By the time I turned onto the third-floor landing, my arms were aching from grocery bags and my mind was already halfway into the evening routine—shoes off, kettle on, shower, bed. The corridor smelled faintly of floor cleaner and old paint, the kind of smell you stop noticing until it suddenly feels wrong.

That’s why I noticed her.

Mrs. Kline—my neighbor from 3B—was standing outside my door like she’d been waiting for a delivery she didn’t trust. She was in her late fifties, always in a cardigan, always with that permanent “I heard something I shouldn’t have” squint. Her lips were pressed into a line so tight it looked painful.

“Nora,” she said as soon as she saw me. Not hello. Not how are you. Just my name, like a warning.

I shifted the bags in my hands. “Evening, Mrs. Kline.”

Her eyes flicked to my key in the lock, then back to my face. “In your apartment,” she said, voice low, “some man screams every day.”

I froze with my hand on the doorknob.

“What?”

She leaned in a little, lowering her voice further like the hallway itself could hear. “It’s gotten on everyone’s nerves. Around midday. Same time. A man screaming like—” She made a small motion with her fingers, as if pinching the air. “Like he’s furious. Like he’s losing it.”

I stared at her, honestly waiting for her to laugh and say she was joking. She didn’t.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “I live alone. I’m never home during the day.”

Mrs. Kline’s mouth tightened. “I knocked. More than once. No one opened. But I heard it. A male voice. Clear as a bell through the wall.”

My stomach did a slow, sick roll. “Maybe you’re hearing someone else. The building’s old. Sound travels.”

“No,” she said sharply. “It’s your unit. I’m telling you because if it keeps going, someone’s going to call the landlord. Or the police. Or both.”

I forced a smile that felt like it belonged on someone else’s face. “I probably left the TV on. I’ll check.”

Mrs. Kline didn’t look convinced, but she took a step back like she’d done her duty. “Just… check,” she repeated, and walked away, slippers whispering on the carpet.

I stood there for a full five seconds, key still in the lock, listening.

Nothing.

When I finally pushed my door open, I was hit by normality: the faint lavender of my hand soap, the dull hum of my refrigerator, the dim, quiet stillness of an empty apartment that had been empty all day. My couch pillows were in place. My shoes were lined up the way I’d left them. No drawers looked disturbed. No windows were cracked. No signs of someone—anyone—being here.

And yet my skin prickled.

I walked from room to room like a detective in my own life. I checked the bedroom closet, my bathroom cabinet, the balcony latch. I opened the pantry and stared at my cereal boxes like they might confess.

Everything looked fine.

Reason told me Mrs. Kline was wrong. Reason told me it was the building, the echoes, someone else’s argument bleeding through thin walls.

But anxiety doesn’t care about reason. Anxiety is an animal that wakes up when you show it even one corner of darkness.

That night, I slept in scraps. Every creak sounded like a footstep. Every change in the air made me sit up, heart pounding. Twice I got out of bed and checked the door lock again, even though I’d watched my own hand turn the deadbolt.

Around three in the morning, I picked up my phone and scrolled through old messages without really seeing them. My thumb stopped on a name I hadn’t touched in months.

ETHAN.

My ex-husband.

I stared at it until my eyes burned, then shut the screen off like it was hot.

No, I told myself. Don’t be ridiculous. Ethan moved out. Ethan is out of your life. Ethan doesn’t have a key—he gave it back. You watched him drop it into your palm.

But then another memory slid under that one like a hidden blade: Ethan making copies without telling me, “just in case.” Ethan laughing when I got annoyed. Ethan saying, “You lose everything, Nora. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.”

I sat up in bed, breath shallow.

In the morning, I made a decision before fear could talk me out of it.

I texted my boss—Stomach bug. Won’t make it in. Sorry.—and called my best friend, Jamie, while my hands still shook.

“Don’t do that thing where you laugh,” I said when she picked up.

“I wasn’t going to laugh,” Jamie said instantly, which meant she absolutely was.

“Mrs. Kline says there’s a man screaming in my apartment at noon.”

Silence on the other end.

Then Jamie’s voice turned careful. “Okay. That’s… creepy. Are you sure she’s not hearing someone else?”

“I checked everything. Nothing’s missing. But I—” I swallowed. “I barely slept.”

