Midst

The sliding glass door in Kourtney’s living room always stuck a little on humid mornings, like it resented being asked to move. Today the air was thick with summer and exhaust, the kind that clung to her forearms when she leaned out to tug the track clean. The lock clicked with a soft, satisfied sound, and then the apartment exhaled-old carpet warmed by the sun, dish soap lingering from last night’s sink, a neighbor’s music thumping through the wall so steady it felt like a clock.

Kourtney stood in the doorway with her coffee cooling in her hand, listening to the building’s ordinary noises: pipes knocking, someone’s baby fussing down the hall, footsteps sanding across a second-floor landing. Ordinary was the only way she could survive her own mind lately. In the last few weeks she’d learned the difference between a quiet apartment and a safe one, and the line had blurred without her permission. Still, she tried to act like today was just another day-another set of forms, another check-in, another attempt at work that never quite stuck the way she needed.

She wanted one thing this morning, plain and immediate: to get to the community center before the voucher office’s scheduled intake and make sure the caseworker marked her attendance correctly. If they didn’t, she’d lose ground she couldn’t afford to lose. She’d been doing everything by the book and still felt like the book was being rewritten around her. Her phone buzzed with a reminder she’d already seen, and the screen’s glow made her eyes sting. She wiped her thumb across the edge of the coffee cup, smearing a ring of brown on the counter, and called out toward the bedroom even though nobody answered.

“Okay,” she said to the empty space, voice low like the walls might report it. “Okay. We’re doing this.”

The voucher packet lived in a shoebox under her bed, along with receipts, printouts, and little proof she’d paid rent on time and stayed where they told her to stay. She dragged the shoebox out, the cardboard scraping loud enough to make her flinch, and pulled the folder free. Her fingers moved automatically-name, date, address-like she was handling something fragile. Her caseworker’s handwriting was familiar now, all sharp lines and abbreviations. Kourtney held the page up to the light and studied it until the words stopped being words and became shapes.

Her stomach turned when she noticed the new note.

It wasn’t big. It wasn’t dramatic. Just a line tucked into the corner, like someone had added it without asking. “Confirm unit access compliance prior to intake.” The phrase was too clean for how messy her life felt.

Kourtney’s mind did what it always did when she found a new rule: it reached backward, searching for what she’d missed. Sliding glass door. The way it sometimes caught even after she cleaned the track. The subtle changes in how the apartment smelled-air that didn’t belong, like stale cologne or metal after rain. The way she’d started hearing a faint click when she got home, sometimes just once, sometimes not at all, always at the edge of her attention.

She looked at the door again, at the cheap latch and the strip of weather sealing she’d pressed back into place last month with her bare hands. The apartment felt warm where her skin pressed it, cool where the air came through. She held her breath and leaned closer, listening for anything that would confirm she wasn’t imagining it.

Nothing answered but her own blood in her ears.

Her phone rang then, cutting through the quiet. A number she didn’t recognize flashed on the screen. Kourtney let it ring twice, then picked up, trying to sound like she belonged to herself.

“Maryland Housing Intake,” a woman’s voice said, brisk and practiced. “Kourtney? This is Diane.”

Kourtney’s shoulders tightened. Diane’s tone wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t gentle either. It sounded like a door that never opened all the way.

“Yes,” Kourtney said. She kept her eyes on the sliding door while she spoke, like looking away might invite something in.

“We need to verify your unit access compliance prior to intake today,” Diane continued. “There’s been a discrepancy.”

“A discrepancy?” Kourtney repeated, and the word came out sharper than she meant. She forced it down. “What kind?”

Diane paused, the brief silence filled with the faint sound of someone else’s keyboard. “We received a report that the unit’s entry point was accessed outside of scheduled maintenance.”

“I live here,” Kourtney said, and even as the words left her mouth she hated how defensive she sounded. She pictured her shoebox full of proof, pictured the caseworker’s handwriting, pictured the note in the corner like an accusation. “No one’s supposed to be in my apartment.”

“I’m not saying you did anything,” Diane replied, and that made it worse. “But we need confirmation. If you can’t verify, we have to postpone your intake.”

Postpone meant everything would slide....