Seth tried the door.
“Maybe we should come back,” Leah said.
“No, it’s open, look.”
Seth walked in first. The room was dark and cool and smelled a little like wet dog. Leah came in behind him, her leg in jeans brushing a little against his bare calf. He was wearing shorts, like he always did in the summer. Leah used to wear shorts too, baring her legs as casually as her arms or her face. Now she said she was cold all the time. She covered her legs in jeans, and her arms in jackets, and her face in makeup so thick it looked like she was in a high school play.
“It doesn’t work,” Seth said. He heard her trying the switch. It made a sound like a moth hitting a lightbulb, ramming its way to heaven. When she gave up it sounded like the moth falling to the floor, the tips of its wings still trying to fly.
“Do you have the flashlight?” she asked.
“I think I left it on the counter.”
“Shit. Well, we can come back.”
“No,” he said. He said it a little louder than he’d meant to, and he heard the word echoing from empty rooms. The kitchen, the bathroom, he thought. The rooms with tile floors.
“What, we’re just going to-”
“Give me your phone,” Seth said. He wasn’t really asking; he was already grabbing. Leah’s phone cast an eerie blue over the carpeted floor, leaving the corners dark.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t think, look, there’s a hole in the wall.”
“I’ll bet they’d give us a discount. If there are repairs.”
They walked into the first bedroom. There were a few boxes on the floor, filled with trash. Fast food wrappers, styrofoam cups, plastic bags. He quickly moved the cell phone’s beam away from the plastic bags, but it was too late, he’d heard Leah’s breath sucked back in, like it had changed its mind and wanted to stay inside her forever.
“Let’s look at the other bedroom.”
“We don’t need two bedrooms,” she said. “I thought you said it was a one bedroom.”
“You could use it for your scrapbooks and photo albums,” he said. “Or maybe I could make a den, a man-cave, you know?”
Leah snorted a little. “Right. Just what you’ve always-” And then there went her breath again.
In the center of the room, an empty crib with broken rails. Like the skeleton of a beached whale whose ribs had been broken, or stolen. A dirty blanket, wadded in one corner, covered some grubby toys.
Leah walked over to the closet. Seth followed her with the light. She found plastic bags, more toys, sticky, smelling like soda and urine.
“They must have left in a hurry,” Seth said. “Broken the lease.”
“Sometimes you have to,” she said.
They walked out of the bedroom and looked in the bathroom. The toilet’s flusher dangled impotently, barely connected. Seth smelled mildew and cheap shampoo.
Then, the kitchen. They opened the refrigerator and the sudden smell of rot and spoiling was so strong that Seth cursed and Leah slammed the door shut.
“Jesus,” he said. “It’s like something died in there.” Then he froze and looked at Leah and she was tearing up. Christ.
“I don’t think we’ll take it,” he said, holding the front door open wider.
“Do you remember when we were looking for our old apartment?” she said, standing half on the carpet and half on the doorstep. “When we’d get dinner and picnic on the floor? Or…”
They were both silent and left. A light came on at the neighbor’s and they walked away faster, feeling criminal.