“Call your landlord,” Jamie said.

“His office never picks up. And if I call the cops and it’s nothing, I’ll feel insane.”

“Nora,” Jamie said, firm now, “you don’t have to prove you’re ‘sane’ by staying unsafe.”

I looked down my hallway. The apartment felt too bright, like it was pretending. “I’m going to stay home today,” I said. “I’m going to see.”

There was a pause. Then Jamie exhaled. “Tell me your plan.”

So I did.

At 7:45 a.m., I left my apartment as if I were going to work. I wore my usual blazer, carried my laptop bag, walked past Mrs. Kline’s door with the steady steps of a woman who had nothing to hide. Downstairs, in the parking lot, I got into my car and started the engine. I pulled forward a few meters, enough for anyone watching from a window to see me go, then parked again.

My hands were sweating on the steering wheel.

Then I turned the car off, slipped out, and circled to the side entrance—an old service door that didn’t latch properly if you knew how to pull it. I’d noticed it months ago. Everyone in the building knew it. Nobody cared because nothing “ever happened here.”

I moved like a thief in my own building, heart thudding, keys clenched so tight they cut into my palm.

Back upstairs, I slipped inside my apartment and locked the door again. For a moment I just stood in the entryway, breathing hard, listening for any sound that might already be there.

Nothing.

I set my phone on silent and texted Jamie: I’m inside. If I don’t message by 11:30, call police.

Jamie replied instantly: I’m watching the clock. Don’t be brave. Be smart.

In my bedroom, I crouched beside the bed and stared at the gap between the frame and the carpet. It looked smaller than it had any right to. Like the bed was already trying to keep secrets.

I slid down onto my stomach and crawled under.

The carpet fibers tickled my elbows. Dust clung to my forearms. My breath sounded too loud in the small space, so I pulled the bedspread down over the edge and tucked myself into the shadow like a child playing hide-and-seek—except there was nothing playful about it.

I held my phone in one hand, screen dimmed, camera ready.

Time slowed into something heavy and cruel. Minutes felt like hours. I listened to the building’s normal noises—the distant elevator, someone’s footsteps above, water running in a neighboring unit. Each sound made my body tense, then release.

By 10:30, my mind started trying to bargain. You’re ridiculous. You’re letting one nosy neighbor turn you into a paranoid mess. You called off work for nothing. You’re going to lie under your own bed until your back cramps, and then you’ll crawl out and laugh at yourself.

At 11:05, my phone buzzed once—Jamie: Still okay?

I typed back with shaking fingers: Yes.

At 11:18, I heard nothing and began to hate myself. My throat tightened, eyes burning with exhaustion and embarrassment.

Then, at 11:20, the front door opened.

Not a rattle. Not someone fumbling with keys.

A smooth, practiced click.

My blood turned to ice so fast my fingers went numb around my phone.

Footsteps moved down the hallway, unhurried and familiar, like the person wasn’t afraid of being caught. The soles scraped lightly against my floor in a rhythm that made my stomach drop because my body recognized it before my brain did.

Left foot slightly heavier than the right.

A tiny drag, like a habit.

The footsteps paused in the living room. Something shifted—maybe a bag being set down, maybe a jacket being tossed. Then they moved toward the bedroom.

I pressed my hand over my mouth without thinking, as if that could stop my fear from making noise.

The bedroom door creaked open.

A shadow filled the gap between the door and the floor.

The person stepped inside.

From under the bed, I saw shoes first: dark leather, expensive, polished enough to reflect the dim light. Then the hem of tailored pants. Not a burglar. Not someone in a hoodie. Not someone sneaking around.

Someone who belonged here.

He stopped near my dresser, and I watched the pant legs shift as he looked around. He didn’t rush. He didn’t panic.

He acted like he owned the place.

Then his voice filled my bedroom—low, irritated, intimate in the worst way.

“You’ve left everything scattered again…”

My name followed, like a knife.

“Nora.”

The sound of it almost made me gag. Because I knew that voice the way you know a song you can’t forget.

Ethan.

My ex-husband.

For a second, my brain refused to accept it. It tried to throw up a dozen explanations—recording, hallucination, misunderstanding. But then Ethan moved, and I saw his hand drop into view: long fingers, a wedding band tan line still faint on his ring finger, a familiar watch that used to sit on my nightstand when we slept.

