A shy reference librarian, and a college student who was disowned when she refused to submit to conversion therapy, meet in a bookstore. He's been waiting his whole life for her. Meanwhile, she's starting her whole life over. What ensues between the...
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I flick on the lights and open the door. We are using the back entrance, having taken the narrow back stairs that were the only entrance to the illegal attic apartment on the third floor, back when it was an apartment, but we stop at the second floor rather than climbing up to the attic. That unfortunately gives him a perfect view of my kitchen as we walk in (there are only two roaches on the wall by the stove, surprising me - they usually start to get frisky in the late afternoon).
Expressionlessly, Magister fiddles with the knobs on the nonfunctional gas stove, and the hot water handle on the sink that only produces cold water. I've been letting a small but steady trickle of frigid water drool out of the faucet for several days now; I don't want the pipes to freeze and burst. I have no idea when my landlord would get around to calling a plumber to fix the problem were that to happen, and I'd probably be charged for it, anyway.
We walk through the bare living room to get to my bedroom. There might have been some roaches in the living room. I've never paid attention, having had nothing to put in it. The same goes for the second bedroom.
He takes in my bedroom as I gather up my worldly possessions, such as they are. At least, thanks to the little ceramic heater I splurged on last month, the air in here does not make his breath fog, the way it does in the rest of the apartment (he would be seeing my apartment during the week we had a severe cold front sweep in, cold enough to make breath fog in the unheated rooms - usually, now, it's cold, but it's not this cold). The heater isn't powerful and doesn't warm the room well, but it's better than nothing at all. I do my best to give it some help by keeping my room well sealed with a rolled towel shoved up against the door. Drafts don't get in from there. I also have newspaper taped over two of the three windows for extra insulation, and I've put plastic sheeting on the third. If I stay in bed with the electric blanket on, I can take off my coat, and sometimes even my sweater.
I'm not supposed to leave the heater on when I'm not in the room. Abandoning an electric heater is a fire hazard. However, if I turn it off when I'm gone, my room never gets warmed. It's UL-listed, so that makes it kind of safe to walk away from if I absolutely have to, surely. And it's a ceramic heater. And it's new. It's not the kind of heater that's likely to make sparks.
"This... this is where you have lived since November?"
"Yes."
"How much have you been paying for it?"
"Three-fifty. Not bad for a two-bedroom apartment. I would have preferred staying in the attic; it was only a hundred and eighty-five per month, and it cost less to keep the utilities on, but the health department made my landlord evict me from it because it wasn't zoned for rental."
"You're paying for all your utilities?"
"Everything but water and sewer."
"I presume that's why you have no heat. I wish you had said something earlier. I could have told you how to apply for heating assistance if you didn't want to accept help from me." He looks out the window at the setting sun, and at the street, with its sidewalks covered with broken bottles and used diapers. Then at my bedroom again. "This must have been hard to adjust to, after the wealth you grew up taking for granted. Oh, my eromene, why did you not say anything? This? This is where you have been living this past year?"
