I woke on the couch. My father had wrapped me in an afghan and put a pillow beneath my head. I checked my phone and found no word from Michael. I checked my feeds and caught mention of a riot at the Zone Hotel, where a group of protesters had crashed a finance party. Dozens injured. Many arrests.
I turned on the news. The streets were lit in blue and red light. I watched as paramedics loaded stretchers and witnesses described the scene. Michael’s phone went to voicemail. The sky was still dark. My father was still asleep. I took cash from his wallet and called a town car.
I felt nauseated on the ride to Brooklyn. I opened the window, but midtown traffic brought exhaust fumes and noise. The Times Square circus blinked above me. The driver called me ma’am and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine.
Light dimmed as the town car turned onto our block. Three men stood on the corner blowing smoke at the stars. The stars—all two—were barely visible in the cutout of sky between the oaks that stood like guards outside our building.
I climbed the stairs. I hoped Michael was home. With each step, my body felt heavier. For a moment, I feared that I’d reverse gears at the top and go tumbling back to the bottom. I could hear the cat crying. The door was unlocked.
Lights were on. The duvet was spread on the floor, like a picnic blanket, in the spot where our bed used to be. The air mattress lay deflated beside it. Michael was asleep on the duvet, fully clothed, sweating. A bedbug—the first I’d seen in days, though I assumed it would spawn more, repopulate the apartment—gnawed into a mole on Michael’s neck. A single hair sprouted from the mole. Blood swelled in an outer ring around the bull’s-eye of the abrasion.
It may have been a beetle or some other insect. In fact, I’m sure it was.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The cat licked Michael’s ear. I placed a hand on the small of his back. I borrowed his phone and ordered a car back to my dad’s.
Out front, wind ran cool across my body. The cat made cat sounds and scratched at my sweater. I lifted her above my head. She responded with a screech. I lowered the animal and watched it run free for the first time in its brief and now briefer life, feinting toward trash cans before scurrying southbound on Hoyt Street, some elusive, fleshly odor pointing toward darkness.