Derek's at the door

I spent Sunday morning at the kitchen table with my lab notebook, a cold brew, and MUSE, running the tests I'd been too tired to finish the night before.

I kept the signal low and the material harmless. First, a page on the Krebs cycle I already half knew. Twenty minutes later, I could recite it backward without stumbling, and I knew exactly which step I'd always been fuzzy on, because now I wasn't. Next, thirty words from a Portuguese phrasebook Olivia had bought for a trip she never took. I read them aloud once with MUSE pressed to my throat, made breakfast, and caught myself thinking bom dia at Garlic while I filled his bowl.

He chirped. I chose to believe he understood.

I wrote it all down: signal strength, duration, retention, side effects. The side effects column stayed empty. My handwriting got a little shakier with every entry, because I kept stopping to stare at the page.

It worked. It worked better than my models had predicted.

Tomorrow morning, I was presenting to Dr. Hammond and the rest of the lab. In my first week, he'd called my research proposal "ambitious, the way toddlers are ambitious." I had been rehearsing the look on his face ever since.

Down the hall, Olivia's door was shut and locked. I'd heard the click last night when we got home from Audrey's. This morning, through the door, I could hear the tinny sounds of a video game and the faint thump of music leaking out of her headphones.

The plan was in motion.

Derek's things sat in a cardboard box by the front door: two XXL Gymshark hoodies that smelled like an entire can of Axe, a protein shaker with something growing in the bottom, a PS5 controller with ALPHA written on the back in silver Sharpie, and a copy of The 48 Laws of Power with a bookmark on page eleven. He'd owned it for two years.

Garlic had been lying on top of the box since breakfast, stretched across the hoodies with his face buried in the fabric, purring.

That was the other thing about Garlic. For reasons nobody had ever been able to explain to me, he loved Derek. The first time Derek came over, Garlic climbed into his lap within five minutes and stayed there for two hours. Every time after that, he ran to the door at the sound of Derek's voice and wound around his ankles like a furry orange figure eight. Derek fed him bits of rotisserie chicken off his plate. Garlic chirped at him like he was the second coming.

Garlic was an excellent judge of laps and a terrible judge of character.

"Traitor," I told him, scratching behind his ears.

He pushed his face deeper into Derek's hoodie and purred louder.

A little before noon, I closed my notebook and slipped MUSE into the front pocket of my hoodie. I told myself it was so I wouldn't leave it lying around where Garlic could get at it. That was true. It was also true that I didn't want to be more than an arm's length from it. Eight months of my life, about the size of a lipstick. My fingers kept finding it through the fabric.

I sat on the arm of the couch, checked my phone, and waited.

---

He was late, obviously.

When he finally came, he didn't knock. He pounded, three heavy slams of an open palm that rattled the door in its frame.

"Yo, Liv! Open up, babe. I'm here for my shit."

Garlic was off the box in a flash, not hiding, but trotting straight to the door with his tail straight up in the air, chirping.

I slid the chain on and opened the door four inches.

Derek filled the gap. He always did. He was six-foot-two and stood like he was six-foot-five, chest out, chin up. Today it was a tank top that said SIGMA GRINDSET, cut so low at the sides it was barely a shirt; gym shorts that ended at mid-thigh; and Oakleys pushed up into his gelled hair. A gallon water jug hung from his belt by a carabiner. Printed down the side: 8 AM: YOU GOT THIS KING.

His eyes found my face, then dropped to my chest and stayed there.

"Oh," he said. To my tits. "It's you."

I crossed my arms over my hoodie. That made it worse, not better. I saw his eyes follow the way my chest pushed up against my forearms, and I uncrossed them again, my face heating.

"Your stuff's in the box," I said. "I'll pass it out."

"Where's Liv?"

"Not home."

He snorted. "Her car's out front, Kimchi."

It shouldn't have gotten to me. He'd said it a dozen times before.

But my ears went hot anyway, the way they had in third grade when Tyler Moss held his nose every time I opened my lunchbox and the whole table laughed. My mom used to pack me kimchi and rice at six in the morning before she drove to the dry cleaners. Every day, with a little note in Korean tucked under the lid. I'd stopped bringing it after that week. I told her I wanted sandwiches. She'd looked at me for a long time, and then she'd made me sandwiches.

The only person at that table who hadn't laughed was a quiet redhead at the far end, who'd scooted her tray over and asked if she could try some.

Olivia had hated it. She'd eaten the whole thing anyway, crying a little from the spice.