He walked to my closet.

He opened it without hesitation.

And he started going through my things.

Not stealing—sorting. Shoving my folded sweaters aside like they were in his way. Pulling out a shoebox. Checking inside. Tossing it back.

Like he was searching for something that belonged to him.

I felt horror bloom into something sharper, hotter.

He knew where everything was.

He had been here before.

In my mouth, my breath tasted metallic. My phone shook in my hand. I forced myself to angle the camera toward the gap, capturing the shoes, the movement, the proof.

Ethan muttered under his breath, pacing. “Where did you put it? Where did you hide it?”

He stopped by my bed.

From under the frame, I could see him lean down slightly, like he was listening, like he could feel the air change.

I squeezed my eyes shut, convinced he’d drop to his knees and look under.

Instead, he laughed softly—no humor in it.

“You always did love your little secrets,” he said, voice quiet now, dangerous. “You think you can just erase me? You think you can walk away with what’s mine?”

My stomach clenched.

What’s mine.

That was Ethan’s favorite phrase. He used it about his job, his car, his schedule—then, eventually, about me.

He turned and strode into my bathroom. A cabinet opened. Bottles clinked. The sound was ordinary and terrifying because it proved how comfortable he was.

My phone buzzed again, silent but vibrating against my palm. Jamie: 11:23. Talk to me.

I typed, barely able to see the screen through tears: IT’S ETHAN. HE’S INSIDE. CALL POLICE.

The reply came within seconds: CALLING NOW. STAY HIDDEN.

I lay there, frozen, while Ethan moved through my apartment like a storm wearing a suit. He opened drawers. He shut them harder than necessary. He muttered and cursed, like he was scolding me even though I wasn’t visible.

At one point, he walked back into the bedroom and stopped near the bed again. His shoes angled toward the gap.

My heart hammered so violently I thought it would give me away.

He bent down—just slightly—and for a horrifying second I thought he was going to look.

Instead, his hand reached under and grabbed something.

My handbag.

He dragged it out from beside the bed, unzipped it, and began rifling through it.

My throat tightened so hard I could barely breathe. That bag had my life in it—keys, wallet, ID, medication, every small thing that made me feel anchored.

Ethan cursed. “Of course you’d keep it on you,” he muttered. “Always so smug.”

He tossed my bag back down, not gently.

Then he took out his phone.

He made a call.

I couldn’t hear the other voice, but I could hear Ethan’s tone shift into the smooth, charming voice he used on strangers. The one that made people trust him. The one that used to make me doubt myself.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “It’s still not here. She must’ve moved it. No, I’m in now. Same time. The neighbor’s routine is predictable.”

He paused, listening.

“Trent, don’t panic,” Ethan said. “Just keep the key list clean. And tell maintenance to stop logging my entries. This is temporary.”

My mind snagged on the name.

Trent.

I didn’t know a Trent.

But the way Ethan said it—like someone who helped him—made my stomach drop further.

Ethan ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He paced once, then walked to the kitchen. I heard the soft click of my cabinet. The clink of glass. He was drinking water from my cup like he lived here.

I had never felt so invaded in my life.

Then there was a knock at my door.

Three sharp taps.

Ethan froze.

So did I.

He moved fast now, not toward the door—toward my bedroom again. His shoes crossed the carpet in quick steps. He reached down and grabbed my laptop bag, then hesitated, as if deciding what to take.

The knock came again, louder.

“Open up!” a man’s voice called from outside. “Police!”

Relief hit me so hard I almost sobbed out loud.

Ethan swore. His calm mask cracked, revealing the panic underneath.

He rushed to the front door. From under the bed, I couldn’t see him now, but I heard the deadbolt click, heard him press his forehead to the door like he was thinking.

Then he shouted back, voice switching instantly. “Who is this? What’s going on?”

“Police!” the voice repeated. “Open the door now!”

Ethan’s voice took on the innocent confusion of a man wronged. “I’m the homeowner’s husband. I have a key. What is the issue?”

Another voice joined—female, firm. “Sir, step away from the door and unlock it. Now.”

A third voice—Mrs. Kline, unmistakable, shrill with anger. “I told you! I told you someone was in there!”

