Chapter Text
Grace clears the threshold of his front door, blissfully ignorant for several brief, beautiful seconds.
He drops his bag next to the door. Kicks off his shoes. Scrubs his hands over his face, the friction warming him. Flips the latch and deadbolt of his front door.
Subconsciously, his breath hitches.
His upstairs neighbor is home.
He wasn’t the type to nose into the business of his neighbors. He minded his own, his off-hours spent watching documentaries and grading papers while the sounds of some semi-stranger’s existence above him stoked an eternal fire in his chest. He held strong, his complaints suffering a sooty death once he crawled his way into bed and left his diurnal evening soundtrack to the living room.
He was a good neighbor, he told himself. He was good, even if he knew deep down that he restrained his complaints to save himself the chore of confrontation. Being the “better person” had always been a convenient catch-all to excuse himself from these things.
When a week of silence had woven its way into the next, he remained cautiously hopeful. A third week passed, then a fourth. The fifth week arrived, and he allowed himself to gradually clear the chimney in his chest of ash and coal. It’s over, he told himself. He had endured, as all good, non-confrontational neighbors did.
It had taken mere seconds for it all to topple in on itself. The night’s music: heavy footsteps and shoes scraping against the hardwood floors above.
He hoists a hand onto his hip, pinches the bridge of his nose. He hasn’t even taken off his helmet yet, and he’s standing square on his doormat, smoothing his fingers over his eyes with glasses perched on his brow as if bracing to scold his students. In all my months teaching…
That’s the nature of living on the lower floor. He admits as much to himself, one of many means of coping with his current reality. His hope had made him naive. He unclips the helmet strap under his chin as the upset squeezes his heart. At least he had enjoyed his time alone, however temporary.
In those first few weeks, he expected that he was waiting out a vacation. His neighbor’s return would bring a casual, slightly-crushing close to his extended peace and quiet. Into the fifth week, he accepted that he had missed something—or maybe he had kept too much to himself. He hadn’t seen a moving truck or any boxes when everything had gone quiet… but analyzing his environment had never been his strongest skill. His excitement mounted in turn.
Maybe he had a new neighbor, or maybe this was a return from long-haul leisure. He considered checking the first-floor garage for signs of life… and quickly hand-waved away the idea. That worn excuse rescued him again: he was better than butting into his (new) neighbor’s business. He was curious, but not enough to risk a potential confrontation to sate it.
He drops his helmet to the floor, resigned to his fate. He’ll have to bear it, even if he had been looking forward to grading amongst only ambient silence.
He stoops down, fishing out a folder and a pencil bag from his backpack. Dozens of tests across multiple class periods are sandwiched in the folder—his chore for the evening. He’d complicated the multiple-choice format by tacking on a few short-answer questions, and God help him, he regretted it now more than ever.
He hauls himself into the den. Discards the folder and pencil bag to the outermost counter of his kitchenette.
Coffee. His brain is screaming for it.
He options for a mug: white ceramic, its interior glazed in red, with a pencil diagram of blood cells sublimated over its surface. It’s sophisticated, perfect for his classroom. A gift from a parent that came home with him and never returned.
The sputtering of his coffee maker is answered by light footsteps above. Grace pretends, to himself, that the intrusion isn’t a nuisance. If he pretends enough, perhaps it won’t taunt the annoyance out of him.
He’s not hopeful.
The coffee maker’s work whines to a close. Grace frees the pot from its hold and pours himself a generous cup.
Off Taraval, the cars and light rail stream by, the occasional disgruntled honk rattling his living room window. His well-worn spot on the couch sits just beneath the windowsill. He’s grown so used to the sounds of San Francisco—the cheerful, passing pedestrians, the cars ferrying themselves to the beach—that they’ve receded into the background. It’s evolved into white noise.
It’s nothing like the sounds of his upstairs neighbor.
Mug in hand, he retrieves his folder of work and the pencil bag. Steam laps at him. A salve for his wind-bitten face as he rounds the coffee table. Coasters aren’t necessary for his heirloom IKEA; he sets down the mug before collapsing into his seat, cradling the homework and pencil bag haphazardly in his lap.
He settles, allowing himself a moment. The back of his head finds the couch cushions.
The light rail scrapes its way down the street. A pair of voices laugh, bright and cordial. A bike announces itself with the chime of a bell. Resting his head, Grace’s hands blindly find the pencil bag. He rips open the zipper. Fishes out a pen. Lifts it to his face—red. Zips it closed. Discards the bag, tossing it against the armrest.
It’s quiet, he realizes.
It’s quiet.
A beat passes before Grace rights himself. It’s quiet! It’s been quiet!
Something has shifted. Okay. Okay, great, he thinks. Has he manifested it somehow? It could come back. Ugh, it could always come back.
It doesn’t matter. Even if the moment passes, he has to seize it. Put pen to paper, he urges himself. Carpe diem.
(Carpe occasionem?)
He flips open his folder, met first with his own answer key. He swipes it to one side for reference. Dopamine floods his chest with a force that he thinks should be reserved for more important occasions, but he’s swimming in too much of it to care.