I hadn't thought about that in years. Now it was sitting in my chest, hot and heavy, because a man with a Dogecoin tattoo had decided that my last name was a punchline.

"Take the box, Derek," I said, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted it to.

"I'll take it when I see her." He leaned against the doorframe, one arm braced above his head, and the chain pulled tight. Below, Garlic was pressing his face against the gap, trying to get to him. Derek reached down and scratched his head through the opening. "Hey, buddy. Hey, big man. At least somebody in this apartment has taste."

Garlic purred so loudly I could hear it from where I stood.

The box wasn't going to fit through four inches. I knew that. He knew that. I stood there for a long second, weighing it: chain off, door open, box out, door shut. Thirty seconds. He'd been loud, but he'd never touched me.

I took the chain off.

I knew it was a mistake the second the door swung wide, because he didn't take the box. He just stood there in the doorway, filling it, and looked at me.

I was in my biggest hoodie and a pair of bike shorts I'd picked on purpose that morning. It didn't matter. His eyes went down my bare legs, slowly, all the way to my fuzzy socks, then back up, lingering on my thighs, on my hips, on the place where the hoodie stopped hiding anything and started just draping. By the time they got back to my chest, my nipples had gone tight against my sports bra. From the cold of the hallway, I told myself. Just the cold.

He smiled like he knew exactly what I was telling myself.

"You know," he said, "you've got the best rack in that whole friend group of yours. Shame you dress like a homeless astronaut."

"Take the box."

"I'm being nice." He picked Garlic up in one big hand and tucked him against his chest like a football. Garlic went limp and blissful, his face mashed into Derek's tank top. "Still feeding him? Or is he, like, dinner where you're from?"

My stomach turned over.

Garlic was the closest thing I had to a child. Derek knew that. And he'd still reached into the oldest, ugliest joke in the world, the one I'd heard on playgrounds and once from a drunk guy at a bar in Pasadena, and handed it to me with a grin while holding my cat.

"Put him down," I said.

He set Garlic down, unhurried. Garlic immediately wound back around his ankles, purring.

Then Derek picked up the box, but instead of turning to leave, he set it down again just inside the door and crossed his arms. His face changed into something serious. Lecture-serious. I'd seen that face before, usually right before he explained something he'd heard on a podcast.

"You know what your problem is?"

"I really don't care—"

"You're a bad influence." He pointed at me. "Liv was happy. She was eating clean. I had her doing cold plunges. Then you show up with your spreadsheets and your feminist bullshit and get in her head, and now she's hiding in her room playing video games like a twelve-year-old."

"She's not hiding."

"She's hiding." His voice was getting louder. Down the hall, a door opened, and Mrs. Patterson from 4B looked out in her bathrobe. Derek didn't notice. "And you know why? Because you're jealous. She had a real man. And you've got nobody. Nobody's ever wanted to fuck you, Kimchi, so you couldn't stand watching somebody want to fuck her."

Something in my chest went very hot and very sharp.

"She left you," I said, "because you made her box up her books. Because you called her a fat cow in a text message. Because she was crying in her car every single day at lunch. Because a licensed therapist told her, with you sitting right there, that you were a terrible partner, and you were too stupid to realize you'd been insulted."

He opened his mouth.

Then he shut it, and went quiet.

He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking past me, at the floor just inside the door. I turned to see.

Olivia's slippers. Pink and round, Kirby's face smiling up from the mat, exactly where she'd kicked them off last night.

When I turned back, his expression had changed. The anger was gone, and what replaced it was worse. He looked pleased.

"Not home," he said softly.

"Derek, don't."

He stepped forward, and I stepped back without meaning to. He was a foot taller and twice my weight, and my body made the decision before I did. Then he was inside, past me, across the rug, heading for the hallway, with Garlic trotting happily at his heels.

"Liv," he called, in a sing-song voice. "Liiiv. Babe. I know you're in there. I'm not mad. Come out and talk to me."

"Get out of my apartment."

"I miss you, babe. Come on. Five minutes. That's all I want."

Behind Olivia's door, the game sounds stopped.

My stomach dropped.

She'd heard him. Through the headphones, through the door, she'd heard him and taken them off, and right now she was sitting on her bed listening to that voice. In a minute, maybe less, she'd get up and unlock the door, and he'd say I'm sorry, babe in the tone that always worked, and she'd go back to him. A fourth time. Just like she'd told me she would.

