Chapter 10 — The balcony doesn’t count as an invitation

The problem with habits was that they rarely formed with any dignity.

At first, something happened once.

Then twice.

Then the brain, that absurdly overzealous little internal administration, opened a file.

Noise behind the wall.

Liora coming home. Quick footsteps. Key in the lock. Voice in the entryway. Door.

Silence.

I wasn’t waiting for those sounds.

Obviously.

I was identifying them.

Important distinction.

On Saturday night, at 11:40, I was still at my desk.

Nothing unusual about that. Freelancers had the same relationship with schedules that Eugène had with balcony rules: theoretical, flexible, and negotiable only inside their own heads.

The screen lit the studio far too brightly.

I had three files open.

A commission for a children’s publisher. An overdue invoice.

And a folder called “exhibition_interiors_selection,” staring at me from the desktop like a question I didn’t want to answer.

The group exhibition was approaching.

Three weeks away.

For a normal person, that was a comfortable margin.

For me, it was already emergency territory.

I had to send the final selection by Monday evening.

Five images. Three possible prints.

And a short artist statement that was, according to the organizer’s email, “not too conceptual, but personal enough.”

Beautiful.

Not too conceptual.

Personal enough.

I preferred it when clients asked for warm, approachable eggplants.

At least an eggplant didn’t pretend to want to understand my relationship with domestic space.

I looked at the thumbnails open on the screen.

An empty kitchen with a chair out of place.

A hallway in late-afternoon light.

A window partly open onto a balcony.

A table after a meal.

The corner of a couch, a blanket, a low lamp.

Five rooms.

Five places without people.

Or almost without them.

A mug. An abandoned sweater. A mark left by water. Shoes beside a door.

Evidence.

Maybe they were too similar.

Or too quiet.

Or too much like me.

I ran a hand over my face.

“What do you think?”

Eugène was lying on the coffee table in a position that respected neither gravity nor decency.

He opened one eye.

“Yes, sorry. Demanding question.”

He closed it again.

The rabbit continued a delicate operation involving hay and total concentration.

I opened the artist statement document.

The cursor blinked.

I typed:

“These images explore...”

I deleted it.

No.

Too much like a group exhibition attended by people who wore turtlenecks on purpose.

I tried again.

“I draw interiors because...”

I stopped.

Because why?

Because people were too difficult to draw without lying.

Because rooms held traces better than faces did.

Because a chair out of place sometimes said more than a sentence.

I deleted everything.

Highly productive.

I saved the empty document.

As a precaution.

There was almost no sound from the other side of the wall.

Liora was working that evening.

I knew because she had told me the day before while hurrying down the stairs with a sports bag, a tote bag, and an apple held between her teeth.

Well, she hadn’t spoken with the apple between her teeth.

She had said:

“I’m working tomorrow night, so if Eugène is planning an existential crisis, he’ll need to make an appointment.”

I had replied:

“I’ll inform the relevant department.”

She had given me a thumbs-up.

Then nearly tripped on the last step.

General dignity preserved by a narrow margin.

So I knew.

Saturday night.

Shift at the café.

Late return.

Neutral information.

No consequences.

I closed the artist statement.

Opened it again.

Closed it.

Then opened the children’s commission so I could look like a serious professional.

The cabin was breathing better, but the client still wanted “something slightly more human.”

I looked at the child standing in front of it.

“There is literally a human.”

Eugène didn’t move.

I zoomed in on the silhouette.

Maybe I needed to turn the head slightly toward the window. Make it look as though the child was hesitating before going inside.

I adjusted the angle.

Better.

Or worse.

I saved.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Midnight passed.

Then 12:15.

The street had grown quieter. Cars were less frequent. A few doors had slammed earlier inside the building, but everything had gradually settled.

I stood to stretch.

My back protested with the conviction of an old friend I had neglected.

I made tea.

Bad idea.

I did it anyway.

Just as the kettle began to heat, the front door of the building opened downstairs.

I didn’t hear it clearly.

More like a chain of sounds.

The door swinging shut.

Footsteps in the stairwell.

Slow. Then faster. Then slow again.

I remained still.

The kettle grew louder behind me.

The footsteps reached the fifth floor.

