Laura Miller - For All You Have Left

“Hey, he hasn’t been convicted…yet,” she corrects.

Then, suddenly, there’s a knock at the door, and we both freeze.

My lips part, and I feel my eyes grow wide as I immediately find Hannah. Her eyes are wide too, but she’s smiling.

A second goes by like this — with neither of our expressions changing.

“See who it is,” Hannah finally whispers, gesturing her finger toward the door.

I slowly turn and face the door, then tiptoe over to it and hover over the peep hole, and instantly, I feel my heart drop.

“It’s him,” I mouth, looking back at Hannah and pointing at the door.

“Who?” she asks.

“Next door,” I whisper.

Just then, her face lights up, and she grabs her keys.

I shake my head.

“No,” I mouth in her direction. “Do. Not. Leave. Me.”

“I’ve gotta run,” she says, ignoring me.

“Hannah,” I say, trying my best to shout at her in a whisper.

She continues to ignore me, while I watch her run around my apartment and gather up her things. Leave it to Hannah to have a conversation with me about how my neighbor might be an axe murderer and then a minute later, she’s leaving me alone with him. I sigh and roll my eyes.

“Okay, fine,” I mumble under my breath.

I force my attention to the door and suck in some air. Then, on three , I push the air out of my lungs and swiftly pull open the door.

Jorgen takes a moment before he speaks.

“Your keys,” he says, eventually, holding up his big hand and dangling a fuzzy, pink keychain from his finger. “You left them in your door.”

My chest rises and then falls. Well, at least I’m making it easy for him to kill me.

“Hi, I’m Hannah, Lada’s sister,” Hannah says before I can even get the words thank you out.

She bumps up against me and extends her left hand toward him. Hannah’s right-handed, and I would question what she’s doing, but I already know.

“Lada?” he repeats, almost as if it’s a question.

He pauses for a second but then seems to brush it off. “I’m Jorgen.”

He meets her left hand with his left.

“Jorgen,” Hannah says. “That’s an interesting name.”

He smiles. “It’s a family name.”

Hannah flashes him an approving look before she turns back to me.

“Invite him over,” she mouths. “No ring.”

I roll my eyes again, but this time, I only do it in my mind. And before I know it, Hannah is gliding down the stairwell.

“It was nice meeting you, Jorgen,” she calls back up.

“It was nice meeting you too,” he says in her direction before she’s gone.

A moment passes and then Jorgen turns and looks at me with a soft side-smile.

“Lada?” he asks, almost timidly.

I lower my eyes and shake my head.

“It’s a long story,” I say.

“Okay,” he concedes, chuckling a little.

“Paramedic?” I ask, eyeing his blue pants, white, collared shirt and black work boots.

He glances down at his attire.

“Uh, yeah.” He nods his head. “How’d ya guess?”

A soft but unexpected laugh tumbles off my lips, sending my gaze straight to the floor.

“I work out of Truman Hospital.”

His words sober me up fast, and I cringe on the inside.

“What do you do?” he asks.

I slowly meet his eyes again — those blue, blue eyes. “I write for the magazine downtown.”

“ Outside ?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“We get it at the hospital. Ada Cross?”

I feel the heat rushing to my face. It’s not every day that someone puts my name to my writing.

“Yes,” I say, trying not to smile as wide as I feel like smiling.

“I knew it was you.” He pauses for a second, as if he’s finally putting my face to my name. My photo has really only been in the magazine a couple times. Most of the time, it’s just my byline on top of the story. “I like your people stories,” he goes on. “There are some pretty interesting people out there.”

I force out a laugh.

“You have no idea,” I mumble.

His tanned, chiseled face shows off a crooked grin. “Well, I was just headed to work and I saw your keys,” he says, pointing to my lock.

“Yeah.” I shake my head. “Thank you,” I add, squeezing the pink keychain inside the palm of my hand.

“No problem,” he says.

I watch him start to make his way down the stairs.

“Lots of creeps out there, but don’t worry, I’ve got your back,” he calls up to me.

My smile starts to fade, but he can’t see it; his back is already toward me.

I really hope that wasn’t a warning — him warning me about himself. Deep down, I really don’t want him to be a creep. Maybe I do just want a normal neighbor for once — a normal, cat-less, renaissance-less neighbor.

“Lada, where’s your lotion?” Hannah asks, busting into my apartment.

Hannah’s always been a fixture in every place I’ve ever had. She’s never been an actual roommate, just more of an honorary one, I guess. This new apartment is no exception. She has a key. She uses it liberally.

“My hands feel like dead lizards.” Her voice trails behind her as she makes a beeline for the back rooms.

I scrunch up my face. “Eww. Why do they have to be dead?”

She doesn’t answer me. Instead I hear her rummaging through my drawers in my bedroom. My bedroom! I jump up and run to my room. But right when I spot her, I freeze in the doorway. I know she has already seen it. She’s bent over, with her back to me. She’s staring at something — it — inside my nightstand drawer.

I just stand there and watch her — waiting, for what seems like an eternity.

Eventually, she pulls it out from the drawer and turns back toward me.

“Lada,” she says, holding up a marriage license.

I take in a deep breath and let out an audible sigh.

“I didn’t know you still had this,” she softly says.

I don’t say anything. There’s nothing I can say really.

“Lada, you’ve got to move on,” she pushes out, gently. “I know you love him, but he can’t keep coming in and out of your life like this. You can’t let him. You can’t do this forever, Lada. You have to live.”

She looks at me with two sad eyes — those same sad eyes that she always gives me when this same subject comes up.

“I am living, Hannah,” I force out. “I’m living. I eat. I sleep. I smile every day.”

Her sad eyes don’t waver.

“Lada,” she says and then follows it with a long sigh. “You know what I mean. You’ve gotta let him go. You’ve gotta let someone else in.”

I stare at her for a moment before I lower my face. “It’s not that easy, Hannah.”

A minute passes in the quiet, and then I hear her voice again.

“All I’m asking you to do is try. That’s all anyone is asking you to do.”

My eyes catch and get stuck in the red polish on my toenails.

“I do try,” I whisper.

It’s true. I try. I don’t try in the way she wants me to try, but I do try. I try to tell myself that it is possible to move on — that it is possible to actually live two happy lives in the span of one lifetime. I try to push the thoughts, the dreams, the nightmares from my old life to the back of my mind. But ultimately, I know what moving on means. It means never going back, and that terrifies me more than anything. I know Hannah wants me to forget, but I can’t forget. I don’t want to forget. If I forget, I lose it all twice. I want to remember. I have to remember.

Hannah’s gone. She eventually got her lotion for her dead-lizard hands — after she had played the big-sister card, of course, and dispensed her infamous words of wisdom. I’m used to that card though and her words of wisdom. She says her peace — and it’s usually always the same peace — and then she leaves it alone. I’m thankful for that — the leaving it alone part. She doesn’t understand me like she thinks she does, but I do love her. Deep down, I know she means well. I just don’t think I’m as strong as she thinks I am.