The Extra Key: Until the Owner Returns - by Diana Piner

Willa’s lease ends with the relationship. What she has left is a bag, a night job fitting other people’s voices under pictures, and an extra key: her friend Rowan is gone for a field season and needs someone to water the plants and walk the dog. The apartment is not hers. The bed is not hers. Hux is a slate-dark weight who already knows the rooms—dawn tree, same bowl, the side of the mattress that still holds another woman’s dent. Willa tells herself this is a favor. She unpacks one bag. She does not move the books. She sleeps on the couch until the couch loses. Want arrives the way a large animal arrives: without asking whether the lease allows it. A hold she can still call care. A mouth she cannot blame on loneliness. An inch on someone else’s floor. Outside, an elevator, a neighbor’s averted chin, a job that frays when the nights stop belonging to captions. Inside, a photograph that keeps laughing from the dresser, and a return date that keeps moving closer.