I recognized Liora.

Not exactly by her usual rhythm.

Something was missing.

Or something was weighing on it.

Her steps still had that energy that seemed to take the stairs as a personal provocation, but the final few were heavier. Less attacked. As though her body had agreed to obey until the landing only because it was under contract.

Then a key fell on the other side.

A small metallic sound.

Silence.

“Seriously?”

Her voice.

Tired.

Lower.

I placed my empty mug on the counter.

You did not open your door after midnight because a neighbor had dropped her keys. That was exactly the kind of gesture that required a more clearly defined relationship than ours.

Neighbor.

Animals.

Balcony.

Guitar.

Stadium.

Another sound.

She had probably kicked her bag.

“Perfect.”

Fine.

Maybe.

I crossed the studio.

Eugène lifted his head.

“Don’t start.”

I wasn’t sure I was talking to him.

I unlocked my door and opened it just far enough to look out.

Liora was crouched in front of her apartment, one knee on the floor, the other leg bent, searching beneath an enormous bag with an expression of hostile concentration.

She wore a black jacket too thin for the night, a sweatshirt underneath, jeans, and sneakers marked with rain.

Her hair had been tied up in a hurry. Several strands had escaped, as though even they had given up trying to keep pace with her schedule.

The smell of cold coffee, light frying oil, and rain entered the hallway.

Not unpleasant.

Just very alive.

Very end-of-shift.

She looked up at me.

“Oh.”

“Hi.”

“Did I wake you?”

I looked at myself.

Sweater, pants, glasses, light on behind me.

“No.”

“Shame. I could’ve looked guilty.”

“You can be guilty about something else.”

“I have enough open cases, thanks.”

She finally retrieved her keys from beneath the strap of her bag and stood.

Too quickly.

She stopped for a second with one hand against the wall.

I saw it.

She pretended it hadn’t happened.

I saw that too.

“You okay?” I asked.

She exhaled, then raised the keys.

“Victory.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“It answers a nearby question.”

“Not really.”

She slid the key into the lock without turning it. She stayed leaning against the wall of the landing, one shoulder slightly tilted. The hallway’s yellow light was unflattering, especially to people trying to pretend they weren’t exhausted.

“Long shift?”

“No.”

I looked at her.

She raised her eyes.

“Yes.”

“There.”

“Very long. Productive in the sense that I carried trays, pretended to like customers, spilled two coffees, cleaned a floor that had developed an identity of its own, and stopped a man from explaining why modern cappuccino isn’t what it used to be.”

“Serious subject.”

“He was genuinely devastated.”

“Milk foam has destroyed civilizations.”

“Thank you. Exactly.”

She smiled.

The smile arrived.

Not all the way.

It stopped at the edges.

I didn’t know what to do with that information.

I didn’t yet occupy the right relational space to say, You look completely done.

I wasn’t exactly no one anymore.

That was the problem.

She finally opened her door, then remained on the threshold.

The apartment inside was dark except for a light in the entryway. Farther in, probably the living room.

No voices.

Her family was asleep.

Or trying to be.

“Were you working?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“The eggplants?”

“Never the eggplants again.”

“Sorry. Sensitive subject.”

“A cabin.”

“Oh.”

“And a statement for the exhibition.”

“The exhibition?”

I regretted it immediately.

I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t a secret.

Technically, it was the opposite of a secret, since an exhibition involved hanging things on a wall so strangers could look at them with varying degrees of eyebrow movement.

“A small group exhibition,” I said.

“You never told me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you never asked.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Evasive answer.”

“Accurate answer.”

“The two can coexist.”

She was right.

Unfortunately.

“When is it?”

“Three weeks from now. The opening, I mean. Assuming I don’t disappear into a hole first.”

“What are you showing?”

“Interiors.”

“Your empty rooms?”

“They aren’t empty.”

The answer came too quickly.

Liora didn’t smile.

She noticed.

Obviously.

“Okay,” she said simply.

Silence.

Not long.

Long enough for me to feel that I had placed something between us without meaning to.

She looked down at her bag, then her keys, then me.

“I’m going to put my things down.”

“Yes.”

“But I’m too awake to sleep.”

