Almost overnight, my apartment was emptied. She came home one day from work and very calmly sat me down and told me that she was sorry, but she no longer wanted to be in a relationship and needed to move out immediately. I asked for an explanation but she didn’t have one. She was unhappy and just needed to do this. That night, she slept on her friend’s couch and the following afternoon she had a moving company take her stuff. It took them four hours.

I had never lived alone before. If I had chosen it, I probably would’ve enjoyed it, but because it happened so abruptly, I was miserable. Every day, I’d wake up to a barren apartment with empty frames on the walls, gaping holes in the decor, things missing that you wouldn’t think about until you suddenly needed it, like a pencil. There was not one pencil or pen in the entire apartment.

I desperately needed more income. My rent had doubled, but my salary did not. I took on freelance clients on the side, working late on most nights and weekends just to pay the bills.

And then, I remembered her closet.

I avoided it for a while (as a defense mechanism), but finally opened it and peered inside. It was empty save for a few things she deemed unworthy to take with her and thus could remain with me, like an ill-fitting blazer and a Buddha statue. I read somewhere that some guy made an app that was being called the “AirBnB” of storage. People who have extra space can rent it out to people who need to store stuff.

I quickly drafted a profile, uploaded some poorly-lit photos of the space and suddenly I had a ping: Joe S. Some Long Island guy who needed a place in Brooklyn to store some stuff while he moved. It seemed easy enough.

Days later, he was at my front door. Joe was a short, skinny, pasty man with glasses, but he was fine. He rolled one large cardboard box in on a red dolly and set it dead center in the closet. I expected more boxes but that was all he had. The box was taped shut many times over.

“I’m not good at throwing things away,” he said, before he left. He told me it was just some old clothes and books he wanted to sell. I received the first month’s payment an hour later. I went and bought some much needed stuff for the apartment, including some pencils.

A week went by and I had forgotten the box was there, until one night, I heard a rustling from the closet. I sat up in bed and listened. My apartment made a lot of strange noises and so did my neighbors, but this sound felt closer. It was the kind of sound that feels inside. I watched the closet door for a few moments. It was five feet from where I slept, directly in front of my bed. The noise stopped. I went back to sleep

The next morning, just to be safe, I looked in the closet before I left for work. There was the box, exactly where Joe had left it, untouched, already accumulating dust. The sound must’ve come from the vents, where I could occasionally hear my neighbors fighting in the apartment above mine.

A few more days went by, or at least I think it was a few days. This was when the real depression started, setting up camp in my gut, clouding my timeline. I went to bed too early and got up too late. My tardiness was noticed at work and I was reprimanded. I took randomly scattered sick days and sat in bed for hours on end, feet away from the closet door.

One day during this time, I came home and I was making myself dinner. I noticed things were missing from my fridge that I could’ve sworn were there last time I looked. I took survey of my apartment. Cups were not where I left them and a few things looked moved.

I texted my ex and asked her if she’d been coming to the apartment while I was at work. She was the only one who had the key besides me. She said of course not and then berated me for accusing her of such a thing. We started fighting. I took the next day off.

When I woke up late the following morning, I checked the app. I didn’t get this month’s payment. It seems Joe’s account had been deleted. Support said they were working on collecting from him and would let me know when they figure it out. I looked at the closet door. It was ajar by about two inches. When I opened it, the box was sitting there as it always was, but I could see that the tape had been severed. I closed the closet door and went back to sleep.

I eventually got fired and didn’t leave bed for days on end. Dirty plates and dishes piled up all over my apartment, and not all of them were mine. By this point, I had heard the movements of a person in my closet. Very clear, very distinct. Whoever was in there was waiting for me to go to sleep or leave.

One night at around 4am, I was wide awake, scrolling through my phone. My sleep cycle had been completely fucked and now I was restless all night and sleeping most of the days. I heard the knob of the closet door turn slightly. I didn’t react. I was waiting for this night to come. The door opened and there was a man in my closet, completely wrapped from head to toe in gauze, you know, like hospital bandages. There was no blood, just gauze, with only an opening for is mouth and two tiny holes for his nostrils.

Neither of us did anything. I sat in bed, looking at him through the darkness. The blue light through the window showed me only the outline of his body, standing in my ex’s closet, just listening. He was crouched slightly because of the closet shelf. I think he was listening for my reaction and when I did nothing, so did he. The box next to him was open, ripped tape dangling from the cardboard flaps. After a few minutes of standing silently in the dark, he slowly grabbed the door handle and softly closed the closet, concealing him once again. I heard some rustling as he folded himself back into his home. I laid back in my bed and kept scrolling for a few more hours before I finally fell asleep.

Now, I have a new roommate.

Things are starting to look up.