Her jaw clenches as she looks up at me with tears pooling in her eyes.
"Can you tell me what's going on first?"
I take hold of her shoulders and squeeze gently.
Tipping her head back, she stares up at the sky. The sun is setting right now, basking her in orange hues. I've never been this close to her, but now I see the little things that make her Ria.
A small bald spot on her right eyebrow.
Tiny moles on her left eyelid and underneath it.
Her pert nose, crinkling as she searches the sky for answers.
From my vantage point, I see her friendly façade crumble. The smile she puts on fades away as quickly as the sun sets and day turns to night.
"My roommate has spontaneously decided to fly to Paris to visit her dad. She's leaving tonight but the thing is… her ex-boyfriend still has a key to our apartment."
My grip tightens around her shoulders, and I squeeze gently, silently urging her to go on.
"They've been on and off for a while now and I just get a bad feeling from him. I don't…don’t trust him." She pulls her scrunchie out of her hair and runs a hand through her dark mane. "CJ, that’s his name. He always stares at me whenever he's over, looking me up and down. Makes a point of licking his lips and dropping inappropriate comments when Penny isn’t around to hear. And last week…"
A sudden rush of protectiveness washes over me as a chill runs down my spine, anticipating her next words.
"Last week?"
"Last week, when Penelope was asleep, he cornered me in the kitchen."
I let my hands fall off her, curling them into fists because I get a sense of where this is going.
"Did. That. Fucker. Touch. You."
"He grazed my…" She gestures to her breasts. "He played it off like it was an accident but then he said it didn't have to be an accident… if I knew what he meant. Then he boxed me in and told me to leave my bedroom door unlocked."
I grit my teeth.
I’ve heard enough.
A low growl rumbles in my throat. "So what's your plan?"
"Change the locks. Then I'm going to pack my stuff and go from there."
"Pack your stuff?"
Sighing, she gestures for me to follow her to her car. "My lease is up this month. Well… technically I don't have one. Penelope's mom owns the apartment and I pay her rent but as per our agreement, I'm only obligated to stay until the end of the month. After all this though, I think I'm just going to head out early. I never planned to stay here permanently anyway."
A shiver runs through me.
Do coincidences like this exist? Is this some sort of cosmic joke or is this really happening?
Her plans mirror my own.
I shake those thoughts and focus on Ria.
"So where do you go from here?"
She shrugs as she unlocks her car. "I don't know yet. I graduated last week and figured I had two more weeks to figure out where to go, but I was thinking D.C. since my advisor mentioned computer programming is a huge industry there."
My eye twitches. "Did you say D.C.?"