A very small room

The room was small and well appointed and on the second floor. He would be there for at least a month, but he couldn’t be sure. He was no longer welcome at home, at least until she left. Then he could do whatever he liked.

The first day and night and half the second day he stayed inside the room, examining the ceiling and only stepping out to get his UberEats orders. He had the window opened but blind pulled. He wondered about smoking. Not that he smoked, but he just wondered. They said not to. He could do it out the window though, there was a ledge where the pigeons perched looking out, west, onto Bingham Place. He stuck his head under the blind and over, staring straight down at the gloomy mews below, the cold damp air filling his empty chest. He wondered how far the drop was.

She smoked, not her, but someone else. Someone he shouldn’t have known. He shouldn’t invite her over, or talk to her ever again. But that didn’t matter now.

As he ate dinner he made a mental note that Taco Bell doesn’t deliver well, and to never order it again. But then he already knew that. He sighed and turned on a Netflix series he’d seen several times before, and he laughed at all the usual bits.

She buzzed up that she was down. He went down and brought her up. It was small, so they shuffled awkwardly.

“Well, this is all of it,” he sighed.

“Cigarette?” she offered.

“Sure.”

They smoked and shuffled awkwardly the rest of the night and into the early hours. Before dawn she dressed under the cover of silence and left, hurriedly and without a word. He stuck his head under the blind, exhaling the last of her cigarettes out into the cold damp air as the door shut. And he wondered if she was missing him, too.