After phreaking she walked through the rain back to her apartment. Neon light shimmered in puddles. The glow from phreaking had already faded. Now she felt lonely and afraid. Beatriz had been kicked out of home at the age of fifteen after a shouting match with her parents in which she’d declared that god didn’t exist. Ever since then she’d been living alone.
She lived on a street by the wharf. The lobby of her building was deserted. A broken umbrella lay in the stairwell. An empty whiskey bottle in the hallway. A packet of soy sauce. A container of fried rice. A curse word had been spraypainted across her door. Twisting her key in the lock, she glanced behind her, and then she slipped into the apartment, hitting the lock and flipping the deadbolt and slotting the chain on her door, and then she switched on her lamp, looking around the apartment. Rain was dripping through cracks in the ceiling, plinking into buckets on the rough concrete floor. Mold was rippled across the wall behind the fridge. Algae was crusted around the faucet on the sink. A nest abandoned by a pigeon lay rotting on the landing of the fire escape out the window. Taking off her backpack, she set her backpack next to the gear on her workbench, hung her raincoat from the knob on the door, yanked off her wet sneakers, peeled off her socks, stripped off her jeans, reached up the back of her t-shirt to pinch apart the clasp on her bra and dipped her shoulders to slip the straps and slid her arms up through the straps and then reached up the front of her t-shirt to tug her bra out through the bottom, tossed the clothes onto the heap of dirty laundry spilling from her hamper, and then padded barefoot over to the stove in her t-shirt and her underwear. Striking a match, she lit a burner, boiled a pot of water, ripped into a package of ramen, poured the seasoning into the pot, stirred the broth, dumped the noodles into the pot, then stirred again. While the ramen was cooking she glanced at the photo of her family magneted to the door of the fridge, then glanced away again. The flames were vibrantly blue. Steam was rising from the pot. She became aware that she was salivating. Switching off the burner, she leaned against the counter, eating the ramen straight from the pot with a pair of chopsticks. She gulped down the broth. The flavor was comforting. Afterward she was still hungry. She was out of food. She felt like crying. Tomorrow would be payday. She rinsed the pot and the chopsticks under the faucet, then set the pot and the chopsticks on the rack. She brushed her teeth, staring at her face in the mirror.
Afterward she lay naked in the dark on her mattress on the floor, hugging a pillow to feel less alone.
Faint neon light was streaming through the window from the electric billboard on the warehouse across the street.
Glass shattered nearby, maybe a bottle.
After a moment a gunshot rang in the distance.
Then silence.
Beatriz hugged the pillow tighter, lying awake in the dark.