The knocking comes sharp and fast. Rap. Rap. Rap.

I’m already awake. Have been since Mike finally came to bed an hour ago. I _had_ been asleep. Soundly. For hours. How many times had I asked him to come to bed at a decent time? Or, at the very least, to not _thunk_ himself down onto our sagging mattress? Mike getting to bed was like a tsunami, my body flinging off the crest of the mountainous wave as he crashes down.

Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.

Ugh.

I recognize the sound. One of the roommates knocking on our bedroom window. Locked out again. Probably drunk. Again. I’d begged Mike to switch to one of the bedrooms on the upper floor. They were bigger, and we were the only couple in the house. Let one of the guys have the lower floor. Then their drunk asses could climb through the window when they forgot their keys. Leave me in peace.

But no. It was Mike’s bedroom first, before I moved in. Didn’t matter how I felt.

What is it about night that shines the brightest light on all the things you find irritating about your partner?

Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.

“Mike,” I grumble, nudging my elbow into his back. “One of the guys is at the window.”


I may be awake, but I’m not about to leave my warm bed for one of his drunk friends.

The mattress shifts as Mike tenses but he doesn’t answer.

Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.

I elbow him again. Hard.

“Mike.”

No response. His breathing is hard and short, not the slow drawl of sleep. Asshole is awake.

“Fine,” I bite, my voice loud in the quiet bedroom.

I cringe as my feet hit the cold floor and quickly pad to the window. When I pull back the curtains, moonlight floods the room, and I squint while my eyes adjust.

There’s no one at the window.

Did they give up? I open the frame enough to stick my head out and check down the sides of the house. I don’t see anyone.

Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap. Rap.

I pull inside so fast my head catches the window frame with a _thud_.

The knocking continues.

I don’t see anything.

As I move about the room, the knocking gets faster. Faster. Like a game of hot and cold and I’m moving from warm to red hot.

The knocking stops when I reach the mirror on the wall across from our bed.

I wait.

When it doesn’t start again, I run my hands along the gilt frame, lifting the mirror off the wall slightly to peer behind. Nothing seems out of place.

I gently place the mirror back on the wall and stare at my reflection.

I can feel my eyebrows furrowed in confusion - a look my mother had always warmed would give me premature wrinkles. But, in the mirror, my eyes are wide. Eyebrows raised up into my forehead. Mouth parted in a silent gasp.

Weird. A trick of the light, maybe? Or I’m half dreaming. Maybe I dreamed the knocking.

My hands are down at my sides.

In the mirror, though, my reflection raises her hand – to point behind me. To point at the bed.

I turn. Mike sits on his side of the bed. Feet on the floor. Hands gripping the edge of the mattress.

“Mike?”

His head turns towards me. Moonlight illuminating his face and I see…

It’s not Mike.