Page 85 of You'll Love it Here

It sounds so silly now.

But it’s Sami’s small nod—the subtle shift in his eyes as he replays every coffee, every walk, every quiet moment I shared something with him—that hits me hardest. Every time I was there, feeling something real for him... itwasreal.

But it can’t be. Not now.

Everywhere I look, there’s nothing but hurt.

The crowd is silent. Sirens start to chime outside, echoing the ones in my head.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go meet my clients,” Lana says, her voice laced with venomous sweetness. I hear her heels echo sharply up the hallway. I’m frozen—unable to move a single muscle.

Everyone else seems stuck in place too. They’re all staring at me as though I just unzipped my skin and revealed myself to be a literal pile of shit.

I’m the lowest form of human. The worst kind.

The sirens get louder—pealing up the street outside.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper. “I knew Irene was having a hard time, and Lana said she would try to find someone nice to...” I fade off. I shouldn’t be making more excuses. There’s only one thing they need to know. “I didn’t know you all then. But you mean so much to me now.”

The gears inside Sami’s head seem to spin. “Mona, that day of the town hall when you left. When you unplugged your straightener... for half an hour...”

Sami’s face drops at the same rate my stomach does.

Because this time, I don’t have to answer.

“That emergency town hall about the rec room?” Jane’s words are daggers. “It was all fake, then.”

“Guys, I’m so, so sorry. Please. If I could take it all back.”

Sami’s whole demeanor stiffens like he’s decided something. “Right.” He squares his jaw, disgust in his eyes. “I’m out of here.” He turns on his heel and storms down the lobby floor.

One by one, every single one of my friends begins to follow him.

As the doors open, the blare of the sirens becomes louder. Screeching with a similar outrage.

Then the smell of smoke reaches my nose.

“Wait, is there a building on fire down that way?” Jane calls as a fire truck races down the street in front of us.

“That’s in our direction.” Carmen’s eyes narrow at the street corner.

“Shit!” Sami starts sprinting.

When There’s Smoke

By the time I finish making the final crawl back to the little brick building known as Valleyview Apartments, my knees are like Jell-O and my feet throb from running in my favorite heels.

All the dread—the frantic rationalizing, the desperate hope for a different outcome as I ran those final blocks—comes crashing to a head. A giant anaconda of a hose is crawling from the hydrant on the street to the building’s basement window.

Smoke billows out the windows as sharp, burnt rubber bites at my nostrils and creates a haze in the air, like it all could be a dream.

I think of the first residents that moved into the building just over a hundred years ago. Their optimism bright, standing proudly on what would have been the outskirts of a suburban town back then. How beautiful it must have been—how those careful details stand apart from all the glass-and-metal boxes that have grown around it.

All of them are dead now, along with any worries they had.

Firefighters are going in and out of the building carrying equipment and yelling instructions at each other.

The crowd of residents that were at the meeting huddle together on the sidewalk, leaning on each other. Irene—who must’ve snuck away for one of her ice cream visits—is outside, being propped up by Carmen on one side and Sami on the other. With buggy eyes and a wagging tail, Ernest tugs the leash Sami’s gripping to try to make it to me. He’s unaware of the monster I am.