Chapter 7: The Balcony Intruder
His boot scuffing her windowsill was a gritty, alien sound she would know anywhere. Jennie was already sitting upright, the ghost of the red burn-out curve of his racing car still imprinted on her eyelids. Her heart was pounding in her ears.Two a.m.
Moonlight painted a sharp, silvery rectangle across her pink carpet. Leonid filled the glass panes, a sharp silhouette against the sodium-yellow glow of the backyard light. He jerked his chin, his expression hooded and impatient.
She stumbled out of bed, the old fleece blanket pooling at her feet. Her hands were cold and clumsy on the lock. It clicked open and she pushed the window up, its old wooden frame groaning a complaint. The rush of night air was damp, smelling of cut grass and distant rain.
He didn’t wait for an invitation. One long leg swung in, then the other. He landed with a soft thud that vibrated through the floorboards. He was inside, standing in her room, smelling of cold air, leather, and the faint, cloying sweetness of weed clinging to his jacket. He shook his head, a quick dog-like motion, scattering a few droplets of drizzle from his curls.
“You sleep in socks?” he asked, his voice a low rasp.
She looked down at her feet. Thick, fluffy pink socks with little cats on them. “It’s cold.”
He grunted, peeling off his damp jacket and dropping it on her desk chair without asking. It half-covered the porcelain doll. He wore a plain grey t-shirt beneath, and it stretched tight across his shoulders. He scanned the room, taking in the curled wallpaper, the tower of psychology textbooks, the stupid stuffed bear on the shelf. His gaze lingered on the lone photo of them as kids.He said nothing.
“How’d you even get up here?” Her own voice sounded thin, childlike.
“Drainpipe.” He pulled a small, tightly-rolled joint and a lighter from his jeans pocket. “Your dad keeps his garden shed unlocked.”
“You broke into the shed?”
“I borrowed a trash bin. Recycling, actually. Very eco-conscious of me.” He flicked the lighter open. The flame reflected in his dark eyes.“Relax. It’s back. The neighbors just think you have a raccoon problem.”
He lit the joint, the paper crackling. He took a deep pull, held it, the ember brightening his face in the dark. He offered it to her.
The absurdity of it all hit her then. Leonid Manoban, standing in her girlhood bedroom at two in the morning, holding out a lit joint like it was a perfectly normal Tuesday. This sacred, stale space was now contaminated with the scent of him, the danger of him. It thrilled her down to the marrow.She took it. Her fingers brushed his, a static shock of contact. She inhaled, the smoke hot and floral, expanding in her lungs. She held it, the way she’d watched him do countless times from afar, then coughed it out in a sharp, muffled burst.
He grinned, taking it back. “Easy, kid.”
“Not a kid,” she managed, the smoke loosening the knot in her chest. A warm bloom started behind her ribs, spreading outwards.
“Coulda fooled me with the socks.” He looked around again, more deliberately this time. “Your room’s exactly like I pictured it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Tense.” He sat down on the edge of her bed without asking. The springs groaned a loud, metallic complaint. He stilled, his eyes darting to her closed door. They both listened. The house was silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator downstairs. He patted the space next to him.
She sat, leaving a careful inch between them. The bed was old, narrow. The inch felt like a canyon. He passed the joint back to her. Their shoulders touched. The denim of his jeans was rough against her bare thigh where her sleep shorts had ridden up.
“Why did you come tonight?” she whispered.
He took a long drag, holding the smoke in his cheeks before slowly exhaling a plume towards the ceiling. “Couldn’t sleep. Your dad’s fucking annoying voice kept replaying in my head. ‘Not a social club.’ Dude, it’s literally a club. You have membership drives.” His imitation was sharp, unkind.
“He’s just… protective.”
“He’s an asshole.” Leonid said it simply, a statement of fact. He leaned back, propping himself on his elbows, his body taking up too much space, his head on her pillow. He was looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars peeling from her ceiling. “You ever have a friend up here?”
“No.”
“Not even… Rosé?”
“Rosé’s a day friend.” She took another, smaller hit, her head starting to feel pleasantly detached.“Right. Day friend.” He reached over and plucked the joint from her fingers. “Let’s do something.”
“Like what?”
He gestured with his chin towards the shelf, his eyes still on the ceiling. “You still have that old racing game?”
