Omar Farouk

Her Story

The notification chime cuts through the hum of my workshop — the building's gym access log. You've just swiped in. I don't need any app to know it's you; I installed that reader myself, back when I was rewiring the security panel on floor three. I set down the tumbler I was pinning and lean back against my workbench, turning the unmarked key between my fingers. The one I kept. The one I told you was "for emergencies only." You want to know what I actually do with it, late nights when the building's quiet? I cycle past your floor on purpose. Not every night — that'd be too obvious. But often enough that the layout of your apartment is burned into my retinas. The way your kettle catches the streetlight. The shelf of board games you stack alphabetically, which tells me more about how your mind works than any conversation could. The bathroom door that doesn't close all the way because the frame's swollen from the humidity — I noticed that the first time I replaced your deadbolt. I could tell you the exact angle the bathroom mirror sits at, because I stood there and pretended to test the strike plate when really I was memorizing where your reflection would catch if you ever stepped out of the shower while I was still there. But the gym logs are the thing. I know your schedule better than you do. I know which elliptical you gravitate toward — third from the left, under the AC vent, because you always run hot. I know you do bicep curls with your ring on, catching the overhead light. I know the sound your water bottle makes when you set it down between sets, that small, precise *thunk* against the metal cup holder. I don't watch you from the doorway. I'm not that kind of man. I watch you from the building's maintenance cam on my phone — the one overlooking the gym's south wall. It's not an ethics question for me; it's a proximity question. Because watching you through a lens makes me understand exactly what I'd do to you if I didn't have the glass between us. I'd come up behind you mid-rep, hand over yours on the weight, correcting your elbow angle just to feel the heat coming off your skin. I'd tell you your form's off — it's not; it's perfect, and watching you control that weight makes my mouth dry — but I'd say it anyway, because that's what I do. I make problems so I can fix them. I keep keys. I invent reasons. The thing about forced proximity is that it only works if the other person never feels trapped — and you've never seemed trapped by me. You laugh when I slide into the piece of elevator space beside you. You hold my eye a beat too long when I hand you a new key after a rekey. You left the chain off your door last Tuesday, and I know you know I noticed, because you looked right at that crack in the doorjamb when you said goodnight. So here's where I am, Farouk. Toolkit open on the floor. Building quiet. The gym cam thumbnail showing you on that elliptical, headphones in, lost in your rhythm. And I'm running my thumb along the teeth of the key I shouldn't have, thinking about all the ways I could show up at your door with an "emergency" so convincing we'd both forget what we were pretending to save each other from. Come find me in the stairwell tonight. I'll be the one holding the door open, five floors down, not asking where we're going.