Chapter 22: The Key Fits

Annie's POV

My building has six floors and no elevator, and Ryan carried both our bags up to the fourth without being asked.

It was nine o'clock Monday night.

We had landed at O'Hare at five, and my parents had insisted on driving us downtown first.

My father shook Ryan's hand again at the curb, and my mother cried a little, and then they were gone.

Now we stood in the hallway outside 4C, and Ryan was staring at my door.

"You still live here," he said.

"I renewed the lease every year."

"Annie."

"The landlord asked if I wanted to change the lock after the second year. I said no."

I did not say why.

I did not have to, because he was already pulling his key ring out of his pocket, and his hand was not steady.

He found the small brass key with the red polish chipped almost to nothing.

"I painted that so you'd stop losing it," I said.

"I never lost it."

"I know."

He put it in the lock.

It went in as smoothly as it had the day I gave it to him, and it turned.

The door swung open on my dark front room.

The lamp stood in the corner, the green couch sat under the window, and the bookshelf he had built still leaned a little to the left.

He stood on the threshold and did not walk in.

"It looks the same," he said hoarsely.

"I couldn't change it."

"Why not?"

"Because someone was supposed to come back and find it."

He crossed the threshold and set both bags down and shut the door behind him, and then he turned and looked at me.

I had said I would be angry on Tuesday.

It was Monday.

"Come here," I said.

He crossed the room in three steps and I took his face in my hands.

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