The Thin Wall

The walls of the duplex on Cedar Street were thin enough to hear a secret, but thick enough to hide a life.

Elena sat in her living room, the air thick with the smell of turpentine and stale coffee. It was noon, but the blinds were drawn tight, slashing the room with bars of gray light. She touched the left side of her face instinctively. The skin there was jagged, a topographical map of the night her life ended—the screech of tires, the shattered glass, the silence that followed.

She wasn't Elena the fiancée anymore. She was just the woman with the scar. The monster in unit 4A.

But she wasn't the only monster.

Through the gap in the blinds, she watched him. Unit 4B. The neighborhood kids called him "The Ogre." He was gargantuan, a mountain of a man who only emerged when the sun died to tend to a patch of struggling, pathetic roses by the shared porch. He always wore a hoodie, the cowl pulled low to swallow his face in shadow.

Rumors swirled like the dead leaves on their walkway. *Ex-con. Murderer. Violent offender.*

A heavy thud on the porch snapped Elena out of her trance. She waited five minutes, heart hammering, before cracking the front door.

A package sat on the doormat. *Bram V.* written in sharp black marker. Misdelivered.

Elena stared at it. To return it meant stepping onto the shared porch. It meant exposure. But the thought of keeping it, of forcing him to knock on her door later, was worse.

She grabbed the box and stepped out. The air was cold, smelling of incoming rain. She moved to his door, her hand trembling as she reached for the bell.

The door swung open before she touched it.

Bram filled the frame. Up close, he was terrifying—broad shoulders that blocked out the gray sky, hands the size of shovels. He recoiled when he saw her. He took a sharp step back into the gloom of his hallway, turning his face away.

"Your package," Elena whispered, her voice rusty from disuse. She set it down and backed away, shielding her scarred cheek with her hair.

Bram didn't look at the box. He looked past her, toward the street. His voice was a low rumble, like gravel shifting underground.

"Lock your back gate, Elena."

She froze. He knew her name.

"What?"

"Someone was watching your kitchen window last night," he rasped, still not looking at her. "Standing in the alley. Lock the gate."

Before she could ask him who, or how he knew, the door to 4B slammed shut. The deadbolt slid home with a heavy, final *clack*.