It felt like live-action Tetris. Fitting different shaped boxes filled with their lives, across the small wooden floor. Sloan dropped another heavy package on a precarious stack, the This Way Up Arrow pointing down. He followed in after, two bags of luggage slung over his shoulders. He shrugged them off onto the floor and closed the crooked door, twisting the brass lock to the left.
“We did it baby.” He lifted her up and spun around while she squealed with happiness.
“Matt put me down! We need to start unpacking all this.”
He did as she asked but sidestepped the boxes to the window across. He slid up the peeled paint frame and stuck his head out to the fire escape. He let out a loud whoop to the streets of the Lower East Side below. Someone in the distance replied, Shut the fuck up.
Sloan smiled and looked around at the mess of boxes, luggage, and past lives. “Where should we start?”
He stuck his head back in and turned to her with a shit-eating grin. “Let’s put together the bed.”
*
For the last few days, Sloan has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor, separating boxes into their respective rooms or rather areas. The one-bedroom felt spacious when they signed the lease, but the combination of both lifestyles was proving to be a cluttered one.
Matt was at work, and she had finished her morning meetings with enthusiasm. Now it was time to cover everything in translucent tarps and break open the paint can labeled “Manor Blue”. It was this soft blue with grey undertones, perfect for the calm and beautiful Sunday mornings to come.
Sloan played her college hits playlist, dancing in overalls as she rolled the new color over their off-white walls. She thought of the girl that used to listen to these songs, living in a tiny dorm with a stranger. How little she knew of herself then. The mistakes and regrets and lessons she was forced to learn. An involuntary shiver rippled across her skin as she bent to apply more paint to her roller. The ghost of her past always had a knack to haunt her mind during her happiest moments.
A skittering sound made her look to the open window. There was something scratching on the fire escape. Sloan’s heart plummeted in fear, and she dropped the roller into the pan and grabbed for the nearest weapon, a broom. Slowly she approached the window and immediately wished Matt was home. He wouldn’t have a problem investigating strange noises on the fire escape. She silently prayed it wasn’t a giant rat. She shoved the broom handle out first, gripping the brushes filled with dust bunnies.
“HA.”
She waved it left and right and didn’t hear the skittering or a cry of fear. Sloan pulled the handle back and poked her head, feeling foolish when she saw nothing on the metal railing. She pulled her head back in but not before solidly bumping the top on the windowpane. She dropped the broom and clutched her throbbing head with both hands. Gazing down in embarrassment and irritation, she sulked back to the paint roller. She stopped and sucked in a breath, looking at the sliver of wood exposed from the wrinkled tarp. A set of freshly painted paw tracks were delicately imprinted on the floor. But when she crouched to wipe away the paint, the tracks were dry and smooth to the touch.
*
Matt was lounging where she left him, in his sweats on the couch in front of the tv. Some baseball game was on the screen. Sloan dropped the heavy bag of cat food by the door and carried her tote to the kitchen. She pulled out the selected grocery items first and then removed two small food bowls from the bag. The first she filled with water from the tap and crossed the kitchen into the living room, making her way to the open window. Matt didn’t look away from the screen, a group of men in tight pants were standing in anticipation.
She placed the bowl of water out the window and on the left of the metal railing. She returned inside and took the bag from the doorway, bringing it into the kitchen to scoop handfuls into the second bowl. During her second journey through the living room, Matt noticed and paused the screen. The frozen players looked no different than if the game continued.
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