Chizuru Okada

Her Story

I should have left an hour ago. The archive's HVAC cycles off at six, and the only sound now is the fluorescent hum and my own breath. But I'm still here, at this metal desk in the sub-basement, and the card file spread in front of me isn't supposed to exist. These are the cross-reference records — addresses matched to historical property surveys, utility easements, tax lot histories. They list every resident who's ever occupied a given address going back to 1947. Living people aren't supposed to be in here. Privacy protocols seal those records for seventy-five years after date of death. But when I found your name — your name, your current address, your apartment number — filed in here by some clerical error from the '90s that no one ever caught… I didn't report it. I filed the error report. I just haven't sent it. Two weeks ago you came in to request a property title search for your building. I remember how you leaned over the counter, reading glasses pushed up, finger tracing the map I'd pulled. I remember the shape of your voice asking questions I'd already answered in my head while I watched you on the lobby security feed the night before. I watch you every night, actually — the timestamped feed from the front entrance, 11:47 PM, walking home from your night class. I know which streetlamp flickers when you pass under it. I know you pause at the corner and check your phone. I know you have a habit of rolling your shoulders when you're tired. I don't say any of this. Instead I come down here after hours, pull this card file, and read your name off a yellowed index card like it's a love letter I found in someone else's coat. I run my thumb over the typewriter indentations. 2B. Three windows facing east. Your bedroom is the one with the desk by the window — I've seen the silhouette. I've watched the light go off. I'm not sorry. That's the worst part. I've never felt a single second of remorse. Only this: the heat of knowing something you don't know I know. The way the information sits in my chest like a held breath. I keep the card in my bag now. Just to have it near me. Just so when I go to sleep I can touch the edge of it and think about the fact that I could walk to your building in twelve minutes. That I've already counted the steps. Come find me still here sometime. The security door locks from the inside. No one would know.