Allison arrived on a Tuesday.
Not a Saturday like Williams. Not on a moving day. A Tuesday, right in the middle of the week, with a truck too big for the street, a box labeled “FRAGILE—SHOES” in pink marker, and laughter that could be heard from the second floor.
Stéphanie watched her from the kitchen window. Timothe leaned over her shoulder.
—That her? The bank teller?
—Allison. Twenty-five. Impeccable file. No late rent, no questionable guarantor, no criminal record.
—She seems nice.
—We’ll see.
Down below, Allison carried a box on her hip the way someone carries a child. Her hair was tied up any which way, she wore jeans ripped at the knee, and her white sneakers hadn’t been white in a long time. She talked to herself as she counted her boxes.
—Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen… Sixteen? I had seventeen. One’s missing. The most important one. The one with the—
—Mugs?
Williams was there, leaning against the courtyard wall with his arms crossed and a crooked smile—the first anyone had seen on him since he arrived.
—The mugs! Allison shouted. Williams, if you broke my mugs, I’ll kill you.
—They’re in my kitchen. I brought them up first.
—Why?
—Because you would’ve cried if they’d stayed in the truck.
Allison looked at him. Something passed between them—quick, light, obvious. She punched him in the shoulder. He didn’t move. She smiled. He smiled.
From the second-floor balcony, Tatum watched.
She knew that smile. Not Allison’s—Williams’s. She’d seen that smile for years. Directed at her. Obsessive, insistent, too big for a teenager. And now it was directed at someone else. At that girl in ripped jeans counting her boxes in the courtyard.
Tatum tightened her grip on her coffee cup. She was happy. Truly. Relieved. The obsession was dead, and that was the best thing that could have happened.
But.
There was a tiny “but,” buried so deep she would never have admitted it to anyone—not even Jimmy, not even herself. A “but” that sounded like: he doesn’t look at me at all anymore. Not at all. As if I don’t exist. As if I’d never existed.
It wasn’t desire. It wasn’t love. It was the habit of being the center of something—even something unhealthy. And now that she wasn’t anymore, there was a tiny, absurd, shameful emptiness that she immediately shut down by drinking her coffee too fast.
—You okay? Jimmy asked behind her.
—Perfect.
She went back into the apartment without looking at the courtyard.
Mike arrived the next day. Wednesday. In silence.
No one saw him move in. No truck. No boxes labeled in marker. Stéphanie found a message on her phone at seven in the morning: “Hello. I picked up the keys from the mailbox. I’m settled in. Thank you. Michael Renaud.”
She showed the message to Timothe.
—He arrived last night?
—Apparently.
—Without making a sound?
—Without making a sound.
Timothe frowned.
—Is he a ghost?
—He’s a writer.
—Same thing.
Stéphanie went downstairs to knock on the door of the apartment on the left—the old apartment of Diane. She knocked three times. Waited. Knocked again.
The door opened five inches. An eye. Just one. Brown, shadowed, wary.
—Hello, Stéphanie said. I’m the owner. Stéphanie.
—Hello.
Silence.
—Are you all settled in?
—Yes. Thank you.
Silence.
—If you need anything—
—No. Thank you.
The door closed. Not slammed. Just shut. Gently. Like someone who didn’t want to be seen.
Stéphanie remained in front of the door. She wasn’t used to having doors closed in her face. She didn’t like it. But she had seen the eye behind the door—not hostile. Afraid.
She went back upstairs. Timothe was waiting for her with a coffee.
—Well?
—He’s afraid of people.
—Of you?
—Of everyone.
That evening, Allison knocked on Williams’s door. He opened it. She walked in without waiting for an invitation—she’d never needed one.
—I don’t have Wi-Fi, she said.
—Me neither.
—I don’t have a casserole dish.
—Me neither.
—I’m hungry.
—Me too.
They looked at each other. Allison sat on the kitchen counter—a bare kitchen, with no curtains, nothing on the walls, just Allison’s mugs lined up on the shelf.
—Should we order something? she said.
—With what Wi-Fi?
—Your mobile data.
—I’m out of data.
—Williams.
—Allison.
They burst out laughing. The same laugh. The laugh of two people who know each other so well they no longer need complete sentences.
Williams leaned against the counter beside her. Their shoulders touched. Neither of them moved.
—Did you see the neighbor on the left? Allison asked.
—No. No one’s seen him.
—What’s his name?
—Michael. Mike. Writer.
—What’s he like?
—Invisible.
Allison tilted her head.
—No one’s invisible. The people who hide are the ones who need to be found the most.
Williams looked at her. That look. Too long. Too gentle. The one he gave only to her, without knowing he was giving it.
—You’re too nice, he said.
—And you’re not nice enough.
—I know.
She rested her head on his shoulder. Naturally. The way she had for months, at the bank, on the bus, in the break room. He didn’t move. He didn’t push her away. He didn’t pull her closer, either. He just stayed there, with the weight of her head on his shoulder and something in his chest that felt like a word he didn’t say.
The next day, Tatum ran into Allison on the stairs.
—Hi! Allison said. You’re Tatum, right? Williams told me about you.
Tatum stopped. Her heart did something strange—a tiny jolt that she immediately crushed.
—Oh yeah? What did he say?
—That you’re his dad’s girlfriend. That you’re an accountant. That you make the best cakes in Besançon.
Tatum blinked. That was it? That was all he’d said? Not “my former math teacher.” Not “the woman I was obsessed with.” Just: his dad’s girlfriend. Accountant. Cakes.
She’d been reduced to three words. Three normal words. Three words from a neighbor.
—The part about the cakes is true, Tatum said with a smile.
—You’ll have to teach me! I’m terrible in the kitchen. Williams is too. We survive on pasta and ketchup.
—You live together?
—No, no, we each have our own apartment. But we eat together every night. I mean, we eat… we order. Or we snack. It’s not really meals.
Tatum looked at her. Allison was radiant. The kind of person who lit up a hallway just by walking through it. Tall, with clear eyes and a smile that never stopped. And she talked about Williams with that complete familiarity—“we eat together every night”—as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
—Are you two together? Tatum asked.
She didn’t know why she’d asked the question. Yes. She did know. But she didn’t want to know.
—No! Allison said with a laugh. No, no. We’re best friends. Since our first day at the bank. He spilled coffee on me and spent twenty minutes apologizing. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
—Just friends.
—Just friends.
Tatum nodded. She could see it. She saw what Allison didn’t see yet—or what she refused to see. The way she said “Williams” with that involuntary softness. The way her eyes changed when she talked about him.
—Welcome to 8 Branly Street, Tatum said.
—Thanks! And have you seen the neighbor on the left? Mike?
—No one’s seen him.
—We have to go see him.
—Good luck.
Allison smiled. The smile of someone who didn’t yet know the word “impossible.”
Tatum went back upstairs to her apartment. Jimmy was on the couch, an architectural plan spread across the coffee table.
—I met Allison, Tatum said.
—And?
—She’s adorable.
—And Williams?
—He loves her.
Jimmy looked up.
—How do you know?
—Because I’m a girl. And because he looks at her like…
She stopped. Like he used to look at me. That was what she was going to say. But she didn’t.
—Like someone who’s in love, she finished.
Jimmy didn’t answer. He looked at his plan. But Tatum saw his jaw relax—just a little. Just enough for it to be a beginning.