A Place to Keep You

When Mikki moved in, the super handed her the keys like he was passing on a burden. “Bikes in the basement,” he said.

“And don’t knock on 4B’s door.”

He didn’t explain why. He didn’t have to.

His eyes had the worn glaze of someone who’d told that same warning before, and seen it ignored.

The building was one of those half-forgotten brownstones, all warped floorboards and radiator groans. Hallways smelled faintly of dust and something sweet, like old paint. Her apartment was small but sunny in the afternoons. She’d told herself it would feel like home after a week or two.

She caught her first glimpse of 4B while hauling a box of dishes up the stairs. He was coming down, carrying a rolled-up rug over one shoulder, hood drawn low, face lost in shadow. She offered to hold the door. He walked past without a sound.

After that, it was only sounds. Metallic clicks behind her bedroom wall, the soft scrape of something shifting. Slow, padded steps in the hallway after midnight that stopped outside her door and stayed there long enough for her to hold her breath and start counting.

On her fourth night, she dreamed someone was standing in her doorway. When she woke, the air felt thick, as if the person had only just stepped away.

The fire alarm went off at 3:11 a.m. one Tuesday. The building came alive — doors opening, neighbors stumbling into the hallway in pajamas and robes, voices climbing in confusion. They all spilled onto the sidewalk, shivering in the early morning chill.

Everyone except 4B.

He was across the street under a streetlight, hood still up. Not watching the fire trucks. Not watching the building. Watching her.

When she looked at him too long, he tilted his head slightly, like a bird noticing something in the grass.

The next day, she knocked on his door.

He opened it a crack. “You didn’t evacuate,” she said. “I don’t leave unless I have to,” he replied. His voice was calm, almost bored. Then he stepped back, inviting her in.

The walls were lined with paintings.

Every tenant in the building was there.

Mrs. Briganti from 3C, laughing with a cigarette between her fingers. The kid from 2A, in the middle of running down the stairs.

Others… caught looking directly at the viewer, eyes wide and startled, as though they’d realized something too late.

And her. Her own face appeared again and again. Walking up the steps with grocery bags. Drinking coffee at her kitchen table.

Sleeping.

“You’ve been watching me,” she said.

“I’ve been keeping you,” he said. “From what’s outside.”

He showed her a painting in the far corner — a hooded man under a streetlight, faceless. “He’s been here three times,” 4B said. “Looking for you.”

From then on, she started noticing things — reflections in shop windows that moved when she didn’t. Shadows that matched her step for a block before peeling away.

Once, she came home to find her apartment door unlocked. Inside, a new painting leaned against the wall — her, asleep, seen from the foot of her bed.

She told herself she should leave, break her lease, call someone. But she didn’t.

A week later, she saw him outside, speaking to the hooded man. Neither moved much. No gestures. No signs of argument.

When the hooded man turned and left, his head low, 4B didn’t look back at her window.

The next morning, a painting waited at her door — her own window at night, blinds half-open, her silhouette lit from behind. In the glass, a faint reflection of something she couldn’t name.

When she confronted him, he said it flatly- “There’s no one else, Mikki. It’s only ever been me.”

Her mind scrambled for outrage, but it didn’t come. The image of the hooded man felt smudged, like a bad memory — never sharp, maybe never real. And if he had been real… well, 4B had made him go away.

That night, she moved the painting of herself sleeping onto her nightstand.

Two days later, she was back in his apartment, looking at herself on the walls.

There were more of her now — dozens. In some, she was smiling at him. In some, she was holding his hand. In one, she was standing in his doorway, as if she lived there.

She didn’t remember posing for any of them. But the more she looked, the more she began to feel she must have.

The canvas he showed her was blank. But the longer she looked, the more her outline began to bloom — faint at first, like a shadow caught in fog. Her chest rose, and to her horror, the glassy surface inside the frame misted faintly, as if her breath were trapped in there, not out here.

She leaned closer without meaning to.

The painted outline seemed to swell, its edges tugging at her gaze until her vision bent around it. Her reflection on the canvas rippled, as though the surface were water, and for an instant she saw her own face leaning back toward her from the inside.

The room thinned, air draining from her lungs. Her feet felt lighter than her head, her weight sliding forward — not falling, but being drawn, thread by thread.

Somewhere behind her, his voice was quiet and certain. “Hold still.”

And then there was only the brush, and the frame, and the soft, muffled sound of her breath on the other side of the glass.

The next morning, the chair in the painting was no longer empty. It was her. Not the version from the day before, but her in a different dress — one she didn’t own — hair pinned back neatly. She was smiling in a way she never remembered smiling in front of him.

“You finished it overnight?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” he said.

The smell of oil paint was faint but everywhere. She turned, meaning to look for the chair itself, but his apartment felt subtly rearranged, like walls had shifted while she slept.

She tried going back to her own place.

Her apartment looked the same but wrong. The air was stale, and the bed felt unused. She found three new paintings leaning against the wall. All were scenes from inside her apartment, but with small distortions — the coffee mug in her hand wasn’t hers, the windows were taller, the light outside an unplaceable shade of grey.

She stood in the kitchen, trying to remember what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning. Then she realized she couldn’t remember if she’d had breakfast at all.

Her phone was dead. She plugged it in, but the screen stayed black.

That night, the footsteps outside her door came again. Slow. Deliberate. She didn’t wait this time — she opened the door.

4B was standing there, holding a canvas still wet with paint. He stepped inside without asking.

“I think you should come stay,” he said.

She didn’t answer, but when she blinked, she was already in his apartment.

Time slipped. She couldn’t tell if she’d been there for days or weeks. Sometimes she woke to find him painting her; other times, she woke inside the paintings — a scene from the day before replaying silently around her.

The unfinished chair painting had been moved to the far wall. Now, behind the painted version of herself, there was another canvas within the canvas — like a frame opening into a darker frame.

“What’s in there?” she asked.

“That’s not for you,” he said.

One night, she woke to find herself sitting in the actual chair from the painting, brush marks faintly visible on the arms. He was across the room, painting something she couldn’t see.

The air felt heavy, like being underwater. She realized her own limbs hadn’t moved in hours.

Her voice came out slow, sluggish. “What happens if you stop painting me?”

He didn’t look up. “You stop being.”

When she finally gathered the courage to leave, she opened his front door and found her own hallway stretched into blackness.

The sound of dripping echoed somewhere far away. The walls were lined with frames, all showing her in different rooms, different postures, different versions of herself — some asleep, some looking right at her.

At the very end of the hallway, a single painting stood on an easel. It was her standing in that exact hallway, staring at the painting.

When she turned back to him, he was already at her side. “There’s one more,” he said.

The canvas he showed her was blank. But the longer she looked, the more her outline began to appear — faint, like a shadow in fog. She felt herself leaning toward it, as though gravity was pulling her forward.

The room blurred at the edges. His voice came from somewhere far away- “Hold still.”

And then there was only the brush, and the frame, and the quiet settling in.