Chapter 6: Crossed Lines

Dan was coming over almost every evening now. I told myself it was convenient. He brought food, fixed stuff, and made the apartment feel less like two broke girls scraping by. Lillian and I joked about it more openly, like it was just another quirky roommate situation. Apparently I had become the apartment’s full-time surveillance system. I noticed how easily Lillian laughed at his dumb jokes, and how Dan moved through our space like it was his.

I was on a long, mind-numbing work call with my noise-canceling headphones when he arrived that afternoon. I caught the faint sound of the front door and saw Dan’s shadow move down the hall, but I stayed focused on the screen, nodding along to spreadsheets and quarterly targets. The shower was still running. The call dragged. When it finally ended and I pulled the headphones off, the apartment wasn’t quiet.

I heard low voices. Wet sounds. A soft moan.
My body recognized the sounds before my brain finished pretending not to. Part of me wanted to stay at my laptop and pretend I hadn’t noticed. I could not pretend this was another accident. I could still stay at my desk. Be normal. Keep my job, maybe.
I went to look and walked down the hall anyway.

The bathroom door was open. The light was on, casting that familiar warm glow I knew too well. The mirror was still fogged around the edges. Lillian’s hair was wet, dark strands stuck to her neck and shoulders. She was completely naked, bent over the sink with Dan behind her, both of them reflected perfectly in the glass. The same mirror where Dan used to fuck me from behind while I watched my own face, because apparently I needed visual confirmation. I used to brace my hands on that counter and stare at my own face as I came.