And I had promised her.

I had MUSE out of my pocket before I'd really decided anything.

A very clear part of me knew exactly what I was doing. No consent. No review board. Untested on another human being. If anyone found out, my career was over before it began.

I pressed it to my throat anyway.

"Derek," I said. "Shut up."

He stopped mid-word. His mouth closed with an audible click of teeth.

He turned slowly, his eyes wide, and tried to say something. Nothing came out but a muffled, furious sound behind his sealed lips.

It worked. On a person who didn't want it to. I felt it like a shot of adrenaline straight into my chest.

"Come back over here," I said. "To the door."

He walked back to the door, stiff-legged, his face going red. Garlic followed him, puzzled, batting at his ankle.

I should have stopped there. I should have told him to take his box and go and never come back, and that would have been the end of it.

Instead, I heard myself say, "Tell me the truth. Out loud. Why did Olivia break up with you?"

His jaw worked. His face twisted like he was fighting it with everything he had. Then, very clearly:

"Because I'm a shitty, insecure boyfriend with a small dick, and I listen to podcasts instead of listening to her."

From behind Olivia's door came a sound like a choked-off sneeze.

I had to put my hand over my mouth.

"Louder," I said into MUSE.

"Because I'm a shitty, insecure boyfriend with a small dick!" he shouted into the hallway.

Down the hall, Mrs. Patterson nodded slowly, as if this confirmed something she'd suspected for a long time, and shut her door.

I was shaking, half from nerves and half from trying not to laugh. Months of watching him hurt my best friend, and here he was, red-faced and helpless in my front hall. Part of me knew I should end it right there.

A bigger part of me wanted one more.

"Do the chicken dance," I said.

He did the chicken dance.

Elbows out and flapping. Knees bending. Head bobbing forward and back. Six-foot-two of SIGMA GRINDSET in my front hall, his water jug sloshing against his hip, his face murderous.

"Bawk," he said. "Bawk, bawk."

Garlic went absolutely still.

I didn't notice. I was laughing too hard, laughing until my eyes watered and the hand holding MUSE wasn't steady anymore.

"Okay," I said, wiping my eyes, lifting it to my throat one last time. "Okay. Derek, you're going to pick up your box, walk to your car, and never—"

Something orange and heavy hit me in the shoulder.

Garlic hadn't been confused. Garlic had been delighted. His favorite person in the whole world was flapping his arms up and down and making bird noises, and every hunting instinct in his body had lit up at once. He'd crouched, wiggled, and launched himself at Derek's elbows, and my shoulder happened to be the nearest thing to push off from.

The impact knocked me sideways. MUSE flew out of my hand.

It hit the doorframe with a small, hard tink and dropped onto the hallway carpet, right between Derek's sneakers.

For a second, nobody moved. Garlic had landed on Derek's foot and was rubbing his face against Derek's shin, purring, thrilled with himself. Derek looked down at his feet. Then up at me. Then down again.

He bent and picked up MUSE.

"Derek. Give that back."

I lunged for it. He stepped back and held it over his head, easily, out of reach. I grabbed his arm with both hands and pulled, and my hoodie rode up over my stomach. My chest pressed flat against his forearm. I felt him notice. I felt the exact moment he noticed, because he stopped pulling away.

He looked down at me, and his grin spread slowly.

"Damn, Kimchi," he said. "Didn't know you cared."

I let go like he'd burned me and yanked my hoodie back down.

He was turning MUSE over in his fingers, frowning at it, and I watched it happen on his face, slowly, the way everything happened with Derek. The shut up. The truth. The chicken dance. The little black wand I'd been holding against my throat.

He pressed it to his own throat, exactly where I'd held it.

His lips moved. I didn't hear anything. Just a faint buzz, like a phone vibrating somewhere in another room.

I blinked.

I was standing in the doorway with my hands empty, and MUSE wasn't anywhere.

It had flown out of my hand when Garlic hit me. I'd heard it hit the doorframe. And then...

I looked at the carpet. Nothing. The doormat, the shoe rack. Nothing.

Derek was standing in the hall with his hands hanging loose and empty at his sides, scanning the floor, too.

Right. Derek didn't have it. He'd been in the middle of the chicken dance when it flew. He hadn't even seen where it went.

"What the fuck was that?" he said. His voice was shaky, outraged. "What did you just do to me?"

"Nothing. Get your box and go."

"You drugged me or something. You're a psycho." He didn't sound scared, though. He sounded almost cheerful. I didn't look at his face long enough to notice.

