"Are you sure you're okay, Naz?" she asks quietly, stepping closer, wrapping her arms around herself. "I really wish you'd take it easy."

Looking up at her, I study her face, drinking in every drop of her expression. She sounds genuinely worried about me. Slowly, my hands reach for her, starting at her knees and running up her thighs, slipping beneath the towel and coming to rest on her bare hips. I pull her closer to me, between my legs, and rest my head against her stomach.

Again, she doesn't tense up or push me away.

Wordlessly, she runs her fingers through my hair.

"I'll be fine," I mumble as I close my eyes. "I'll relax when everything's taken care of."

"When what's taken care of?"

I sit there for a moment, not responding, just relishing touching her. I don't give her a chance to pull away from me again. This time, I let go.

"What time is it?" I ask, looking past her, seeking out my watch, but I have no idea where it could be, nor do I know where my phone is. I'm so out of touch. It's not like me.

"Uh, 7 o'clock, maybe."

"AM or PM?"

She looks at me incredulously. "PM."

"Do you know where my phone is?"

"Downstairs," she says. "On your desk in the den."

Nodding, I stand back up, fastening my pants before stepping past her to seek out some shoes.

"When what's taken care of?" she asks again. "Where are you going?"

Once more, I don't answer her.

She watches me for a moment before turning away, snatching up some clothes for herself and storming out of the room. I hear her as she stomps downstairs, hearing her banging things around and slamming doors.

She's angry.

What else is new?

Houses creak, shifting and settling when everyone's in bed at night. I bought this house when it was brand new, just after the last nail had been hammered into the woodwork. Until Karissa moved in months ago, I was the only one to ever occupy these rooms, the only one to walk these halls in the darkness or nap in the den in the daylight.

I started again from scratch.

No memories pad across these hard floors, no stories infuse themselves into these bare walls, but the house still makes noise at night, groaning like it's in mourning for what it never got to be.

Because walls and a roof? They don't make a house a home.

There was a small house on the other side of Brooklyn, within walking distance of my favorite pizzeria, that I used to think of as home. It had one floor, one bedroom, and the smallest kitchen I've ever seen, but it was the first place I ever got to call my own.

It was the first place I ever felt safe and secure.

The first place I found happiness.

The first place I felt love.

But it had nothing to do with the building that stood there. It was what existed inside those walls that made it that way.

I lived there for less than a year… less than a year before my home came under attack… but nineteen years in this house never came close to adding up to what I had there. I understood Karissa when she told me home wasn't a place to her, because it was never one to me, either.

Johnny took my home from me that day.

I burned the house down afterward.

"Guess it's true what they say."

The sound of Karissa's voice draws my attention. Turning around, I see her standing at the bottom of the steps, eyes trained past me at the front door. Early morning sunshine bathes the area around it in a soft orange glow, making the brand new locks lining the door shine brightly. I spent all night fortifying the house, doing everything in my power to make the place secure.

I can't stop Carmela from showing up here, but I'll keep her from getting inside if she does.

"And what, exactly, do they say?"

Karissa's eyes shift from the door to meet mine. Her hair is a mess, her pajamas disheveled. She clearly just woke up from sleeping hard, lost in tranquility, while I spent the past few hours drowning in paranoia. Every time the house creaked, I damn near clawed my way out of my own skin.

"History repeats itself," she says, "first as a tragedy, second as a farce."

Karl Marx. I recognize the quote.

Daniel Santino must've taught it to her.

Huh.

I wave toward the front door. "Something about this is funny to you?"

"Not really funny," she says, slowly stepping closer. "It's sort of curious, though, that I spent my entire life trapped behind locked doors and here it is, happening to me again. I always knew something was going on when my mother started buying extra locks and nailing down windows. It's just a bit of déjà vu seeing you doing the same thing."

Hesitating, I reach into my pocket and fish out a set of keys. I toss them to her without warning, and they hit the wooden floor by her feet with a clang. Bending down, she picks them up, eyeing me curiously.

"You're not trapped here, Karissa."

Her fist closes around the keys, her gaze burning through me as she arches an eyebrow, silent for a moment before asking, "Aren't I?"

"No, you're not. You can leave the house whenever you want."

"Can I?"

"Of course," I say. "Doesn't mean I won't follow you, though."

She glares at me for a moment before looking away, focusing back on the locks lining the door. "I take it back."

"Take what back?"

"It is funny," she says, although there's no humor in her voice. "The entire reason I was on lockdown growing up was because of you, and here I am, on lockdown once again, all because of you. Ironic, don't you think?"