Every evening when I came home, he was there.
Same spot. Same bench near the entrance. Same dirty coat that looked too thin for the weather.
The first time I noticed him, I told myself not to be cruel. People ended up on the street for reasons the rest of us did not always understand.
I knew that.
My mom had raised me to say a quiet prayer before I judged someone’s life from the outside.
But she had also raised me to be careful.
Especially at night.
So I started doing this thing where I slowed down before I reached my building. I would pretend to check my phone, thumb hovering over the screen, while secretly waiting to see if he moved.
He never did. He just sat there with his shoulders hunched, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, his face turned slightly upward — toward the second-floor window.
My window.
At least, that was what it felt like.
I lived alone on the second floor of a modest apartment building on a street that looked friendly during the day and uneasy after sunset. The front entrance had a flickering light above it that my landlord, Derek, kept promising to fix.
“Next week, Brittany,” he told me every time I mentioned it. “I already called someone.”
But next week came and went, and the light still blinked like a warning.