I Found His Second Home I Took Everything

In the 4 years I'd lived with Lorcan, he'd always had one strange habit. The cups in our home had to come in pairs, and so did the slippers. Even the televisions had to come in matching pairs. He said he'd moved too often as a child to feel secure. Only when everything matched perfectly did a place feel like home. So after we moved into the apartment, I chose every piece of furniture myself. That day, the elevator was being serviced. I was carrying two heavy bags of groceries up the stairs when I missed my footing and slammed my knee against a step. Blood streamed from the wound. Lorcan said he was in a meeting and told me to make my own way up to the eighteenth floor. Dizzy and barely able to see straight, I went up one floor too far. Yet my key turned smoothly in the lock of the apartment upstairs, and the door opened. The sofa was the same. So were the cups. Even the medication reminders on the refrigerator were in his familiar handwriting. But in the photographs on the wall, the woman he held in his arms wasn't me. A woman's sleepy voice drifted out of the bedroom doorway. "The woman downstairs still hasn't figured it out?" Lorcan chuckled softly. "She'll put things back for me if they've moved even an inch. Why would she ever come up here?" I looked down at the matching dishes I'd just bought. 'So our home has never been his only one.' The lights were on in both the eighteenth-floor and nineteenth-floor apartments, and I suddenly wondered, 'Which of those lights is supposed to be mine?' ***** The security door swung all the way open. A few minutes later, Lorcan emerged from the bedroom. His expression changed the instant he saw me, my leg covered in blood, and he instinctively started toward me. "Cressida, you're hurt?" He reached out a hand. "Lorcan, is the takeout here?" Odette Delacourt called from the bedroom doorway. She had the blue-gray knit cardigan Lorcan wore most often draped around her shoulders, and the tape from a hospital IV was still on her wrist. She leaned halfway out of the room, her bare feet on a rug identical to the one in our entryway. Her gaze skimmed over my bleeding knee before settling on the pair of new plates in my hand. Lorcan's outstretched hand stopped in midair. He moved in front of Odette, blocking her completely from view, and lowered his voice. "It isn't the takeout." I braced myself against the doorframe and stared at her. "Who is she?" My voice was painfully hoarse. Lorcan's eyes shifted away, and he sounded uncertain. "She's Odette Delacourt. She's just been discharged from the hospital, and she's emotionally fragile right now. I'll explain everything later." "Odette Delacourt?" I looked at the women's slippers in the entryway, identical to mine, then at the room furnished exactly like our own. My stomach churned. "This is what you call a meeting?" I tightened my grip on the plastic bags until my knuckles turned white. "So all those times you said you were working late every day over the past few months, you were here taking care of her?" Lorcan lowered his voice and reached to pull me outside. "Odette has severe depression. Things almost went terribly wrong recently. Her doctor said she needed a familiar place where she could feel safe while she recovered. I'm just helping her through this for a while." "Helping her through this?" My hand shook as I pointed at the matching furniture all around us. "So you had to recreate the home I spent 4 years putting together, right upstairs on the nineteenth floor?" Silence settled over the apartment for a few seconds. Odette glanced between Lorcan and me, then gave a little smile. "Lorcan, one of my plates broke a few days ago. We've been one short up here ever since." Her voice was soft. "The ones this lady is holding look just like the one that broke. They'd complete our set." Lorcan followed her gaze, and his expression stiffened. I looked at him. "I went to three stores to find these. They're for our apartment on the eighteenth floor." He was quiet for a moment. "Cressida, let her have them for now." I stared at him in disbelief. He avoided my eyes, his tone softening. "Odette's only just left the hospital. Her doctor said she can't handle anything upsetting right now. If things don't come in pairs, she can't sleep at night. I'll go with you tomorrow and buy another set." I didn't let go. Lorcan reached for the bag. Its handles dug into my palm, leaving a deep red mark. His hand paused. In the end, he still took the plates from me and handed them to Odette. Then he turned back to me. "Cressida, you've always been so understanding. Go downstairs and take care of your knee. Whatever you need to say can wait until Odette's more stable." The security door shut in my face. Through it, I could still hear Odette softly asking him where to put the plates. I pressed some tissues against my still-bleeding knee and dragged myself back down to the eighteenth floor. All the furniture arranged in matching pairs was painful to look at now. Supporting myself against the wall, I made my way to the sideboard, one step at a time. I opened the cabinet. Only one plate from that set remained inside. When we'd first bought those dishes, Lorcan had stood beside me, holding one of the plates and studying it for a long time. "Things should come in pairs," he'd said. "If one's missing, it doesn't feel like home." I'd believed him then. Only now did I understand. 'It isn't one complete home on the eighteenth floor that he wants. He wants both apartments to run exactly the same way.' I took the remaining plate out of the cabinet and let it fall. It shattered in the sink with a piercing crash. A few porcelain shards scattered into the shadows on the floor. I left them there. I collapsed onto the sofa and cleaned my wound with an alcohol wipe. It hurt terribly, but I didn't shed a single tear. My phone lit up on the coffee table. Ansel Whitcombe had sent me a message. Ansel: Cressida, I've transferred back to teach at the school of architecture here in town. Are you free tomorrow?