The door didn't budge.
Maya pushed with her shoulder. Then her hip. Then she stepped back and kicked near the handle. The metal groaned but the door stayed shut. Someone had wedged something against it from the stairwell side. Not accidentally. The brick had been moved on purpose.
She stopped kicking. Her foot hurt.
The roof was fifty feet above the street. The fire escape on the side of the building was rusted and missing a ladder rung. She'd checked it last summer when she first found this place. The super said it had been condemned since the 90s.
She wasn't climbing down that.
She walked to the edge facing Franklin Avenue. The street was busy now – nine in the morning, people heading to work, cars honking, a bus exhaling diesel. She could yell. Someone might hear her. But the building across the street had its windows closed. The noise of the city would swallow her voice.
She pulled out her phone again. Still no signal. The roof was a dead zone. It always had been. She'd never minded before.
She looked at the water tank. The painted eye. She looked at the garden – the buckets, the cracked pots, the wilted basil. Everything looked smaller in the morning light. Less magical.
She sat on the milk crate and waited.
---
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
She heard footsteps in the stairwell. Not on the stairs – inside the door. Someone was on the other side. Then a scraping sound. The wedge being pulled away.
The door opened.
Marco from 2B stood there in a grey bathrobe and slippers. He held a brick in one hand.
"You locked yourself in?" he asked.
"Someone locked me in."
He looked at the brick. "This was against the door. I almost didn't see it." He stepped aside. "You okay?"
Maya stood. Her legs were stiff from sitting. "Who else has keys to the roof?"
"Mr. Chen. Maybe the landlord." He scratched his chin. "Why?"
"Someone wanted me up here."
Marco looked at her for a long second. Then he said, "You should come down."
She followed him into the stairwell. The light was still flickering. The smell of old coffee and rust was the same as always. She wondered if she'd ever feel safe in this building again.
At her floor, she stopped. "Thanks, Marco."
"No problem." He started down to the second floor, then paused. "Hey. The guy from last night. In the laundry room. You said his name was Leo?"
"Yes."
"I asked around. No one in the building knows him. And the building next door?" He shook his head. "That place is mostly empty. Fire damage. Only two units have people. Both on the first floor."
Maya nodded. She didn't say anything.
Marco went down. She went to her room.
---
She sat on the mattress and stared at the wall.
Leo had been on the roof. He'd spoken to her. He'd said he lived in the building across the alley. Third floor. The empty third floor.
He'd lied.
Or Mrs. Patterson was wrong. But Mrs. Patterson had lived here since 1987. She knew every window. Old people paid attention to things like that. They had time.
Maya pulled out the note from her pocket – the one Leo had left in her sketchbook. Your sketchbook is safe. I wiped off some dirt from the cover. She read it again. The bridge cables are slightly off. The angle should be steeper.
She turned the paper over. Nothing on the back.
Then she pulled out the second note – the one she'd found in the black sketchbook. I found your sketchbook on the roof. You dropped it near the water tank. I didn't want to leave it there in the rain.
Same handwriting. Same pencil.
She held both notes side by side. The loops on the letter 'g' were identical. The way the 't' was crossed – a little low, a little rushed.
He'd written both.
But he'd lied about where he lived.
She put the notes on her desk and opened the black sketchbook again. The drawing of her garden. The cat on the windowsill. The woman on the subway. She looked at each one carefully now, searching for something she'd missed. A reflection in a window. A street sign. A date.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the paper.
The sketchbook pages were standard – cheap spiral-bound, the kind sold at the drugstore for five dollars. But the last page, the one with the note tucked inside, was different. The paper was thicker. Slightly yellowed. It had been torn from something else.
She held it up to the light. No watermark. No lines.
But there was a faint smudge at the bottom corner. Ink. Not pencil. She tilted the page.
A phone number. Written so lightly she'd missed it before. The numbers were small, pressed into the paper without much pressure.
She grabbed her phone and typed the number into a text message. Her thumb hovered over send.
She didn't send it.
Instead, she stood up and walked to the window.
The building across the alley. Third floor. Empty.
But the window was open. It had been open last night too. The curtain had moved. She'd seen a silhouette. A hand moving. A desk lamp.
If no one lived there, who had been sitting at that window?
She picked up her phone again. This time she called the number.
It rang three times. Then a voice.
"Hello?"
It was him. Leo. The same voice from the roof.
"You said you live in that building," Maya said. "Third floor."
A pause. "I do."
"Mrs. Patterson says it's empty. Has been for six months. Since the fire."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Maya –"
"Don't lie to me again." Her voice was steady. She was surprised. "Where do you live?"
He was quiet for five seconds. Then six.
"I live in the basement," he said.
"What basement?"
"The building across the alley. The landlord lets me stay there. I clean the units, fix the pipes, keep the squatters out. In exchange, I sleep in the boiler room."
Maya pressed her forehead against the window glass. It was cold.
"You told me third floor."
"I know."
"Why?"
Silence.
"Leo."
"Because I didn't want you to think I was –" He stopped. Started again. "The basement doesn't have a window. It doesn't have a view. I go up to the third floor to draw because the unit is empty and the light is good. I've been doing it for four months. No one knows."
"The landlord knows."
"The landlord doesn't care. He's trying to sell the building. He doesn't want anyone to know someone's living there without a lease."
Maya pulled back from the window. Her reflection stared back at her. Tired. Pale.
"You came to my roof last night," she said. "You said you were a neighbor."
"I am a neighbor. Just not the kind with an address."
She closed her eyes. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"Would you have stayed on the roof with me if I'd said I lived in a boiler room?"
She didn't answer.
"That's what I thought," he said.
---
She hung up.
Not because she was angry. Because she didn't know what she was.
She sat on the mattress again. The ceiling crack looked like a river. She followed it for a long time.
Then her phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number. She'd saved his number when she called, but it hadn't registered yet.
I'm sorry I lied. I'm not sorry I came to the roof. I wanted to meet you. That part was true.
She stared at the screen.
Another buzz.
The bridge cables are still wrong. I could show you how to fix them. No pressure. Just an offer.
She typed back: Where do you draw during the day?
His response came fast: Third floor. The empty unit. The door is unlocked. Come if you want.
She put the phone down and looked at her sketchbook. The bridge drawing. The woman on the balcony. The unfinished clouds.
She picked up her pencil.
Then she put on her shoes.
---
The front door of the building across the alley was locked. But the fire escape ladder on the side was low enough to reach. She'd climbed worse.
She pulled herself up, rung by rung. The metal was cold and wet from morning condensation. Her sneakers slipped once. She caught herself.
The third floor window was open. She climbed through.
The room was empty. Bare floorboards, water stain on the wall, a single desk lamp on the floor. A folding chair. A cardboard box of art supplies.
And Leo.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall. He wore the same grey hoodie. His hair was messier than last night.
He didn't stand when she came in.
"You came," he said.
"You lied."
"I know."
She stood in the middle of the room. The window behind her. The door behind him.
"Show me," she said. "The bridge cables."
He reached into the cardboard box and pulled out a pencil. Held it out to her.
She took it.
He pointed to the window. "Sit. Draw. I'll watch."
She sat in the folding chair. The view was the same as from her roof – the water tower, the garden, the skyline. But closer. More intimate.
She opened her sketchbook to the bridge page.
Leo moved behind her. She felt him there, not touching, just present.
"Start with the left tower," he said.
She drew.