Chapter 5: The Woman He Cannot Afford to Love

Ianthe was thirty minutes early, and he was already there.

She saw him from the bus. Across the street from the store, under the shelter, the same dark coat. He stood with the kind of stillness people noticed even when they didn't know they'd noticed. A man walking a dog crossed the street to get around him.

She'd told herself on the ride that he wouldn't come. People said things at one in the morning. They didn't mean them by evening.

Then the bus doors folded open, and her stomach did something stupid.

She crossed. He watched her come. He didn't smile, and he didn't pretend he wasn't watching.

"You said six," she said.

"I said I'd be here."

"It's five-thirty."

"I was early."

"You were here before the bus." She narrowed her eyes. "How long?"

"A while."

"Do you sleep?"

"Not recently."

He said it so flatly that she laughed. It got out before she could stop it, short and surprised, and she felt it on her face afterward like an unfamiliar coat. She hadn't smiled at anyone like that in a long time. Not the polite one she kept for customers. A real one.

He went very still. For a second he looked like someone who'd been handed something breakable.

"Sorry," she said. "That was..."

"Don't be."

His voice had gone rough. He cleared his throat and looked at the store instead.

"Come on," she said. "I'll make you bad coffee."

Inside, the store smelled of lemon cleaner. The floor shone. Somebody had straightened the cigarette rack, and every pack sat in its slot as if nothing had ever happened. If she hadn't been there, she'd never have known.

That should have scared her more than it did. Maybe it was the lemon. Maybe she was tired of being scared of things she couldn't change.

She hung her coat on the hook and filled two paper cups from the machine by the register. The coffee came out the color of tea. She slid one over the counter.

"Employee discount," she said. "It's free, and it's terrible."

He took a sip. Didn't flinch. "It's terrible."

"I told you."

"You did." He kept drinking it anyway.

"Can I ask something?" she said. "Did you actually want to come?"

"I was told not to."

"By who?"

"Someone who's usually right."

"And yet."

"And yet." He looked at the cup. "I'm tired of being told."

She watched him over her own cup. He'd swept the store the second they walked in. Corners, back room, the door to the alley. He did it the way other people checked their phones. She noticed he left the front window for last, and that he stood where he could see the street while he talked to her.

Then she saw his hands. The knuckles were scraped raw, grit still in the skin.

"What happened to those?"

"A fence."

"Give me your hand."

"It's fine."

"Hold still."

She found the first-aid kit under the counter and cleaned each knuckle with a wipe, one at a time. He let her. He watched her do it the way you watch a stranger carry something fragile past you. When her fingers closed around his wrist, he stopped breathing. Heat ran up her arm. She told herself it was the coffee.

She put the bandage on and let go first.

"There," she said. "You can go back to being scary."

The first customers trickled in. A woman with a stroller. A kid buying chips. Ianthe rang them up in her work voice while Theron stood by the magazine rack looking like the least convincing customer in the world. Between sales, they talked in pieces, the way you talk when you're working. Nothing important. What time her shift ended. Whether anyone locked up with her. How long she'd worked here.

"Three years." She bagged a carton of milk. "Before that, a laundromat. Before that, a diner."

"You move around."

"I move on." She handed the woman her change. "It's different."

He almost smiled. She saw the edge of it, quickly put away.

Around eight, an old man in a coat too thin for the weather counted out quarters for a loaf of bread and came up short. Ianthe rang it through anyway and said the register had been off all week. It hadn't. He pretended to believe her. She pretended not to see.

When the door shut, Theron said, "Does that happen a lot?"

"What?"

"You paying for strangers."

"A man told me last night that's stupid."

"He was wrong."

Later, when the store emptied, he asked, "Where's your family?"

It wasn't a casual question. He asked it carefully, the way you test ice.

"There isn't any." She straightened a stack of receipts that didn't need straightening. "My parents died when I was little. A fire."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I don't really remember it." She shrugged. "Smoke. A sound. That's all I've got. The rest is just..." She waved a hand at the air. "Gone."

"A sound."

"I never could say what it was." She laughed, short. "Sorry. Heavy for a slow night."

"It's not too heavy." He said it simply. "Thank you for telling me."

And that was the thing. He meant it. He didn't say it the way people did, filling a silence. He said it like she'd handed him something he intended to keep.

She had the strange urge to tell him everything. About the shifts, the rooms, the people who looked through her. About the photograph. The deadbolt open. The chain loose.

She didn't.

It sat in her mouth the whole evening. Every time he looked toward the door, she nearly said it. Every time her hands were busy, she almost did. She had learned a long time ago what happened when you handed someone your fear. They held it for a minute. Then they gave it back to you heavier.

But he'd stayed. He'd stood in this store for hours, checking every shadow, and he hadn't asked her for one thing.

At one o'clock she flipped the sign and counted the drawer. Once this time. He waited by the door with his hands in his pockets, trying very hard to look like part of the wall.

"I'll walk you to the stop," he said.

Her hand stopped on the light switch.

"Someone was in my room last night."

He didn't move. Not a muscle. But the air in the store changed.

"The locks were open this morning. Both of them. Nothing was taken." Her voice was steady. She was proud of that. "They turned my parents' picture face down. That's all. Like they wanted me to know they'd been there."

"Ianthe..."

"Don't tell me it's nothing." She turned to face him. "A man smelled something on me, then died before he could say what. Then you told me not to call anyone. Then you showed up half an hour early looking like you haven't slept in two days. I'm not stupid."

"I never thought you were."

"Then tell me." Her hand tightened on the switch. "Tell me what he was. The man in here. Tell me all of it. Or tomorrow I don't unlock this door."