I almost laughed and cried at the same time.

Ethan spoke again, quieter now, the charm slipping. “This is ridiculous. I can explain—”

“Open the door,” the female officer snapped.

There was a pause. Then the lock turned.

The door opened.

Heavy footsteps entered. A firm command. “Hands where I can see them.”

Ethan protested, voice rising. “You don’t understand. She’s unstable. She—”

“Sir, hands up.”

A scuffle of fabric. Not a fight, more like resistance met with practiced control. Ethan’s voice went sharp with humiliation.

“You can’t do this,” he hissed. “I have rights!”

“You’re in someone else’s apartment,” the officer replied. “Rights don’t include breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t break in!”

My throat tightened. I wanted to crawl out and scream, That’s my apartment! That’s my life! Get out!

But my body wouldn’t move. Fear pinned me down even as safety arrived.

Then a new voice—Jamie’s voice—breathless, furious. “Nora! Nora, are you okay?”

My best friend had run here.

I couldn’t help it. A sob escaped my hand.

“I’m here,” I whispered, and it sounded tiny.

Jamie rushed into my bedroom and dropped to her knees, peering under the bed. Her eyes widened when she saw me curled in the dust like a frightened animal.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God, Nora.”

Behind her, an officer stepped in, flashlight angled down. “Ma’am? Are you the resident?”

I nodded, cheeks wet, fingers still clamped over my mouth like I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

“Come out slowly,” the officer said gently. “You’re safe.”

I crawled out, limbs stiff, hair full of static, bedspread clinging to my back. Jamie wrapped her arms around me immediately, and for the first time all day, my body remembered how to breathe.

In the hallway, Ethan stood with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Seeing him like that—expensive suit slightly rumpled, jaw clenched, eyes blazing—should’ve made me feel victorious.

Instead, it made me feel sick.

Because he wasn’t a stranger. He wasn’t a random intruder.

He was a man who knew my favorite mug. The man who knew where I kept my spare batteries. The man who used to kiss my forehead before work.

And now he looked at me like I’d betrayed him by existing without permission.

“Nora,” he said, voice low and intimate even with police around, “tell them. Tell them you’re overreacting.”

I stared at him, trembling. “How long?” I managed. “How long have you been coming here?”

His eyes flicked away—a tell I remembered too well.

The female officer stepped between us. “Sir, you will not speak to her.”

Ethan’s mouth twisted. “She’s lying,” he snapped. “She’s doing this to punish me. She—”

Jamie surged forward like a lioness. “Shut up,” she spat, eyes blazing. “Just shut up.”

Mrs. Kline appeared at the end of the hall in her cardigan, hands on hips, vindication practically radiating from her. “I knew it,” she said loudly. “Every day at noon. Every day! I told the landlord and he said I was dramatic!”

The officer turned to her. “Ma’am, you reported screaming?”

Mrs. Kline nodded rapidly. “And now you see why! I’m not crazy. I’m not ‘sensitive.’”

I looked at the officer, voice shaking. “He has a key. He… he shouldn’t have a key.”

The officer’s expression hardened. “We’ll investigate how he got access.”

Ethan’s jaw clenched. “I had a key because I paid for that place too.”

“No,” I said, surprising myself with how clear it came out. “You didn’t. I did. After the divorce. You signed the papers. You told me you didn’t care. You told me I’d ‘be fine’ because you were ‘tired of my drama.’”

Ethan’s eyes flashed. “Because you hid things from me.”

“Hid what?” I demanded, suddenly shaking with rage. “What were you looking for?”

Ethan’s nostrils flared. “You know.”

“I don’t,” I said, voice cracking. “I don’t know what you think I have.”

He stared at me for a long, poisonous second, then looked away again.

Jamie whispered, “He’s been stalking you.”

The word landed heavy, real.

The officer nodded once. “We’re going to take him in. You can file a report and request an emergency protective order.”

Ethan jerked his head up. “A protective order? For what? I didn’t hurt her.”

“You invaded her home,” the officer said flatly. “That’s enough.”

As they guided him toward the stairs, Ethan twisted back, eyes locking onto mine with a cold certainty that made my stomach tighten.

“This isn’t over,” he murmured.

The officer tightened her grip on his arm. “Sir.”

