Ascending the stairs to my apartment that evening, I felt drained but calmer than I had been in days.
The incident outside the Garden still haunted me. I heard, in unexpected moments, the sound of that impact, saw again the splayed and broken limbs of that woman. I have something he wants, I reminded myself before that tendril of panic could tease my composure. And I knew that I needed something from him in return.
I planned to spend the bulk of my evening writing every bit of our conversation by hand. I could feel the urge of it already, demanding release like an overfull bladder. But I hesitated on the landing and, on a sudden whim, went over and knocked on Mrs. Russo’s door. Now that I was composed, I wanted to thank her for the muffins and for her concern. Her timing had been uncanny, and, considering my state yesterday, I wouldn’t have blamed her for thinking I might be on drugs.
Standing on her threshold, I wondered if her keen discernment would sense—and recoil from—any lingering trace of the company I had been in today. And so I was relieved when, after I’d waited another moment, there was no answer.
That night as I sat at my desk, my pen moving across the page, one thing in particular set my mind on edge: his capricious moods, especially in relation to me. Or rather, to humans. I returned again and again to his near-violent response—for a moment he really had looked possessed—to my question about why he never ate. To the way he had called humans them, as though we were a vile species.
Or a hated enemy.