Burning Walls

The hammering started at seven in the morning. Not gentle tapping. Full-arm swings that rattled the pictures on my bedroom wall and made the water in my glass vibrate like a tiny earthquake.

I'd been awake anyway. Couldn't sleep. The divorce papers sat on my kitchen counter where I'd left them three days ago, still unsigned, still staring at me every time I walked past. The coffee maker gurgled its last dying breath when someone knocked on my door.

Not knocked. Pounded.

"Oi! Vizinho!"

I knew that voice. Had been hearing it through the wall for six months now. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes moaning. Sometimes screaming in Portuguese at what I assumed was a boyfriend or a football match. I pulled on yesterday's t-shirt and opened the door.

He stood there with a hammer in one hand and a bottle of cachaça in the other. Shirtless. Sweat already slicking his chest despite the early hour. A thin scar ran from his left shoulder to his collarbone, pale against brown skin.

"Você tem uma chave de fenda?" He held up the hammer like it explained everything.

"I don't speak Portuguese."

"Chave de fenda." He made a twisting motion with his wrist. "Screwdriver."

"I know what a screwdriver is."

"Then why you ask?"

"I didn't ask. You asked."

He grinned. His teeth were very white against his stubble. "Screwdriver. Yes or no?"

I had one. In the drawer by the stove, next to the takeout menus I'd been living on since Mariana left. I should have said no. Should have closed the door and gone back to staring at those divorce papers. But his grin was doing something to my chest that I didn't want to examine.

"Yeah. Hold on."

He followed me inside without being invited. I heard him behind me, his bare feet slapping against the tile, then stopping.

"Your kitchen is very clean," he said.

"It's not."

"Very clean. Like nobody cooks here."

I grabbed the screwdriver from the drawer and turned. He was leaning against my counter, right next to the divorce papers. His eyes flicked down to them, then back up to my face. Something shifted in his expression. Not pity. Recognition, maybe.

"Obrigado." He took the screwdriver but didn't leave. "You are American?"

"Canadian."

"Same thing."

"It's really not."

He shrugged. "You speak English. You look sad. Same thing."

"I'm not sad."

"You are standing in your kitchen at seven in the morning with a face like a wet dog."

I laughed. It surprised me. The sound came out rusty, like a door that hadn't been opened in months. "That's a very specific insult."

"Not insult. Observation." He twisted the screwdriver between his fingers. "I am Rafael. I live next door. You are?"

"Daniel."

"Daniel." He said it like he was tasting the word. "You are the one who plays music at night. Sad music. Very quiet."

"You can hear that?"

"The walls are thin." He tapped his chest with the screwdriver. "I hear everything."

My face went hot. He'd heard everything. Every night I'd spent alone in this apartment since Mariana left, every time I'd put on those sad songs and sat in the dark and felt sorry for myself. And worse. The other nights. The ones I didn't want to think about.

"I should probably get back to my project," I said.

"Yes. I should too." He didn't move. "You want to come see? I am fixing the balcony."

"The balcony?"

"The one that looks into your bedroom."

I stared at him. He stared back, completely unbothered.

"It is broken," he continued. "The railing. Very dangerous. I am fixing it so I can stand there and smoke without falling."

"You stand on your balcony and watch my bedroom?"

"I stand on my balcony and smoke. If your bedroom is there, that is not my fault." He pushed off the counter and walked toward the door. "Come. You can help. Then we drink."

"I don't want to drink."

"Then you can watch me drink. Same thing."

He was out the door before I could argue. I stood in my kitchen, holding the drawer open, feeling like I'd just been hit by a small hurricane. Through the wall, I heard him pick up his hammer again. Three sharp taps, then silence. Waiting.

I went.

His apartment was the mirror of mine, same layout, same cheap tile, but it felt like a different world. Plants everywhere. Real ones, not the plastic kind Mariana had bought and then left behind. A guitar propped in the corner. Dishes in the sink. The smell of garlic and something sweet, maybe cinnamon, hanging in the air.

The balcony door was open. Rafael stood on the far side of the railing, which was very clearly not broken, hammering at a loose board on the floor. He'd put on a shirt. A shame, honestly.

"You lied about the railing," I said.

"I never said it was broken. I said it was dangerous." He pointed the hammer at me. "You assumed."

"That's manipulation."

"That is language. You should learn Portuguese. Very useful for manipulation."

I stepped onto the balcony. It was small, barely wide enough for two people. Our shoulders brushed when I moved next to him. He smelled like sweat and cachaça and something underneath that was just skin.

"What are you actually fixing?" I asked.

"The floor. It is soft here." He tapped the board with his hammer. "Water damage. The landlord does not care. I care."

"Why?"

He looked at me. Up close, his eyes were dark brown, almost black, with tiny flecks of gold near the pupils. "Because I live here. If I don't care, nobody cares. Then everything falls apart."

I didn't know what to say to that. He went back to hammering. I stood there, watching his hands work, the muscles in his forearms flexing with each swing. The sun was rising over the buildings across the street, turning the sky pink and orange. Somewhere below, a dog was barking. A woman was singing along to the radio in her kitchen.

"You are staring," Rafael said without looking up.

"You're interesting to watch."

He stopped hammering. Turned his head slowly. That grin again, but different this time. Smaller. More private.

"Daniel," he said. "Why did you come over here?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

I did. I just didn't want to say it. Didn't want to admit that I'd been alone for six months and the first person to knock on my door, to really look at me, to insist I exist, was a half-naked neighbor with a hammer and a bottle of cheap liquor. Didn't want to admit that I'd heard him through the wall too. Not just the arguments. The other sounds. The ones that made me press my ear to the plaster and hold my breath.

"You heard me," I said. "Through the wall."

"I heard you."

"Everything?"

"Everything." He set the hammer down. "You cry in the shower. You play the same song three times in a row. You talk to yourself in the kitchen. And sometimes, late at night, you make sounds that are not crying."

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. "That's a lot of listening."

"What else am I supposed to do? You are very loud."

"I'm not loud."

"You are loud to me." He took a step closer. The balcony was too small for this. "I hear you because I am listening. There is a difference."

The air between us felt thick. I could smell the cachaça on his breath, sweet and sharp. His chest was rising and falling faster than it had been a minute ago. I looked at his mouth, then at the scar on his shoulder, then back at his eyes.

"I should go," I said.

"You should stay."

"I have those papers to deal with."

"The papers will wait. They have been waiting." He reached out and touched my wrist. Just two fingers, light against the vein. "You have been waiting."

I didn't pull away. I should have. Everything about this was a bad idea. My divorce wasn't final. I didn't know this man. I didn't even speak his language. But his fingers were warm and his eyes were steady and for the first time in six months, I felt like someone was actually seeing me.

"One drink," I said.

Rafael smiled. Not the big grin this time. Something softer. "One drink," he agreed. "Then we see."