The apartment next to Rems had a life of its own. It inhaled strangers and exhaled friends, business partners, and close acquaintances. The soft R&B music a gentle heartbeat that thrummed through the waterlogged wooden planks that covered the floor of the old building. 

Rem’s studio apartment wasn’t anything glamorous, the orange chaise lounge that sat opposite to her TV was a gift from a friend when he moved out of the city to find his true calling, starting a marijuana farm in Oregon. Every so often he would send her a batch of his new stuff haphazardly thrown together in a small box, the tape falling off and the address almost illegible. Alongside the flowers there was always a note about the craziest thing that had happened while they were growing this strain, always scribbled on a napkin or a torn piece of a postcard, a love letter to a life always in motion. Her coffee table was found on the corner outside her place just like her ex-boyfriend. One has stood the test of time and the other still sends them cryptic messages from unknown numbers every other month. The old oak of the table was worn down and if you looked on the underside of it there was an engraving that said “Jade+Jasmine”. Rem didn’t know who Jade or Jasmine was, but on long afternoons when the evening sun would drag itself over the expanse of her wall letting warm oranges and yellows repaint her apartment, she would come up with stories about of the two of them; all in her head like most things were for Rem. She made sure they always had a happy ending.

The rest of her apartment followed suit with trinkets and toys that she had collected like memories over the years; stuck to the walls, hanging from the ceiling, littering tables and the tops of drawers. She was a mosaic of all the things and people she had loved, holding on hard to all those remnants of a past self and she couldn’t quite seem to get old conversation out from under her nails.

She had a hanging chair that was positioned right in front of the window on the far side of her apartment. She liked to smoke out there even though her fire alarm had been broken since the second week she moved in. From her room on the 16th floor the city lay open to her on an operating table and Rem was running fingers like knives down each nerve ending waiting for something to hurt. The Lower East Side flinched. It was her day off and she would travel down to look in small bookstores, get fruit flavored ice teas, window shop, and wait as the time escaped through her loose fingers like the tendrils of smoke leaving her lips. 

Sometimes if she was lucky the apartment next to her had the same idea. Two windows open next to each other, worlds apart, as their smoke mingled with each other in the air like familiar party guests who would always say see you soon but never exchange a number.

 Sometimes there were guests with them. Light giggles or hearty laughs leaking out the crack in the window, snippets of conversation making their way over leaving Rem with the task to fill in the blanks, but it always seemed like the more she knew the less she was able to find out. 

One summer ago, she managed to overhear a conversation following the idea of renting a new open space in Chinatown, she couldn’t quite manage to get the details on what the space was for, but she knew the discussion ended in a tense yes and a moment of deep silence that managed to choke her more than the smoke ever did. Several months later there was another discussion about how the space in Chinatown had been a bad decision all around and they weren’t sure who was the idiot who had approved it. Rem held her breath and stopped herself from chiming in with tattered torn up receipts she thought she possessed on this conversation.

 Every month there was a new pretty person who would grace the apartment a handful of times before being discarded like old fruit that had grown too soft. Sickeningly sweet with demands of something more that the owner just couldn’t provide, the smell of their desire and longing wafting through the air. There was something so embarrassing about wanting like that Rem mused, there were days she listened to the stranger next door break the heart of another try on partner and she was reminded of times she would beg for love from people who were nowhere near ready to give it to her. How the knowledge of the rejection that was sure to come was almost comforting in its predictability. Rem thought it was easier to be hurt by people you knew could never love you. 

On this particular morning Rem had made a cup of peppermint green tea and some of the honey spilling down the sides of the ceramic mug made her fingers a little sticky. The minty steam came up in plumes creating a smoke screen between her and the world around her. She made her way to the window kicking books and loose pens out of her way. She sat in her hanging chair melting into the cushions that remembered the bends and curves of her body and molded accordingly. There was half a joint from the night before sitting in the ashtray beckoning her fingers to wrap around it, light a fire, and finish the job. Rem pushed the window open and listened as it scraped by in disapproval, the building’s muscles shouting in protests, as she did, she could hear the conversation in the apartment next door come to life. 

They were screaming. Or if they weren’t screaming their words held enough malic and anger to make the room fill up with heat.

“You told me you were going to stop messing with them!” a shrill voice came crashing into Rem’s apartment piercing her ears as she finished opening the window 

“I never said that, and could you lower your fucking voice I don’t need the whole of 122nd to know what’s going on in here.” another voice responded with a sort of restrained calm that held the promise of violence. 

“And why should I do anything you ask for you piece of shit!”

“Because you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Rem could tell they were serious, their voice unwavering in its finality. The company they had over was too hysterical to assess the severity of the situation, continuing to throw incomprehensible verbal daggers onto the walls around them hoping something would stick.

“I saw that email on your laptop by the way, I know exactly what kind of fucked up shit you’re into and I’ll tell people too!”

The statement hit her neighbor right in the face and landed in a soggy lump at his feet. His guest could tell they had hit the mark and found something that had finally stuck.

“Not so confident now are you-”

Their words were cut short by a hand wrapped around their throat. The pressure increasing, crushing their trachea. They tried to gasp for air, hands flailing and scratching at the arm extended from their throat to the person before them. They managed to draw blood, but the grip did not lessen even slightly, it only seemed to get tighter as bright red streams cut their way down the taught flesh. They made slow progressive steps towards the window, the other body still dangling in their hand. It wasn’t until they balanced the body half out the open window that Rem could see their face. It was a girl with long blonde hair, the tendrils hanging all the way down to the window below. Her face was flushed red because of the restriction of blood flow and Rem could see the fringes of that red turning purple then blue with each breath she did not take. Rem watched her struggle and try to fight back with the last drops of her energy, but it was a futile attempt.

“I hope this will be a lesson for you,” The voice was still eerily calm, and the arm pushed her body further out the window more of her dangling outside than in, “not to stick your nose in places it doesn’t belong, being pretty will only get you so much sympathy.” 

With that they let go. 

Rem watched as the body fell 16 stories and landed on the concrete with a sickening crunch. The girl didn’t scream as she fell, her throat too mangled to push anything out besides a slight wheeze. Rem didn’t scream because she never does for this part. She watched the body on the pavement, it was so small to her from up there. The girl’s legs were bent in unnatural directions, one arm was holding on barely connected at the shoulder by a limp piece of sinew and the blood started to leak around her like a fresh watercolor painting. Rem watched on for what felt like a lifetime but was only a matter of seconds, waiting for someone else to notice, to do something. 

“You may want to close your window; the wind is blowing your way and I don’t want my smoke to get in your apartment.” 

Rem’s head shot up as the voice that mere seconds ago was threatening a girl’s life was now addressing her. When she looked over, she couldn’t see a face, only the arms resting on the windowsill a hand rolled cigarette sitting gingerly in between two fingers.

“Thanks.” These were the only words Rem could seem to conjure up to say in response to the warning. 

She turned away and looked ahead, closing her window, forcing the plastic and glass back down. Even though she knew she couldn’t stomach it she went to take one last look at the body, it was the least she could do for the girl she couldn’t save, acknowledge the fact that she was here. When she looked down to pay her respects the body was gone, just like all the ones before her.