Chapter Five | Moving In
Rodney didn’t just help me move — he helped me step into the first real chapter of my adult life. Neither of us knew that the moment we carried that bed through the door, the ground under my feet had already started to shift.
Back in the 80s, renting a van was easy.
All you needed was a credit card and someone — anyone — with a license. Rodney was the first of us to get his, and he treated driving like a sport. He was excited, proud, ready to help his older brother start a new life.
We loaded the van with the few things I owned:
a bed,
a couple of boxes,
and the realization that I’d need to buy a dresser and an armoire because the room had no closets — something I somehow missed during the walkthrough.
When we arrived at the apartment, the first thing I noticed wasn’t the space or the light or the creaking floors.
It was the locks.
Still missing.
The lock on my room door — not installed.
The lock on the bathroom — also missing.
Both promised.
Both absent.
A small concern tightened in my chest, but I pushed it down.
Leon said he was working on it with the landlord.
He said it casually, like it was nothing.
Like it wasn’t the difference between privacy and vulnerability.
I wanted to believe him.
I needed to believe him.
So I brushed it off.
Rodney helped me carry the bed into the room with the parlor doors and the little square windows that looked straight into the hallway. No curtains. No lock. No way to shut the world out.
Still, I told myself it was temporary.
A stepping stone.
A beginning.
I didn’t know it yet, but those missing locks were the first cracks in a story that was about to turn.
And Leon…
Leon never cared.
