Fifth Floor Walk-Up

"Melted Chocolate. Autumn Afternoon."

...

I've been suffocating on sterile pea-green walls for the past two days. I'm not completely sure why, but the nurse lets me sit here noon and night, clenching haplessly at her hand, staring out the sixth floor window. I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my job, but I can't tear myself from this metal chair, this drab room. It's safe in its closed walls. It's comfortable in its uneasiness. It's everything she's ever given me, messily wrapped up with a colorless bow.

A gull perches on the windowsill, observing our tragedy. Am I playing this role properly? I've disconnected and I can't step back into character. The tears won't come. The cries of agony have disappeared. What do I do now?

My gaze fixes on her face. Strong jaw. High cheekbones so often flushed - in anger, in passion, in shame. Long lashes conceal what I covet most, what I fear I'll never have again.

I'll never forget the first time I saw those eyes.

...

After two years of playing housewife to Kurt, he chose to take the role of housewife with Blaine. Blaine had just accepted a promotion at his hoity-toity Wall Street investment banker something something firm. He usually threw around a whole slew of fancy finance words when he talked about his job, but I'd tune him out and turn back to Broadway gossip with Kurt. They'd found a beautiful loft in Chelsea and one less bedroom than our previous abode. And thus, that's how I stumbled upon my fifth floor walk-up.

I wanted so badly to be happy for him, but all I could think about was the fifth floor walk-up in Brooklyn, a twenty-minute ride on the L from our shared East Village two-bedroom. The fifth floor walk-up with one stiflingly hot room, knotty wooden floors, and a fire escape just outside my new bedroom window that would quickly grow to haunt me.

It wasn't all misery, moving to my own place. Like any other role, I looked forward to playing grown-up Rachel Berry. I could dig my gaudy, bedazzled microphone and stand out of storage (the one Kurt hated because it was too 'queeny.') My Barbra portraits could finally hang over the mantle where they belonged.

In a moment of empathy, Kurt agreed to help move me in. Naturally, I requested Blaine's assistance as well. While Kurt and I were born leaders, replete with a healthy vision of the future, we were not versed in manual labor.

"Blaine, you have to pick it up. We've already nicked one wall."

"Blaine, I think if you just tilt it to the right slightly the passage will be easier to maneuver."

"Blaine, adjust it about ten degrees to the left. There. There. No stop. Back five degrees."

"Blaine, can you lift it from the base? I know that the mirror is unsteady, but its weight is in the base. Just give it a try."

A year since moving in, I can't believe, looking back, that Blaine put up with us for so long. Our voices blended together in a nasal timbre like Elena Roger in the revival of "Evita." But, I didn't long to dwell on the perfect angle of furniture going up and down the staircase.

I could feel her presence before I saw her face. Though, to be honest, I was completely unaware of how long her "presence" had been glaring at me from behind. Kurt, Blaine, and I had been collaborating to move my vanity through the narrow stairwell. Given what I know about her disposition now, she may not have actually been standing behind me for that long, but at the time, when she opened her mouth, I thought she'd been standing back there for nearly twenty minutes.

"S'cuse me." Her voice was used and harried.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you live here?" Before my eyes landed on her face, my hand shot out in greeting. I can almost see myself standing in that tight first-floor entrance way. Sweat matting my bangs to my face, but each hair neatly in place behind my red headband. I remember I'd forgone my favorite knee socks in the sticky August heat.

Blue slacks brushed against shiny black boots. A long, dark blue stripe guided my eyes to her starched blue shirt, metallic embellishments catching the waning sunlight. My eyes caught on the cold black metal of a gun at her side.

"Yeah." Her eyes squinted but she swallowed me whole. For the first time in the history of Rachel Berry, I became unglued. (I always wanted to glamorize her eyes later - "They're like melted chocolate, or like an autumn afternoon." And she'd smirk and tease me, "Don't say things like that Rach, I'll lose my street cred.")

She continued to look at me sidelong, sizing me up. "Yeah I live here. I guess you're my new neighbor – the studio on the fifth floor? Look, I need to get some sleep."

My hand hung in the air and my jaw hung open. I didn't even have time to process that the sun hadn't even set yet.

Blaine, mouth slightly ajar at my undoing, snapped to. "Sorry, let me just move this out of your way."

"Looks like you need a hand. Let me grab this side for you."

Kurt cleared his throat and raised a pale finger, "Just, um, watch out for the walls."

Strong, tanned forearms flexed and glistened in the late August heat as she hoisted the furniture in the steamy stairwell. I picked up the duffel bag she'd tossed on the landing. Its edges were rough and frayed and it smelled faintly of sweat mixed with a scent I
would become all too familiar with the more I spent time with her.

As I followed her tentatively up the stairs, despite the bulk of her uniform shirt, I could almost feel the ripple of her deltoids. Her jet-black ponytail swayed with effort. Kurt continued to call directions from just behind me. On the other hand, my healthy vision of the future had disappeared in favor of comprehending the healthy vision directly in front of me. I watched as beads of sweat pooled in the crook of her arm.

With the vanity firmly in place on the top landing, my voice found itself once again.

"Thank you so much. I'm Rachel Berry, your new neighbor." Apprehensively, I extended my hand again.

"Yeah, got it. No problem. I'll just take my bag, thanks." Her hand skipped my welcome and clenched onto the duffel. Before I could find her eyes, her back was to me, then her front door. My eyes and heart sunk to the floor.