Chapter 5 – Lies he tells. Excuses she makes.

By the end of the first week, time stops behaving like time.

It stretches in the afternoons, thin and brittle, every hour a separate decision. Then it snaps forward without warning and suddenly it's night again and Maya is lying next to Dex, counting his breaths like they might run out.

Today is an afternoon day.

Dex leaves just after midday.

"I'll be quick," he says, already halfway down the ladder, already not looking at her properly.

"Where?"

"Just around. Found a place yesterday. Might have supplies."

Maybe is doing a lot of work there. Maya watches it strain under the weight.

She could ask more. She could say, Take me with you. She could say, Show me where. She could say, Stop disappearing like the walls aren't already thin enough.

"Don't push it," she says instead.

Dex smiles, quick and easy, like this is normal. "I won't."

He leaves. The door closes. The warehouse inhales his absence and settles into it like a body finding a familiar bruise.

Emotional truth: she misses him the second he's gone.

Deflection: great, now she's emotionally dependent on a man who can't reliably locate a mop handle.

Sharper truth: she doesn't miss him. She misses who he was when missing him didn't feel like a risk calculation.

She stands. Works. Because work has edges. Because work is something she can finish, or at least pretend to.

She checks the barricade. The water. The roof. The food. Always the food. Six tins. Five and a half protein bars. The crate sits there, neutral, unbothered, as if it hasn't become the central character in her personal psychological drama.

She leans back against the desk and lets herself sit.

Thinks about before. Not the big things. The small, stupid ones.

Dex in the kitchen, arguing with a recipe like it personally offended him. Two cloves of garlic is not enough garlic. That's a suggestion. That's garlic for cowards.

Her on the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, not really working. Somewhere, an Italian grandmother just felt that and doesn't know why.

He'd grinned. I cook with feeling.

You cook with fear of seasoning.

He'd thrown a dish towel at her. She'd kept it.

The memory lands softly. Then shifts. Because now she can see the edges of it — the parts she didn't examine then. He cooked when it was fun. When it was optional. When there was applause at the end.

He never cleaned the pan.

Maya opens her eyes.

She laughs under her breath. "Great timing," she says to the empty room. "Love that for me."

***

The knock comes just before dark. Two taps. Then one. Their pattern.

She lets him in.

He looks better today. Cleaner. Less frantic. A confidence in the way he moves, like he's been somewhere that made sense, even briefly.

"Found a place," he says. "Storage unit. Mostly cleared out, but still some things."

He holds up a small bag. Two cans. A packet of crackers. A chocolate bar, already opened.

Maya looks at it. Then at him. "Nice," she says.

He smiles, relieved again. Always relieved when she doesn't ask the next question. "Yeah. Lucky."

Then he steps closer. Too close, too quickly. His hand finds her waist. Familiar. Automatic.

Maya lets it.

Emotional truth: she wants to feel something solid again.

Deflection: excellent, nothing says emotional stability like clinging to a man who smells like vending machine regret.

Sharper truth: this is happening because it used to mean something, and neither of them knows what to replace it with.

He kisses her. Soft. Practiced. The exact pressure he knows she used to lean into. Maya responds. Of course she does. She knows the rhythm. The angle. The version of herself that fits here.

He exhales against her mouth, something loosening in him, like this is proof that things are still okay.

That's when she notices the smell. Sweet. Artificial. Strawberry again, or maybe cherry. Something bright and wrong under the sweat and dust. Her brain files it quietly while her body keeps going, because apparently she can multitask betrayal now.

After, he presses his forehead to hers, smiling a little, softer now.

"God," he murmurs. "I needed that."

Maya nods. Of course he did.

***

They eat. He talks about routes, about the quiet, about how strange it is, everything just stopping. Maya listens. Nods in the right places. Laughs once, softly, when he makes a joke about looting feeling like shopping with consequences.

She watches herself do it. That's the strangest part. Not the lying. Not the missing food. Not even the slow creeping certainty that something between them has shifted and is not shifting back.

It's the performance. The way she hits every mark. The right tone. The right expression. The version of herself that makes this still work, at least on the surface.

She didn't know she had that in her. Or maybe she did. Maybe this is just what loving someone looks like when it starts to hurt in a new way.

Later, on the mezzanine, he presses a quick kiss to her forehead.

"I'm glad I've got you," he murmurs.

Maya closes her eyes.

In another week, that would have filled her up. Now it lands and slides.

"I know," she says.

He falls asleep quickly. He always has.

Maya stares at the ceiling. She catalogues. Not supplies. Not exits. Not threats.

Them.

The way he used to look at her like she was the answer, not the infrastructure.

She adds one more thing to the list.

The way even this didn't fix it.