Page 4

That wasn’t so bad, especially if Mira got a twin bed. She wouldn’t be sharing it with anyone anytime soon. “Who’s living there now?”

“No one in the last few months. Before that…” For the first time tonight, Isabel seemed hesitant. “I lived with someone, and it was her painting studio.”

So they were in the same situation. Mira felt a strangely intense pang of sympathy. Isabel said stiffly, “I can’t afford the rent on my own anymore, but I don’t want to charge anyone more than I have to. I haven’t been looking for someone until now, but I figured… I’m moving out at the end of the year. You can have the room until then.”

“Thanks. Um, that sounds like it could work.” There was no reason to not see the place, at least. “It’s not easy to find housing as a broke trans girl in this city,” Mira added, trying to keep her tone casual as she voiced the miserable, infuriating truth. She needed to be sure Isabel knew she was trans. It wasn’t fair that she had to protect herself this way, but no part of this was fair.

“I’m sorry for that.” If Isabel had any kind of problem with Mira, her stony demeanor didn’t show it.

Mira relaxed slightly. Maybe this would work out. They clearly weren’t going to be friends, which was fine. They’d live together for a few months, Mira would get back on her feet, and they would go their separate ways.

They exchanged numbers next to the subway entrance. Isabel was headed in the other direction. “Thanks again for everything,” Mira said.

Isabel nodded. A single stud earring in her right ear glinted in the light. “Take care.”

Mira smiled. “Have a good night.” She turned to go down the stairs.

“Can I have my jacket back?”

Mira turned around, embarrassed. There was the barest trace of a smile on Isabel’s face. Mira’s stomach did a flip.

“Sorry,” she said, blushing. She took off the jacket and gave it back to Isabel.

Isabel slipped it back on her impressively muscular shoulders in one easy motion. For her size and obvious strength,her body was so graceful. “Get home safe,” she said, and turned to cross the street.

She walked away, her hair a dark waterfall down her back, her work pants tight over her thick curves. Mira lingered by the subway entrance and watched her. What was it like to move through the world knowing it was your right to take up space? What had Isabel’s girlfriend been like? Had they broken each other’s hearts?

A gust of wind chilled her. She wasn’t wearing Isabel’s jacket anymore. She turned and went down the stairs.

2

This was a bad idea.There was still time to back out. A shitty thing to do, since Mira needed a place to live, but Isabel hadn’t promised her anything.

She hadn’t opened the door to the spare room since Reina moved out. Aside from a few smears of paint on the wood floor, it was stripped bare. No half-finished painting on the easel, no canvases and supplies haphazardly stacked on shelves. Just Mira standing in the middle of the room.

Mira was pretty, if you liked mousy, shy girls. Tall, willowy, slightly hunched over like she was trying to be unnoticeable. Brown skin, big dark eyes, thick long lashes. Big hair in loose curls falling over her shoulders. She looked more comfortable in her sweater and wool skirt than in that clingy dress from last weekend. Not that Isabel had been looking.

At least, she’d tried not to look. She’d only wanted to keep this girl safe.

Mira slowly turned around, blinking. There was nothing to see. She was just thinking, like Isabel was. Maybe picturing all her things in the room.

Isabel didn’t want her here. It had been one thing to offer up her spare room when this scared girl had needed help. Isabelneeded a roommate, and Mira needed a room. But seeing Mira here made it real: Isabel would be living with a stranger, in this apartment full of the worst memories of her life.

If Isabel wanted to back out, she’d have to say so now. Then she’d start working overtime again, and her bad knee would only get worse. But it would only be for a few months, and then she’d find a place she could afford on her own. She would survive.

“It’s a nice room,” Mira said.

Isabel shrugged. There was no need for Mira to be polite. “It’s not much. Let’s talk in the living room.”

Isabel had dusted all the furniture that morning, sneezing the whole time. The plants on the windowsill were half-dead, but there was nothing she could do about that now.

Mira walked by, and the faint scent of coconut shampoo trailed after her. It took a second for Isabel to place it: Her leather jacket had smelled like that, too, after Mira had returned it.

Mira sat on the edge of the couch, radiating anxiety. Isabel was going to have to get used to seeing that. She had collapsed on that couch when she’d gotten the phone call with the worst news of her life. Then she’d sat on that couch when Reina confessed that she was leaving, that she had been applying to artist residencies in secret, that she couldn’t take it anymore. That it wasn’t Isabel’s fault for being so shattered by grief. But whose fault was it, then?

Isabel didn’t miss her ex much these days. But she’d had a life once as a caring, supportive partner, as the second of three inseparable sisters. All that was gone now, and Isabel was left to rattle around the apartment alone.

Isabel blinked. The ghosts in her memories vanished. There was a real person sitting in front of her.