verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
•
It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
One night, he had said – and Katie wouldn't have blamed him if he'd stuck to that, after seeing the apartment below hers.
There was a reason it had lain empty the entire time she had lived in the building. The landlord, Markus had started ripping out the kitchen at some stage, renovating and rewiring, and had just never gotten around to finishing it. The bar made more than enough money – he hadn't felt the rush to get another tenant in. Still, it had taken Katie's promise of pulling an extra few shifts in the bar and her word that her 'friend who had just arrived in town' would keep it tidy for him to be persuaded to hand the keys over.
Her 'friend who had just arrived in town' also received the spare key to her apartment, and the reassurance that he could use her kitchen, as the other alternative was a pile of rubble. At least it was cleaner than the basement she had glimpsed in Gdansk, and it definitely had running water and a bed.
She had reiterated that offer the next morning. After parting ways with Barnes the night before, sleep hadn't come easy until she had dropped off an hour before her alarm and had promptly slept through it. She was glad she hadn't offered to let him crash on her sofa; she might not have slept at all then, but if that had been the offer, she doubted he would have stayed. In the midst of barrelling down the stairs with one arm in her jacket and the keys to her bike clutched in her teeth, she had paused to knock on the door one flight of stairs below hers, calling through the letterbox to inform him that she had left a pot of coffee on the countertop for him – and had then grimaced, apologised and scrambled off to work as she realised she might have woken him. He had looked so tired the night before.
She had almost expected to come home to find the coffee cold on the countertop that evening, but instead she came back to find the pot washed and put away, along with the other breakfast dishes she had left by the sink. For a moment, she had thought that was his way of saying goodbye, but then as she was traipsing downstairs again to help Markus with the evening rush, the door to the apartment below hers had opened – hesitantly enough that the motion didn't startle her, but quickly enough that she thought he might have been listening for her footfalls on the stairs.
"Hey- You're here." She had smiled her surprise up at him as she had paused in tying an apron around her waist, her mechanic's overalls from that morning traded in for the jeans and black t-shirt combination that approximated the uniform that other girls who worked in the bar wore.
He had nodded, looking her up and down with that small, curious frown he often bore; "I just... Wanted to thank you, for the coffee."
"Any time." Katie had nodded, "Sorry I've gotta- I told Markus I'd help tonight-" She winced a little at her awkward gesturing towards the stairs, hearing the chatter and clamour of a busy weeknight filtering up from the floors below.
"It's alright."
She hadn't asked if she would see him later, if he was staying – that felt too much like an intrusion upon the privacy she was trying to offer him. Still, she had knocked his door on her way past the next morning, and that evening the cafetière had been cleaned once more.