I looked at her face.

“You look like the opposite.”

“Misreading.”

“Really?”

“I’m awake on the inside.”

“The outside is protesting.”

She gave a small laugh.

Then lifted a hand to her forehead.

A brief, tired movement.

“I’m going to drink something on the balcony,” she said. “Nothing concerning. Water. Or herbal tea, if I can find the moral strength.”

She paused.

“You can come out onto yours.”

I blinked.

“Onto my balcony?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t count as coming over.”

“Exactly. It’s practical.”

“Practical for what?”

“Talking without waking everyone up in the hallway.”

“The balcony does not count as an invitation.”

She smiled.

Tired, but clear this time.

“Of course not. It’s a diplomatic zone.”

Then she disappeared into her apartment before I could answer.

Her door closed softly.

I remained in my own doorway.

Fine.

Diplomatic zone.

Perfect concept.

Dangerous.

I went back inside the studio.

Eugène was sitting in the middle of the room.

He looked as though he understood everything.

Which was impossible.

And yet...

“Don’t look at me like that.”

He blinked.

“I’m going onto my balcony.”

He turned his head toward the glass door.

“My secured balcony.”

He stood.

“No.”

He stopped.

“You stay here.”

He stared at me with silent indignation.

“You’ve lost your diplomatic privileges.”

I closed the glass door behind me as soon as I stepped outside.

The air was cold.

The night still held a trace of rain. The railings shone faintly beneath the streetlights. Liora’s balcony was still empty, but her glass door opened a few seconds later.

She appeared in a larger sweatshirt, a mug in her hands, her hair down this time.

Not completely.

Just enough to make her face look less organized.

She had taken off her shoes.

Thick socks.

Again.

A domestic detail.

Dangerously domestic.

“Is Eugène sulking?” she asked.

“He’s preparing an appeal.”

“Does he have a lawyer?”

“Still himself.”

“Bad strategy.”

“Very confident one, though.”

She leaned against the railing.

Not abruptly.

Not with her usual energy arriving slightly ahead of the rest of her.

Slowly.

As though she wanted to conserve movement.

I noticed her voice was lower.

The volume went down when she no longer had the strength to project the world in front of her.

I took my mug of lukewarm tea and leaned against the wall beside the glass door.

Appropriate distance.

Late-night neighbor distance.

Diplomatic zone.

“Did you find the moral strength?” I asked.

She looked at her mug.

“Herbal tea.”

“Impressive.”

“I almost ate cereal from a dirty bowl, so we’ll call this a victory.”

“Why a dirty bowl?”

“Because the clean one was too far away.”

“Where was it?”

“In the cupboard.”

I nodded.

“Extreme circumstances.”

“You understand.”

“Completely.”

Silence settled between us.

Liora took a sip, both hands wrapped around her mug. Her gaze stayed on the street, not me. Her shoulders were lower. The sounds of the city rose carefully toward us.

A bus in the distance.

Tires on wet pavement.

A window closing somewhere.

I wasn’t used to Liora inside silences.

Not like this.

Usually, even when she wasn’t speaking, she seemed about to.

Now she was simply there.

Tired.

Present.

Without trying to occupy all the air.

“Do you often finish this late?” I asked.

“At the café?”

“Yes.”

“It depends. On Saturdays, yes. Well, sometimes. Often. Too often.”

She ran a hand through her hair, then immediately seemed to regret it when several strands fell across her face.

“It isn’t horrible. It’s just long.”

“You say that as though long isn’t already a category of problem.”

“Long can be managed.”

“Everything can be managed, according to you.”

“No.”

She answered too quickly.

Then exhaled.

“Well, I’d like it to be.”

I said nothing.

She didn’t continue immediately.

The silence became something else.

More precise.

I could see her profile in the dim light. The curve of her nose. Her lowered lashes.

The tiredness around her eyes.

Nothing that needed rescuing.

Or interpreting.

Or a grand sentence placed over her life.

Only the real cost of her rhythm.

“Do you have practice tomorrow?” I asked.

“No. Just an easy run in the morning.”

I looked at her.

She turned toward me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Aurèl.”

“You work until midnight, sleep for five conceptual hours, then run in the morning.”

