With a message

May stood by the service door, tossed an old, worn-out denim jacket at the feet of Magi, who was still shivering in the water with her soaked bikini.

"That's enough for today," she said, in an unusually flat, almost bored voice. "No more work. Go home."

Magi looked at her, unable to believe it. There was no "well done," no "tomorrow will be worse." Only a cold, temporary dismissal. She grabbed the jacket with numb fingers and pulled it over her shoulders. The rough, dry fabric gave her an immediate shudder of relief. It was huge on her, smelling of dampness and workshop grime, but it was a layer of invisibility she accepted with animal gratitude.

She walked toward the bus station with her head down, the jacket zipped up to her neck despite the afternoon heat. Every step was an effort.

The rattling of the bus was a dull hammering against her temples. Magi was huddled in the back seat, May's jacket—rough, permeated with the smell of chlorine, grease, and someone else's sweat—enveloped her like a borrowed shroud. Beneath it, the cold, wet fabric of the bikini clung to her skin, reminding her of every second of the humiliation among the penguins.

Suddenly, an insistent, vibrating beep startled her, breaking the rhythm of the rattling. Her cell phone. With slow, stiff hands, she pulled it from the jacket's inner pocket, dreading the light it would cast in the vehicle's relative darkness. It was a message. The sender: Evans. The text, a concise and deliberately vague sentence that fell on her like a weight: "I'm waiting for you tonight." A snare designed to trap her through her own imagination and fear. She put the phone away abruptly, feeling the air freeze in her lungs.

Every glance from the passengers burned her, even if they were casual, innocent. She only knew how to read pity and morbidity in others' eyes now.

She got off the bus in front of her building, her legs numb, not only from the cold but from the weight of a fatigue that went beyond the physical. The night enveloped the street in a dense silence, broken only by the distant hum of the city. She looked up. Her apartment window was dark, a rectangle of absolute black. Evans', on the floor next door, showed the faint yellowish glow of a bedside lamp. He was awake. Waiting.

She climbed the stairs with a funereal slowness. Each creaking step beneath her feet announced her return like a **** drum. She paused in front of her apartment door, resting her forehead against the cold wood.

With a trembling hand, she pulled out her keys. The slight jingle sounded like an explosion in the stillness of the landing. She inserted the key into the lock, turned it slowly, and pushed the door open.

Absolute darkness and silence greeted her. Her apartment was exactly as she had left it: the disorder of an interrupted life, the unmade bed, a dirty plate on the side table.

A trembling sigh of immediate relief escaped her lips, immediately followed by a wave of even deeper distress. She took off the sweaty jacket and let it drop to the floor with a dull thud. Beneath it, the soaked bikini chilled her skin. She tore it off with abrupt, almost violent movements, and left it lying on top of the jacket, like a discarded shell of her shame.

Wrapped only in the towel that hung from the bathroom, she collapsed into the worn armchair. The apartment's darkness was no longer a refuge.