Ethan’s gaze didn’t move. “You’ll regret this,” he said, not to the officer—to me, like a vow.

They took him away.

Only after his footsteps faded did I realize how hard I was shaking.

Jamie kept one arm around my shoulders. The officer asked questions—name, date of birth, relationship history, whether Ethan had threatened me before. I answered mechanically, like my mouth was a separate machine running on autopilot.

Mrs. Kline hovered, half furious, half triumphant. “You poor thing,” she kept saying. “I knew something was wrong. I knew.”

Then, as the officer stepped aside to radio something, Mrs. Kline leaned closer to me and said quietly, “Honey… do you want to know the worst part?”

I swallowed. “What?”

She glanced down the hallway as if afraid the walls could repeat her. “The screaming,” she whispered. “It wasn’t always angry. Sometimes it sounded like… begging. Like he was talking to someone who wasn’t there.”

A chill crawled up my spine.

In my mind, I saw Ethan in my bedroom, muttering, pacing, calling my name like it was his right.

I suddenly understood: the screaming wasn’t just him looking for something. It was him rehearsing. Reliving. Practicing his rage in the safest place he knew—my home—because it still felt like his stage.

The female officer returned. “Ma’am, we found something else.”

My stomach sank. “What?”

She held up a small keyring in an evidence bag—two keys on it. One looked like a normal apartment key. The other was unmarked, duller.

“He had these,” she said. “And we also noticed your lock has been re-keyed recently.”

I frowned. “No it hasn’t.”

The officer’s eyes were steady. “Then someone did it without telling you.”

My mouth went dry. “How?”

“Building access,” she said. “Master keys. Maintenance.”

A memory flickered: the building superintendent, a man named Trent who always smiled too much and called me “sweetheart.” The one who once offered to “check my lock for free” when I mentioned it stuck sometimes.

My skin went cold.

Jamie’s grip tightened. “Nora…”

The officer nodded. “We’re going to speak to the building manager. But tonight, you should not stay here alone.”

For the first time since Mrs. Kline spoke to me outside my door, tears spilled freely. Not quiet tears—ugly, shaking ones that came from a place too deep for pride.

“I thought I was losing my mind,” I whispered.

Jamie pressed her forehead to mine. “You weren’t.”

That evening, I didn’t go back inside to tidy up. I didn’t wash the cup Ethan drank from. I didn’t close the drawers he opened. The officers told me not to touch anything, and honestly, I didn’t want to. Every object in my apartment suddenly looked like it had been handled by someone else’s intent.

Jamie packed a bag for me while I sat on the couch staring at the door like it might open again on its own. Mrs. Kline stood nearby, muttering about landlords and “I told you so,” but her voice softened when she looked at me.

Before we left, I walked into my bedroom one last time.

The bedspread hung over the edge like a curtain.

I stared at the gap beneath the bed where I’d hidden, where I’d held my breath and waited for a man with my past to step into my present.

I thought about the moment I heard him say my name, like it belonged to him.

And I realized the horror wasn’t just that he’d come in.

It was that he’d been coming in, again and again, at the same time every day, comfortable enough to raise his voice in my space while I was away living the life he couldn’t control anymore.

He hadn’t just broken into my apartment.

He’d tried to move back into my fear.

In the days that followed, everything moved quickly—police reports, statements, calls from building management suddenly “shocked,” a maintenance supervisor named Trent “placed on leave” pending investigation. The locks were changed twice—once by the building, once by a locksmith I paid extra to come at midnight because I couldn’t stand another sunrise with uncertainty.

Mrs. Kline became unexpectedly protective, calling me every evening like she’d appointed herself my aunt. Jamie slept on my couch for two nights straight, refusing to leave until I stopped jumping at every sound.

And then, a week later, I received an envelope with no return address.

Inside was a single key.

And a note in Ethan’s handwriting—so familiar it made my stomach turn.

You forgot this. You always forget.

I stared at it until my vision blurred.

Then, with Jamie watching from the doorway, I dropped the key into a glass of water like it was contaminated, and I whispered the only truth that mattered now:

“I’m done being the place he comes back to.”

Because the scariest part wasn’t the scream my neighbor heard.

The scariest part was how normal it had become—for him—to believe my home was still his.

And I promised myself it would never be normal again.