“Easy run.”

The word easy does not fix everything.”

She smiled more slowly.

“Are you worried?”

A simple question.

Too direct.

Far too direct for a diplomatic zone.

I took a sip of tea.

Cold.

Betrayal.

“I’m observing.”

“Ah, yes. Your favorite word.”

“It’s useful.”

“It hides many things.”

I didn’t answer.

She didn’t push.

That was new too.

Or maybe I was only noticing it now.

She looked at her mug, then the street.

“I’m not falling apart,” she said.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I know.”

“You’re saying that as though I thought it.”

“Maybe.”

“I think many absurd things.”

“I know that too.”

She smiled slightly.

Then her gaze drifted toward the windows across the street.

“It’s only a busy period.”

“How long has this busy period lasted?”

She turned toward me.

“Very good question.”

“Bad answer.”

“Yes.”

She took a sip of tea and grimaced.

“This is terrible.”

“The tea?”

“The exhaustion. And the tea. Mostly the tea.”

“You chose it.”

“I thought I was the kind of person who made good decisions at midnight.”

“Common mistake.”

“Do you make good decisions at midnight?”

I thought about files saved three times, emails sent too late, the drawing of Liora I closed like incriminating evidence, the guitar I played without realizing it crossed through walls.

“No.”

“There.”

Her hand rested on the cold metal a few inches from the divider between our balconies.

Not close.

Not far.

I noticed the distance.

I looked away.

Eugène appeared behind my glass door, a massive silhouette in the studio light. He placed one paw against the glass.

Liora saw him immediately.

Her face changed.

“Eugène.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

“He looks sad.”

“He looks strategic.”

“He wants to join us.”

“He has already participated in too many things.”

Eugène meowed behind the glass.

The sound came through muffled.

Very dramatic.

“See?” Liora said.

“He’s lying.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know him.”

“So do I. A little.”

She said it without giving it any weight.

The sentence had some anyway.

A little.

I looked at Eugène.

He looked at us.

Liora and me.

The balcony.

The divider.

The diplomatic zone from which he had been excluded for reasons of national security.

“He chose you by breaking and entering.”

“That’s a solid foundation for a relationship.”

“A concerning one.”

“Solid.”

She smiled, then turned her mug between her hands.

The conversation could have remained there.

Eugène.

Her allergy.

The usual jokes.

Familiar ground.

Safe.

But then she looked toward my studio behind me.

“What were you working on?”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

I followed her gaze.

From where she stood, she could see the corner of my desk, the lamp, part of the screen.

Not its contents.

Thankfully.

“A commission,” I said. “And the exhibition.”

“The rooms that aren’t empty.”

I went slightly still.

She had remembered.

Obviously.

“Yes.”

“You have to choose which ones?”

“Yes.”

“Is it difficult?”

“Yes.”

“Because you love all of them?”

“No.”

“Because you don’t love any of them?”

“Closer.”

She laughed softly.

Then coughed a little.

I straightened.

She immediately raised one hand.

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You straightened.”

“Observation.”

“No. That’s my territory.”

I almost leaned back against the wall purely to prove that nothing was happening.

Bad reflex.

She smiled.

“Why interiors?” she continued.

I looked at the street.

Simpler than her face.

“I don’t know.”

“Lie.”

“Provisional answer.”

“So a lie under construction.”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t speak.

I waited for her to fill the silence.

She didn’t.

It was almost unfair.

Tired Liora knew how to listen in a way that removed the escape routes. Not by staring intensely. Not by asking, “And how does that make you feel?” in a deep voice.

She simply stayed quiet.

And the silence seemed to say: Go ahead, if you want. If not, that’s fine too.

Which made me want to speak.

Probably unintentional manipulation.

Highly effective.

“I don’t really draw rooms,” I said.

She turned her head slightly toward me.

“I mean, I do. Technically. Rooms, windows, corners, hallways, tables. But it isn’t only... the place.”

I searched for a proper sentence.

There wasn’t one.

Only approximations.

“People think an empty room doesn’t say anything.”

Liora didn’t respond.

I continued.