The console was dusty, forgotten next to a row of juvenile fiction. She’d played it with him once, a lifetime ago, when he’d been allowed in the front door. “Probably. The cables are a mess.”
“Perfect.” He swung his legs off the bed and padded over in his socks—black, worn thin at the heels. He knelt, a study of concentration, pulling the old plastic box from the shelf. The sight of him there, on his knees on her pink carpet, diligently untangling the web of AV cables, sent a strange, possessive ache through her. He looked like a giant in a dollhouse.
He hooked it up to her small TV with efficient, practiced movements. The screen flickered to life, casting the room in the cold blue glow of a generic start menu. The playful, tinny music filled the silence. He came back to the bed, bringing the scent of dust and ozone with him. This time, when he sat, their thighs pressed together firmly, a line of heat from hip to knee. He handed her a controller.
“I haven’t played in years,” she protested.“Good. I’ll win.” His grin was a slash of white in the blue light.
The track loaded. He chose a sleek, red car. She picked a boxy, bright green one. “Go,” he said.
They leaned into the screen, their focus absolute. Her thumbs remembered the patterns, the tight turns, the boost pads. She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eye, his expression one of lazy amusement. They rounded the first corner, his car pulling ahead with a surge of digital speed.
“So, church,” he said, his voice casual over the roar of the pixelated engines.
She tensed, mis-timed a jump, and her car bounced off a barrier. “What about it?”
“You looked… constipated.” He took a hairpin turn flawlessly.
“I was praying.”
He barked a short laugh, then quickly smothered it with a hand over his own mouth, his eyes dancing. He was playing one-handed.“Sure. For deliverance from my sinful proximity?”
“Maybe.” Her car slammed into the back of his, sending him spinning. She shot past him on a shortcut.“Hey! Cheap shot, Kim.”
He caught up with ease. They were neck-and-neck on the final straightaway, the finish line pixelating in the distance. She could feel his whole body tensed beside hers, could hear his soft, focused exhale. She leaned into him, unconsciously, for balance.
Then, just before the finish line, his car swerved deliberately into a roadside sign. It exploded into a comic fireball. Her ugly green car crossed the line first.
“Winner,” she breathed, a thrill of genuine victory sparking in her chest.
He tossed his controller onto the blanket beside him. “Beginner’s luck.”
“You did that on purpose.”
“Did not.”
“You swerved.” She turned to face him. The TV screen reflected in his eyes, little cars racing in endless loops.
He didn’t deny it again. He just looked at her, his smirk softening into something quieter. The high was a warm blanket around them, muffling the world outside her door. His gaze dropped to her mouth.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Solid, heavy. Her father’s footsteps.
Every muscle in Jennie’s body locked. Her eyes widened in pure panic. Leonid’s hand shot out and covered hers where it gripped the controller, squeezing once, hard. Be still.
The footsteps paused right outside her door. A shaft of light appeared under the doorframe, broken by the shadow of two feet. Jennie stopped breathing. The game music sounded suddenly deafening, a screaming announcement of their crime.
Leonid moved with impossible slowness. He reached behind him, his arm brushing her chest, and pulled the fleece blanket up over the both of them, console, controllers, and all. He slid down until he was lying flat on his back, pulling her with him. He pointed to the TV, then made a cutting motion across his throat.
Her mind blanked. She fumbled under the blanket, her fingers brushing his stomach, finding the console’s power button. She pressed it.
The screen died.
The room plunged into a thick, velvety blackness, cut only by the thin line of light under the door. The silence was absolute, ringing. She was lying beside him, under a blanket, in the dark. His body was a solid line of warmth against her side. His hand was still wrapped around hers.They listened. The shadow under the door didn’t move. Her father was just standing there.Listening. For what? For the sound of a sinner’s breath?
Leonid turned his head on the pillow. His lips were a breath away from her ear. “He’s hard of hearing in his left ear,” he whispered, the words so faint they were more vibration than sound.
She knew that. From years ago. A childhood detail, stored away.
A minute passed.An eternity. The shadow shifted. The footsteps moved on, continuing down the hall towards the master bedroom. The latch clicked softly in the distance.
Under the blanket, their hands still linked, they didn’t move. The air was hot, stale with their shared breath and the fading scent of smoke. His thumb began to move, a slow, deliberate stroke across her knuckles. It wasn’t playful. It was possessive. An acknowledgment of the shared, silent victory.
He had come into her world, into the very heart of her cage, and they had not been caught.