Shared Walls

The first thing I noticed about the new apartment was the deadbolt. Three of them. A chain. And a police-grade security bar wedged under the doorknob of the front door.

Max was already inside, dragging his duffel across the scuffed hardwood like he owned the place. He dropped it in the middle of the living room floor and spun around, arms wide.

“Home sweet home.”

I kicked the door shut behind me and tested the top lock. It clicked into place with a satisfying thunk. “You didn’t mention the building came with a panic room disguised as a one-bedroom.”

“Landlord said the last tenant was paranoid.” Max shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under his faded gray t-shirt. “I figure that means the security’s solid.”

“Or it means someone got murdered here.”

He grinned at me, that crooked grin I’d seen a thousand times since we were fifteen. The one that said he knew exactly what I was doing and he was going to call me on it anyway. “You’re the one who said we needed a fresh start.”

I set my suitcase down next to his duffel. The apartment was small. Kitchen to the left, a galley with yellowing cabinets and a faucet that dripped. Living room straight ahead, just big enough for a secondhand couch and a coffee table. Two doors off the hallway. Bedroom and bathroom. No third door for a guest room, no second bedroom for me.

That was the arrangement. One bedroom. One bed. Two friends who’d known each other for thirteen years and had never once shared a mattress for more than a nap.

“Fresh start,” I repeated. “Not a suicide pact.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being realistic. You snore.”

“I do not snore.”

“You snore like a bear with a sinus infection.”

He threw a couch cushion at my head. I caught it one-handed and tossed it back. It hit him square in the chest and he grabbed it, holding it like a shield.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “It’s temporary. Six months, tops. We save money, we find better places, we go our separate ways.”

Go our separate ways. The words landed somewhere in my chest, sharp and unexpected. I pushed them down.

“Six months,” I agreed. “And if you leave your dirty socks on the floor, I’m burning them.”

“Noted.”

We stood there for a second, the silence stretching between us. Then I cracked a smile and he mirrored it, and just like that, the tension broke. That was the thing with Max. We’d been doing this dance so long I could predict every step. He’d push, I’d push back. He’d worry, I’d joke. We’d find the rhythm again.

The apartment had one window in the living room. It faced the brick wall of the building next door. No view. No natural light. But the air conditioner in the window hummed loud enough to drown out street noise, and the floor didn’t sag when I walked on it. I’d lived in worse.

I’d lived in a lot worse.

“Alright,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Let’s unpack before the roaches claim my suitcase.”

Max grabbed his duffel and headed for the bedroom. I followed, stopping in the doorway.

The bed was a queen. Not huge, but not tiny either. White sheets, thin blanket, two pillows that looked like they’d been through a war. Max tossed his bag on the left side and claimed the nightstand with a triumphant thump.

“Dibs on this side.”

“You always take the left side.”

“Because I’m left-handed.”

“You’re not left-handed.”

“I am when it comes to nightstands.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He had this way of making everything feel easy, even when it wasn’t. Even when we were two broke twenty-eight-year-olds sharing a bed because rent in this city had gone insane and neither of us had a safety net.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Unknown number. No message. Just a single missed call.

I shoved it back in my pocket.

“Who was that?” Max asked.

“Wrong number.”

He studied me for a second too long. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He didn’t push. That was another thing about us. He knew when to let things slide. I knew when to change the subject. We’d built a whole friendship on those unspoken rules.

I unpacked my clothes in silence. Folded them into the dresser drawer Max had cleared for me. Hung my jackets in the closet next to his. The hangers clinked together, metal on metal, and for a moment it felt real.

We lived together now.

We’d been best friends since high school. Through bad relationships, worse jobs, late nights and early mornings. Through the year I spent couch-surfing after my mom died and the six months Max slept on my floor after his ex cleaned out his bank account. We’d never lived together properly. Never shared a lease, a bathroom, a bed.

Now we did.

And I had no idea what that meant.

By seven, we’d unpacked everything and ordered pizza. We sat on the floor because we didn’t have chairs yet, the cardboard box between us, grease soaking through the bottom. Max had his phone propped against the wall, playing some crime documentary neither of us was really watching.

“This is nice,” he said, mouth full of cheese.

“You have pizza in your beard.”

He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I mean it. This. Us.”

I picked at a pepperoni. “It’s pizza, Max. You’ve had pizza before.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. I just didn’t want to say it out loud. Because saying it out loud made it real, and real was dangerous. Real meant I couldn’t pretend this was just a convenient arrangement. Real meant admitting that when he smiled at me like that, with sauce on his chin and warmth in his eyes, I felt something I’d been burying for years.

“It’s good,” I said quietly. “Having you here.”

He held my gaze a beat too long. Then he looked away, grabbing another slice. “We should make a rule.”

“What kind of rule?”

“No secrets.”

I laughed, but it came out hollow. “That’s a big ask.”

“I’m serious. We’re sharing a bed, Delaney. We’re going to see each other at our worst. Morning breath, bad moods, crying over stupid commercials. If we’re going to survive this, we need to be honest.”

Honest. Right. Because honesty was so easy when the biggest secret I carried was the one I couldn’t tell him.

“Fine,” I said. “No secrets. But I’m still burning your socks.”

He threw a crust at me. It bounced off my shoulder and landed in the pizza box. I grabbed it and threw it back. It hit him in the forehead.

“Ow.”

“You started it.”

“I started a lot of things.”

He said it like a joke, but there was something underneath it. Something I couldn’t name. I let it hang there, unanswered, and reached for the last slice of pizza.

My phone buzzed again. Same unknown number. This time, a voicemail.

I stared at the screen.

“You gonna get that?” Max asked.

“No.”

“Delaney.”

“It’s nothing.”

He set his pizza down. “That’s the second time tonight. And you’ve been jumpy since we got here. What’s going on?”

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to open my mouth and let it all spill out. The calls, the texts, the envelope that showed up at my old apartment two weeks ago with no return address and a single photograph inside. A picture of me walking out of the bar where I worked. Taken from across the street.

But if I told him, he’d want to help. And if he helped, he’d get pulled into whatever this was. I couldn’t do that to him.

“It’s just spam,” I said. “Telemarketers.”

He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes searched my face for the truth. But he let it go.

“Alright,” he said. “But if you need to talk, I’m here.”

“I know.”

He grabbed the pizza box and stood up, carrying it to the kitchen. I watched him go, the broad line of his back, the easy way he moved. Thirteen years of friendship. Thirteen years of pretending I didn’t want more.

The phone buzzed a third time. I silenced it and shoved it under a couch cushion.

Later that night, I lay in bed next to him, staring at the ceiling. The room was dark except for the sliver of light under the door. Max’s breathing had evened out, slow and steady. He was asleep.

I wasn’t.

I listened to the hum of the air conditioner, the distant wail of a siren, the quiet rhythm of his breath. And I thought about secrets. About the one I’d been keeping since we were seventeen, the night we’d kissed behind the bleachers and never talked about it again.

He said no secrets.

But some secrets were too big to share. Some secrets could ruin everything.

And some secrets, I was starting to realize, were the only things keeping us safe.