“But a room is never truly empty. Not if someone lives there. Even when the person is gone, things remain. A chair that hasn’t been put back. A mug. A light left on. The cushion flattened by Eugène. The rug shifted because Demitrius has decided it’s suspicious.”

She almost smiled.

She was listening.

Actually listening.

“I like drawing what remains after someone passes through,” I said. “Not the important moment. Not the scene. The traces. The habits. What a presence does to a place without necessarily realizing it.”

I stopped.

Too much.

Far too much.

The balcony had not been designed for this level of information.

I drank from my empty mug.

Pathetic gesture.

Liora saw.

She didn’t smile.

Not this time.

“That’s why the kitchen made me feel that way,” she said softly.

I looked at her.

“What way?”

“Like it was waiting.”

The word remained between us.

Waiting.

The track.

The second lap.

The guitar.

The rooms.

Some words had no discipline whatsoever.

“Maybe,” I said.

She looked down at her mug.

Her fingers rested near the railing.

Closer to the divider than before.

I noticed my own hands. One around my empty mug, the other resting against the wall.

A perfectly reasonable distance.

Which made it needlessly visible.

“And the exhibition,” she continued. “Is it important?”

“Small exhibition.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

I exhaled through my nose.

“Yes.”

The word came more easily than expected.

Liora didn’t move.

“It matters because it isn’t a commission,” I said. “No one asked me to make these images. No one gave me a brief about the correct level of emotional warmth for a chair. So if it doesn’t work, I can’t say the client wanted something absurd.”

“It would only be you.”

“Exactly.”

She nodded slowly.

Her face was calm.

Tired, but calm.

“That’s scarier.”

“Yes.”

“And more yours.”

I stayed silent.

Another simple sentence.

That evening, she had a way of saying things without throwing them. They arrived softly, which let them travel farther.

I didn’t like the mechanism.

I liked it a little anyway.

“Will you come?” I asked.

The question escaped.

Without authorization.

Directly.

She raised her eyes.

I regretted it immediately.

“I mean, only if you want. It’s small. There’ll probably be lukewarm wine, people using the word ‘materiality’ with complete seriousness, and me pretending I don’t want to flee through an emergency exit.”

Liora was still looking at me.

Her smile appeared slowly.

“Did you just officially invite me somewhere?”

“No.”

“Aurèl.”

“I described a public event.”

“With a question at the beginning.”

“An informational question.”

“‘Will you come?’ is rarely purely informational.”

“We can debate that.”

“We can. You’ll lose.”

I looked down at my mug.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“And it isn’t...”

I stopped.

Because I didn’t know how to finish.

It isn’t what?

Important.

Personal.

An invitation.

Something I would like.

Liora tilted her head slightly.

“I’ll come.”

Silence.

Very brief.

Far too noticeable.

“Unless I’m working,” she added. “And if I am, I’ll come afterward. Even if I smell like coffee and defeat.”

“That’s a perfectly acceptable smell.”

“You say that now.”

“I survived the hallway earlier.”

She laughed.

More softly still.

Probably from exhaustion.

I wondered when she would finally go inside and sleep.

Mostly, I wondered why I didn’t want to be the one who said it.

“You should sleep,” I said anyway.

Very responsible.

Very annoying.

She looked at me.

“There it is. Sleep hygiene in three points.”

“It’s always the first one.”

“You haven’t evolved.”

“Consistent.”

“Like Eugène.”

“Eugène isn’t consistent. He’s heavy.”

Behind the glass, Eugène meowed again.

Liora lifted one hand to her mouth to contain a laugh.

“He knows.”

“He mostly knows he hasn’t been the center of attention for four minutes.”

“That’s a long time for him.”

“He’s going through something.”

She continued smiling.

Then the smile faded slightly.

The exhaustion returned to its place on her face.

She lowered her head, looking at her socks, the railing, the mug.

“I’m going to sleep. Yes.”

“Good idea.”

“Don’t look victorious.”

“I’m completely neutral.”

“Your neutral face is sometimes unbearable.”

“I thought it assessed emergency exits.”

“It can do several things.”

She straightened.

The movement was slower than usual.

Her hand remained on the railing for a second.

Mine did too, now.

I hadn’t realized I had put it there.

On my side.

At a distance.

Cold metal beneath my fingers.