It takes a blistering two minutes to finish grading his first test, short answers and all.
He’s so simple. He recognizes as much. But it doesn’t matter. He feels, for the briefest of moments, like the luckiest man alive.
He’s running slightly late.
Something had gotten into him the night before. Whatever it was, it had bled into his morning. He’d started brewing coffee for his thermos. Waited for the pot like it was any other day and realized his mistake as the steam hit his nose.
His thermos. His unwashed thermos.
It’s a nice thermos. The only one he has. Why waste money on another? It just takes a couple rinses. No big deal.
It mortifies him how something so small can knock him off-kilter. One late train cascades into adjusting an entire time-table. He’s not awake enough for this. By the time he makes it out the door, it’s fifteen-past the schedule his body has learned.
His helmet strap dangles off his wrist. He hauls one strap of his bag over his shoulder and steps out into the empty, tile-lined landing with a huff. He fumbles with his keys, and the blade slips twice before it connects with the lock. The vacant landing allows him the pleasure of grumbling to himself as he secures the door. He turns on his heels for the gated front door.
A man stands beside him at the bottom of the stairs, observing.
Grace grinds to a halt.
He must have been descending the stairs; he’s mid-transition to moving past him, eyeing the same exit.
Grace allows the initial awkwardness to slip past him. He presses on. Acknowledges the other man with a curt nod as he pushes himself through the threshold, avoiding eye contact.
He receives no reply.
Grace’s visible surprise is the kind of menial social misstep he’ll cling to for a couple hours too long—on the bike ride, or after work when he has the capacity and isn’t making a dead sprint to Grover Cleveland.
In the exterior entryway, his bike sits waiting, chained to the frame around the front gate. Grace flips again through his keyring.
The footsteps that follow are a ghost of what he expects to hear. He catches himself before he can flinch this time, met with the susurrus of denim grazing his raincoat sleeve. Closer than expected.
His thermos slips from its elastic-mesh cupholder. When it hits the concrete, it’s the loudest sound he’s ever heard.
He winces this time, diving for the bottle out of instinct. The clamor goes dull under his hands. He hisses out what he feels is a mandatory “jeez”.
His eyes fall on the middle distance around the gaps in the gate, examining his potential audience. He scoops up his thermos, returning it to his backpack cupholder.
Nobody’s here, he confirms. He tightens the elastic strap.
He can’t believe himself. A minor misstep is enough to turn him into a torsion spring, the release enough to split his skull. He’s a grown man—he can handle a little discomfort.
But losing his job? That might actually kill him. He yanks his bike with a tumult through the threshold, relocking the bike lock around its frame for easy transit.
For the second time that day, he stops himself in the first-floor foyer. His hand hovers over the handle of his front door. Ghosts its worn surface.
His upper back exaggerates his bag’s weight, body screaming for freedom. But standing there stokes something in him. He bears it for a little longer.
A synapse receives its signal. He’s sure he’s never seen the man he saw earlier that morning.
A new roommate? A new partner? Maybe a visitor. On an ordinary day, he could hear a pin drop in that upstairs apartment. At first, the prospect is exciting. Finally, evenings free from tap-dancing and television just above his head! A wish he never thought would come true is unexpectedly answered.
And then the reality settles heavy in his stomach: Grace’s first introduction to his new neighbor had been him making a fool of himself.
He hopes he’s wrong. He knows he’s not.
His keyring sits heavy in his hands. He shakes off his thoughts and tension, flinging his regrets into some dark, dusty corner to be forgotten.
The blade of his key fits neatly in his lock, and he pushes forward through the threshold.
The apartment interior is pathetically meager as always, audibly absent of life. He clears the way for the front door. It swings closed behind him with a thud. He follows his familiar song and dance: toggling the lock, sliding closed the deadbolt, shrugging off his bag until it collapses into one corner of the narrow foyer. Slacking his tie, tucking away his keys. For a brief moment, he’s free.
He thinks nothing of the thud of the interior foyer door closing outside until a knock on his own door follows.
He stiffens, swallowing hard.
God, he’s a grown man. He’s defended dissertations, led classrooms choked full of middle school students. He’d ostracized himself in his own field, bringing him back to San Francisco—and he’s freezing up at the idea of opening his own front door. The self-imposed shame is enough for him to act on.
He doesn’t want to dwell too hard on it. He unfastens his deadbolt and lock, opening his front door with a little more gusto than necessary.
It’s expected, but regrettable, that the same man from that morning is standing square in front of him.
“Hi,” Grace forces out.
“Your bike lock,” the man responds.
It’s askew. It asks everything, insists Grace predict the outcome. Immediately, he’s raking himself for a reply, gauging the face in front of him. He’s complicated by the dichotomy he finds: stony and cordial, uninterested and earnest. No one could have made it more difficult.
Then it dawns on him. “Oh, shoot—”
That’s it: he hadn’t secured his bike lock. He smooths a palm over his pants pocket and produces his keyring, hustling into the interior foyer.
