into the old chair by my window, still in the same clothes from the riverbank, watching me with the same quiet patience he'd had since he found me.I sat on the edge of my bed with his jacket still around my shoulders, too tired to give it back, too unsettled to ask why I hadn't. The shame had arrived somewhere on the walk home, late and unwelcome, and now it sat heavy in my chest, replaying the image of myself he must have found by that river — hollowed out, unresponsive, barely a person. I kept picturing his face in that first moment, wondering what he'd actually seen, wondering how much of myself I'd have to explain or apologize for now that the immediate danger had passed and only the aftermath was left."You can go," I said eventually. "I'm