The divider between us.

A few inches.

The night.

The drop.

No grand moment.

No music.

No sentence intended to change anything.

Only two hands resting on two pieces of railing, close enough for me to notice and far enough apart that nothing required us to talk about it.

I moved mine first.

Too quickly.

Liora saw.

Obviously.

She said nothing.

That was almost worse.

She picked up her mug.

“Are you going to keep working?”

“Probably.”

She gave me a look.

“Sleep more.”

“That’s your advice?”

“First point.”

“The other two are missing.”

“I’ll invent them after I’ve had five real hours of sleep.”

“Ambitious.”

“Revolutionary.”

She stepped back toward her glass door, then stopped.

That moment.

Again.

The moment when she could leave, but something remained caught.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

Strange answer.

She lifted one shoulder.

“The diplomatic balcony. Eugène. The rooms that aren’t empty. The one-point lecture on sleep. Choose.”

“I’ll take Eugène. He enjoys responsibility.”

She smiled.

“Good night, Aurèl.”

“Good night, Liora.”

She went inside.

The glass door slid shut.

The curtain moved.

Then she disappeared into her apartment.

No grand sentence.

No deliberately prolonged look.

Only good night.

And yet, when the light on her balcony went out, I remained outside.

A few seconds.

Then a few more.

The cold began to seep through my sweater.

The railing still held the trace of my hand.

Or maybe I was inventing it.

Across the street, almost every window was dark. The city wasn’t silent, but the building seemed to be holding something back.

I looked at the neighboring balcony.

Empty.

Ordinary.

The same balcony as before.

Except it had now contained too many things to become merely a suspended piece of concrete again.

An allergy.

A fugitive cat.

Cold mugs.

A guitar heard from the other side.

A girl who claimed she slept five hours as long as no one examined the details.

An invitation that wasn’t one.

An exhibition I had made real by speaking about it aloud.

I finally went inside.

Eugène was waiting in front of the glass door.

He immediately slipped between my legs to inspect the balcony before I closed it. I blocked him with my foot.

“No.”

He looked at me.

“Diplomacy suspended.”

I closed the door.

The studio felt warm after the cold air. The lamp beside the desk created an island of light over the papers. The screen still displayed the five images for the exhibition.

I approached it.

The empty rooms.

No.

Not truly empty.

I looked at them one by one.

The kitchen.

The hallway.

The window.

The table.

The couch.

I had believed those images came from my need for quiet, order, distance.

Maybe.

Not only.

They also contained what people left behind without realizing it.

A hair tie in a dish.

Red dust from a shoe in an entryway.

A cat sleeping where someone had been sitting.

An empty mug on a balcony.

A silence that remained afterward.

I reopened the artist statement.

The cursor blinked.

This time, I wrote:

“I draw places after people have passed through them.”

I stopped.

“Rooms are never empty. They keep habits, forgotten objects, repeated gestures, and presences we no longer notice immediately.”

I read it again.

It was too personal.

So it was probably usable.

I saved.

Once.

Twice.

I stopped before the third.

Then did it anyway.

Emotional growth was no excuse for recklessness.

A faint sound came from the other side of the wall.

A drawer.

Footsteps.

Slower.

Then nothing.

Maybe Liora was asleep.

Or trying.

I lowered the screen brightness.

Eugène jumped onto the couch, turned around three times, then settled into the hollow of the blanket.

Demitrius, true to himself, decided that after midnight was an excellent time to chew hay with disproportionate volume.

The studio returned to its quiet.

Not the quiet from before.

That evening, the building’s silence had a different shape.

Before, it had felt like a boundary.

Now it felt like what remained after someone had just left and part of their presence had not yet left the room.

I looked at the glass door.

The balcony was empty.

The wall was there.

So was the night.

I thought about Liora on the other side. Her lowered voice. Her exhaustion carried like one more bag. The way she listened without filling the silence.

The accident had become a habit.

Not practical.

Not reasonable.

Not officially named.

An emotional habit, perhaps.

I closed the document.

Then remained in front of the dark screen for another minute, looking at my own reflection in the glass.

I didn’t feel like putting anything back where it belonged.

And for once, that felt less concerning than true.