Forbidden Currents

The key turned in the lock with a click that sounded louder than it should have, and I stood there in the hallway of my own apartment, listening.

Inside, the shower was running.

I hadn't left the shower running. I hadn't left anyone inside who might be using it. My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag, the leather biting into my palm, and I ran through the possibilities with the speed of someone who'd spent too many nights cataloging exits. Landlord with a key. Maintenance guy who was supposed to come Tuesday, not Thursday. A burglar who'd decided to freshen up before robbing me blind.

None of those felt right. The smell coming through the crack under the door was wrong for all of them. It was floral, something with jasmine and maybe vanilla, and it smelled expensive. My own shampoo was three-in-one and cost eight dollars at the drugstore.

I should have called someone. I should have backed away and knocked on Mrs. Hendricks' door down the hall, the one with the chain lock and the yappy dog. Instead I pushed the door open, slowly, and stepped inside.

The apartment looked the same. Same sagging couch with the coffee stain shaped like Florida. Same stack of unpaid bills on the kitchen counter, weighted down by a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST EMPLOYEE. Same dying fern by the window that I kept forgetting to water.

But there was a coat draped over the back of my one good chair. A wool coat, charcoal gray, with a silk lining that caught the light when I moved closer. I touched the sleeve. It was soft in a way my clothes had never been soft. The kind of fabric that cost more than my rent.

The shower stopped.

I froze. My heart did something complicated in my chest, a kind of stutter-step that made me feel like I'd forgotten how to breathe properly. The bathroom door was closed. I could see the light bleeding out from under it, a thin yellow line that seemed to pulse.

Then the door opened.

She came out with a towel wrapped around her hair and another one around her body, and steam curling off her skin like she was something conjured rather than born. Water droplets clung to her shoulders, her collarbone, the curve of her neck. She was taller than me by maybe three inches, with dark hair that was wet at the ends and skin the color of good coffee with too much cream.

She looked at me like I was the intruder.

"You're early," she said.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

"Your sister said you wouldn't be home until seven." She walked past me, close enough that I could smell the soap on her skin, and picked up the coat from the chair. "She gave me the key. I hope that's okay. I got in on an earlier flight and I didn't want to sit in the airport for four hours."

My sister. Nadia. Who lived in Berlin and called me exactly twice a year, on my birthday and on the anniversary of our mother's death, and who had never once mentioned sending anyone to my apartment.

"Who are you?" I finally managed.

She turned, the towel slipping a fraction on her shoulder, and smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of someone who knew something I didn't, and was enjoying the asymmetry. "I'm Ines. Your sister's... friend. She said you'd be okay with me staying here for a few weeks while I figure things out."

"A few weeks."

"Give or take."

I set my bag down on the floor. The strap had left a red mark on my palm. "Nadia didn't tell me anything about this."

"I know. She said you'd be surprised." Ines reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a phone, sleek and new, the kind of phone that cost more than my laptop. She tapped the screen a few times and held it out to me. "She wanted me to show you this."

It was a text thread. Nadia's name at the top, a string of messages in German that I couldn't read, and then a photo. Nadia and Ines at some rooftop bar, the Berlin skyline behind them, both of them laughing at something off-camera. Nadia's arm was around Ines' waist, her hand resting on the curve of her hip in a way that suggested more than friendship.

I looked up. Ines was watching me, her expression unreadable.

"She said you'd understand," Ines said.

Understand what? That my sister, who hadn't visited in three years, who sent me generic birthday cards with no personal message, had a girlfriend she'd never mentioned and had now shipped her to my apartment without warning?

"I don't understand anything," I said.

Ines took the phone back. Her fingers brushed mine, warm from the shower, and I felt it in a place I didn't want to feel anything. "She said you were the only person she trusted. That you'd take care of me."

The way she said it, take care of me, made it sound like something else entirely. Like a test. Like a dare.

I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, mostly because I needed something to do with my hands. Inside: half a carton of eggs, a sad lemon, three beers. I grabbed a beer and twisted the cap off, not offering one to her, because I didn't want to be a good host. I wanted her to leave. I wanted to call Nadia and scream at her in two languages, neither of which I spoke well enough to be truly cutting.

"You can't stay here," I said, and took a long drink.

"I can't go back to Berlin." Ines sat down on my couch, the towel still wrapped around her, her wet hair leaving a dark stain on the cushion. She didn't seem to care. "Not right now. There are things going on that you don't know about."

"Then tell me."

She looked at me for a long moment. Her eyes were brown, almost black, with a stillness that made me feel like I was being measured. "Your sister is in trouble. She sent me here because she thought it would be safer for both of us to be apart. That's all I can say right now."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

I finished the beer in three swallows and set the bottle down on the counter, harder than I meant to. The glass clinked against the tile, and neither of us flinched. Outside, the city kept moving. Cars, sirens, the neighbor's dog barking at nothing. The world going on like nothing had changed, when everything had.

Ines stood up. The towel loosened, and she caught it with one hand, holding it against her chest. She was close enough that I could see the water still beading on her skin, the small scar above her left eyebrow, the way her lips parted slightly when she breathed.

"I'll sleep on the couch," she said. "I don't want to put you out."

"You already have."

"I know." She tilted her head. "But you're not going to make me leave, are you?"

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell her to get dressed and get out, to call Nadia and demand an explanation, to go back to my life where the biggest problem was the fern I couldn't keep alive. But I didn't. Because there was something in her voice, something underneath the confidence and the expensive coat and the smile that knew too much, that sounded like fear.

And I knew fear. I'd lived with it for years, ever since our mother died and Nadia left and I stayed. I knew what it looked like when someone was trying to hide it.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

Ines nodded, like she'd expected that answer all along, and turned toward the bathroom to get dressed. I watched her go, the towel slipping lower on her hips, her bare feet leaving wet prints on my floor. When the door closed, I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes.

Nadia, what have you done?

The question sat there, unanswered, while the shower dripped and the fern wilted and the city hummed on outside. I had a stranger in my apartment, a sister I couldn't reach, and a feeling in my gut that this was only the beginning of something I couldn't control.

I picked up my phone and called Nadia. It went straight to voicemail.

"Call me back," I said. "Now."

Then I hung up and waited, listening to the sound of Ines moving around in my bathroom, making herself at home.