Turn 3 of 13

Ask if she heard anything from your flat last night

Rae disappears into the kitchen and you listen to the small sounds of her moving — kettle, cupboard, the clink of a spoon against ceramic. The television scrolls headlines you don't read. Something about regional funding. Something about a water main. The captions move left to right like a tide you're meant to watch, and for a second you almost do, your eyes tracking the words without catching them, and then you look away because something in you says *not now*, gentle as a suggestion.

She comes back with two mugs, hands you one, drops into the armchair across from you and tucks her feet under her. The tea is too hot. You hold it anyway. The heat in your palms is something to pay attention to, something that keeps you in the room.

"Were you up late?" you say. "I thought I heard your TV through the floor."

That's not what you meant to ask. You meant to ask if she heard anything from your flat — your flat, you, moving around in the dark, doing things you can't remember. But the sentence bent as it left you, curved away from what you needed, and landed somewhere safer. You feel it happen and you can't correct for it. It's like watching your hand move something to a shelf and not being able to call it back.

Rae wraps both hands around her mug. "Yeah, I was up. Couldn't sleep. Watched that documentary about the shipping containers, the one with the detective?" She pauses.

"Why, was I loud?"

"No, I just —" You stop. Try again. "Did you hear anything else? From upstairs. Me, I mean. I think I might have been sleepwalking."

That much is true. That much you can say. The word *sleepwalking* comes out careful, provisional, like you're testing whether it's the right key for a lock you can't see. Rae's brow creases. She sets her mug on the side table and pushes her glasses down from her head onto her nose, which is what she does when she's switching from relaxed to serious.

"Like what?" she says. "I heard you move around, maybe once. Sounded like you were in the hallway. But it was brief — I figured you were getting water." She looks at you steadily.

"Sam, is something going on?"