“Good catch!” Grace grins; he’s happier now that he’s gotten a grip on himself.
When he looks up, the man has backed further away than expected, offering up the open space. On more balanced footing, he gets a better look: blond hair, denim overshirt, lean. A sight for sore eyes, really.
Grace juggles his keyring between his hands. “Not playing with a full deck today, I guess,” he explains of himself, gesturing mindlessly up. “You’re, uh… upstairs, right? Just moved in?”
The question earns Grace a small smirk. The man nods.
This is the momentum he needs, he thinks. No time to be a coward. Grace extends a hand, stepping forward to close some of the space. “Ryland Grace,” he offers. “I moved in about a year ago or so, so…”
The younger man eyes him. Lays his palms up at his waist as if to present them as evidence. “... My hands are a little dirty.”
“Oh, uh, no problem,” Grace pulls away, shrugging, and his own hands find a home in his coat pockets. “So… what do you do? Mechanic?”
Another subtle nod answers him first. “In a garage. South of Market.”
Grace perks up. “SoMa?” We’re all the way across the city—in Outer Sunset, he thinks. “That’s a bit of a drive, isn’t it? Hopefully it pays well.” His breath hitches. “Or should we not talk about it? I don’t know. Probably not, right?”
Gray eyes breach the horizon of his neighbor’s waterline.
He feels the heat rising up his neck. “I’m a teacher. Grover Cleveland Middle. So… I bring enough of my work home. I wouldn’t want to talk about it, either. I get it.”
And yet, he’s prattling on about it anyway. Funny the way he can talk himself into a hole.
A softness reaches the other man’s eyes. Grace can’t decide if it communicates fondness or mocking.
Grace runs a nervous hand through his hair. “Well, thanks for the heads-up,” he forces out, adjusting his glasses with a nudge, and jabs a thumb at the foyer door. “About my bike lock, I mean. It’s the only ride I’ve got. For now, anyway—”
“Inner Parkside?”
His eyes widen despite himself. “Huh?”
His neighbor’s eyes flicker over him. “I’m still learning the area. Your school’s in Inner Parkside.”
A smile creeps over Grace’s face. “Huh. I was… I guess I was under the impression you were from here,” he admits. The man opposite engages with a nod. “Where are you from?”
Grace receives a shrug in reply. “Here and there…”
A scoff catches in his throat. “Mysterious,” he taunts, smirking.
Another nod.
There’s something about this guy, Grace thinks, that makes him almost ache with envy. He’s curious. And Grace has always wanted to be the type of person to evoke curiosity. He wants to turn over and inspect this rare gem in his hands, examining its carat and clarity down the barrel of a lens.
He talks too much.
The thought seizes him as he stares at his neighbor: God, they could be brothers. A third appendage to him and his twin. Or, more accurately, a younger brother to the two. The more he thinks about it, the less it lies outside of the realm of possibility.
Grace shuffles towards the foyer door. “Well, thank you for the heads-up, uh…”
Shoot, had this guy even introduced himself?
The man nods, excusing himself with a soft smile. As his neighbor turns, Grace feebly reaches out after him despite himself, the weakest of attempts to stop him for his name.
Within moments, Grace finds himself standing alone on the landing, scrutinizing the entire interaction in isolated silence. The sound of the upstairs door opening and shutting severs the brief connection between them with a finality that makes his bones ache.
Grace sucks down a breath and makes his escape, the foyer door squeaking against its frame.
In the exterior landing, he approaches his bike on steady footing. Inspects the frame. On a closer look, the bike lock is only decoration; it dangles from the bike’s body, tethering it to nothing. He lowers himself to one knee, popping open the lock.
He likes to think he has a handle on the world down to its intricacies and building blocks. He’s spent the better part of his short life entertaining himself and his inner child with solid facts. He recognizes the brain stem’s Sisyphian efforts to keep him alive; the mesolimbic pathway working in tandem to kick his motivation into motion; the cerebral cortex cataloguing research to satisfy his lingering curiosity.
He snaps the bike lock closed, bracketed in his palm.
When he imagines devotion dedicated wholly to another person, he can’t fathom those same systems coming together and fusing to form a fascination and dedication with him as its focus (especially when he so willfully offers up everything about himself to others). Not consistently. Not with commitment.
The brain registers, remembers, recycles, reforms. These temporary feelings fade. The memories degrade until they disappear entirely. Curiosity is an eternal spring of inspiration, but what do you do when one well runs dry—when you know a person in and out? Emotions are involved. You see a final, unfortunate side to the fascination. He knows it to be true. The parting gift is a catalog of dispensable data that, over time, withers and fades away until all the work was for nothing. It takes up valuable space that should be afforded to something else.
He expects to be discarded, a tattered toy whose novelty has come to an end. He wants to know more without the pain of loss. He wants closeness without the caveat of risk.
The mystique only makes him ache for more. If anything, he decides he’ll test the limits of learning more, pulling away once the risk outweighs the reward.