Chapter 13 — The Neighbor

He saw him first in the elevator.

Mid-thirties. A jacket slightly too big for him, the kind bought in a different version of himself. Someone who still carried his work keys on the same ring as his apartment keys because he hadn’t had time to separate those two lives yet.

He smiled when he got in.

“Hey. 2A. Been here three weeks and I don’t think we’ve crossed paths yet.”

“3B,” said Hugo.

“Marcos.”

“Hugo.”

The elevator rose.

Hugo looked sideways. The keyring. Too many keys for one apartment. An earbud in the right pocket, cable tangled. Eyes slightly red at the edges — the look of someone who’d been sleeping less than they needed for several days running.

“Everything okay?” Hugo said.

Marcos thought about it before answering.

“Yeah, yeah. Still adjusting. The place is good, but—” He stopped.

“But what?”

“Nothing. Sounds. Getting-used-to-the-place sounds.”

The elevator stopped at the second.

Marcos got out. Turned before the doors closed.

“Hey, is it normal to hear sounds at night in this building? From upstairs?”

Hugo put his hand on the button for the third.

“What time?”

Marcos frowned.

“I don’t know. Late. After midnight, I think.”

Hugo didn’t answer right away.

“Usually, yeah,” he said finally.

The doors closed.

---

That night, Hugo wrote a note.

Six lines. Enough for Marcos to know what he needed to know without it sounding impossible. The form. The mailbox. The chair. What Awaiting signature meant. The other Hugo.

He folded it. Put it in an envelope. Went down to the lobby and left it in box eight.

Second floor A. Marcos.

Came back up.

Fell asleep before midnight.

23:12. Silence.

Seven in the morning, when he went down for the mail, he found the envelope on his doormat.

Sealed.

The seal unbroken.

He picked it up. Opened it. The note was still inside, folded along the same creases he’d made. Unread. Unopened.

As if it had come back on its own.

Hugo turned the envelope over.

The seal was unbroken.

But on the back, barely visible, was a mark.

The outline of a thumb pressed through from the inside — through the note itself, against the paper, before the envelope had been sealed.

Not ink. Pressure.

Hugo looked at the size of it.

It could have been his.

He didn’t check.

He unfolded the note. Read it. His six lines, intact. But in the top right corner, barely visible on the white paper, was a mark. A stamp. Blue ink, worn. Two words: Not applicable.

He put the note in his pocket. Went back up.

---

Hugo looked at the envelope in his hands.

Then looked at the door of 2A from the landing.

Closed. Silence on the other side — the kind that could be someone still asleep, or already gone, or inside with headphones on still living in the world from before.

He put the note in his pocket.

Went back up to his apartment.

The paper on the table. The deadline is indefinite.

He sat down.

He thought about Damián. The maps. Two hundred years of the same name. The question the other Hugo had asked that he still couldn’t answer: whether fitting meant losing something, or losing it meant fitting.

He thought about Marcos. The too-many keys. The red-edged eyes.

About how much time was left before the building sent him his envelope.