I was already on my hands and knees, sweeping my palms across the carpet, checking under the shoe rack, the edge of the radiator. It had to be here. It had to have bounced somewhere close.

Behind me, he didn't leave.

I felt his eyes on me before I realized why. I was on all fours in bike shorts, face down near the floor, ass up in the air in the middle of my own doorway, and he was standing right behind me, taking his time.

"Nice view, Kimchi," he said.

I scrambled to my knees, face burning, and twisted around to glare at him.

He grinned, picked up the box, and tucked it under one arm. Garlic chirped mournfully at his ankles. Derek crouched down and scratched under his chin one last time.

"See you, big man."

Then he straightened up and looked at me. Not at my chest. At my face. Smiling.

"See you around, Kimchi," he said. "Real soon."

He walked off down the hall. The elevator dinged. He was gone.

---

I locked the door and put the chain on. I was still shaking.

Olivia's door opened before I even got to it.

She was standing in the doorway in her Stardew Valley hoodie, headphones around her neck, her red curls a mess, her eyes huge and wet behind her glasses. For a second, she just stared at me.

Then she said, "Did he say he has a small dick?"

I nodded.

"Out loud?"

"To the whole hallway. Twice."

Her face crumpled. For a second I thought she was crying, and then the sound came out and it was a laugh, a big ugly snorting laugh, and she grabbed the doorframe to hold herself up.

"Mrs. Patterson heard," I added.

She slid down the doorframe onto the floor, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. I sat down next to her, and she leaned into my shoulder and laughed until she was crying for real, and then just crying. I held her while she did.

"I almost opened the door," she whispered eventually, into my hoodie. "When he said babe. I had my hand on the lock."

"But you didn't."

"Because he stopped talking." She pulled back and wiped her eyes. "Why did he stop talking, Rach?"

I told her.

She stared at me. "You used MUSE on him."

"Yes."

"On Derek."

"Yes."

"And made him do the chicken dance."

"Also yes."

"Oh my God." She put both hands over her face. Then she peeked out between her fingers. "Can I see it? Can we do it again? Can we make him come back and do it in front of Audrey?"

My stomach dropped all over again.

"Liv," I said. "I lost it."

---

We searched together for the rest of the afternoon.

The couch cushions gave up two hair ties, a Cheeto, and some change. Under the couch: Garlic's bottle cap collection, which was much bigger than either of us had realized. Behind the fridge: dust and a jalapeño popper of unknown age. We emptied his cat tree. We checked behind the toilet, in the bathroom sink where he slept, in the back of every closet he could squeeze into. Olivia held the flashlight while I lay on my stomach and looked under the radiator. Eventually, sitting on the bathroom floor, I looked at the litter box for a long time, and then I went and got a spoon.

Nothing.

By late afternoon, the living room looked like it had been searched by the police. Olivia was sitting cross-legged on the rug with Garlic in her lap. I was lying flat on my back on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

My presentation was tomorrow morning. I didn't have the device.

"It bounced off the doorframe," I said for the fifth time. "It flew. It either went into the hall, and it isn't in the hall, or it came inside. Garlic was right there. He loves small things that move. He must have grabbed it and hidden it somewhere."

Garlic took it. It was the only thing that made sense.

Olivia was quiet for a while, scratching Garlic's chin. He purred and stretched his paws toward her.

"Rach," she said slowly. "Is there any chance that Derek took it?"

"No."

It came out flat and certain, the way you'd say the sky is blue.

"But he was standing right there. He was the closest one to it. And he left really fast, and he looked kind of..." She frowned. "He looked kind of happy, didn't he? When he left? I heard him through the door. He sounded happy."

"Derek doesn't have it," I said. "I watched him leave. He only had the box."

"I know, but..."

"Liv. He doesn't have it."

She looked at me a little strangely then. Just for a second. Her head tilted, and her eyes narrowed slightly behind her glasses, like she'd heard something in my voice that I couldn't hear myself.

Then she looked down at Garlic and kept scratching his chin.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Okay. Garlic, buddy. Where'd you put it?"

Garlic yawned and chirped.

I lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling and tried to remember exactly what Derek's face had looked like in the doorway, right before he left. Smiling. See you around. Real soon.

I couldn't hold on to it. Every time I reached for it, it slid away, like a word on the tip of my tongue.

It didn't matter. Garlic took it.

I just had to find where he'd put it.