Floor Between

I just used the elevator because my groceries were making noise and my knees were hurting. One watermelon, two bags, and the sixth floor gave me the appearance of having stolen a planet. Mailboxes with teeth, a corridor that smells like everyone's meal, and an elevator that acts like it was once a large hotel's favorite toy are just a few examples of how ancient the building is.

I pressed 6. The doors closed like they were deciding to forgive me.

We jerked, hummed, and rose. Floors blinked: 1…2…3…4…5… then F.

Not 6. The letter. An elegant little F on the panel I’d never noticed. Not a fire key position, not a worn-out 7 pretending. Just F. Lit in a soft, patient orange.

The doors opened onto a hallway that shouldn’t exist.

It looked like my building, but… edited. Same patterned carpet, but the pattern had fewer arguments in it. Same paint color, only fresh. The air smelled like paper and rain. The lights buzzed without being mean about it.

Like a raccoon looking out of a dumpster, I leaned out. “Hello?”

No answer, which was a relief. I stepped out because curiosity pays my rent when common sense quits.

Left: an exit sign that pointed to a wall. Right: a hallway with doors that had neatly engraved KEEP, LEAVE, and LATER on little brass plates instead of numbers. That's what you do when your building turns into a guidance counselor, which is why I laughed.

The elevator didn’t close behind me. It waited, polite.

I tried KEEP first. Inside was… my living room. Mostly. My rug, only without the sauce stain shaped like South America. My couch, before the springs learned cruelty. The red bike lock key, the mailbox key from the flat we had run from at two in the morning, and the small silver key from a diary I had pretended not to maintain were all in a bowl on the coffee table that I had misplaced years ago.

I didn’t touch anything. I could smell my detergent and the exact lemon of a candle I ran out of two summers back. “Okay,” I said to nobody and also to the room that was listening. “We’re doing metaphors.”

Next door: LEAVE. This one looked like a storage unit where guilt pays rent. Boxes labeled “SOMEDAY” sagged in familiar ways. My ex’s sweater—soft, blue, indecisive—hung on a hook. Under it, a shoebox of cards people sent when Dad died, all the “thinking of yous” and “anything you need,” and the one that said nothing but had a pizza gift card inside like a small, edible prayer.

I took a step in. The bulb hummed. The sweater looked exactly like it did on the day I shoved it into a black bag and called that closure. I reached out, then pulled back. I simply didn't want to haggle with a coat rack because I'm not strong.

I nearly ran into someone as I retreated into the hallway.

“Sorry,” the woman said, and smiled with professional apology. Mid-thirties, cardigan with elbow patches, clipboard—that whole helpful aesthetic. “First time?”

“Is it obvious?”

“A little.” She checked something off without looking. “Don’t worry. No one remembers it’s here until they need it.”

“What is here?”

She gestured down the hall. “Floor Between,” she said, as if that cleared everything. “We hold things while you decide who you are without them. You can visit. You can look. You can put something down, if you like.”

“Can I take something back?”

“Of course,” she said, and her smile did that thing honest smiles do—they make you want to be better, not different.

I pointed at LATER. “What’s in there?”

She tilted her head. “Depends on how rude you are to yourself about time.”

I opened LATER and found every draft I never sent. Emails that begin with "Just checking in" and conclude with "Never mind." Paintings with one corner done so beautifully that it scared me. Voicemails I composed in the shower. A suitcase packed for trips I canceled out of fear and thrift.

The woman didn’t hover. She let me look until my eyes tried to water. “You don’t have to clean house today,” she said. “You can pick one item. Add one. Or shut the door and pretend not to know us until next time someone presses the wrong button.”

“I didn’t press it,” I said.

“Mm,” she said, which in any language means sure.

I took the elevator’s patience as a timer. Watermelon dislikes philosophy, but my groceries were being daring.

"All right," I murmured, stroking my hand on my jeans. “One item.”

I went back to LEAVE.

The sweater? Too dramatic. The boxes? Too many ghosts per square inch. The shoebox of cards… I knelt and lifted the lid. The paper smelled like glue and casseroles. On top, a note in my handwriting I didn’t remember writing: You can keep missing without keeping everything.

Fine. I took that note. I put the sweater on the hook more neatly than before. I slid the shoebox farther in, not hidden, just shelved like a book I’ll read again on purpose.

At KEEP, I scanned for something small enough to carry. The diary key winked. The red bike key sulked. A Polaroid of my mother holding a cake that had sagged in the center, like it was bowing, was on the table, nestled beneath the bowl. Even though we hadn't, her smile proclaimed, "Nailed it." I slid the photo into my pocket.

At LATER, I felt stupid and brave in equal amounts and pulled one envelope from a pile of drafts. The front said TASHA. The first line said, “I’m sorry I left you to say the hard thing alone.” I put it in my tote. You don’t need magic to put a stamp on honesty, but a nudge never hurts.

The woman with the clipboard reappeared as if summoned by decisions. “Good start,” she said.

“What do people usually take?”

“Proof,” she said. “Or permission.”

“And what do they leave?”

“Weight,” she said. “Or performance.”

“Is there a fee?” I asked because my landlord lives in my skull.

“Just carry what you chose,” she said. “And don’t pretend you didn’t.”

Back in the elevator, the F went out. 6 glowed like it always had. The car hummed in that embarrassed way old machines do after they tell you a secret. The doors opened on my real hallway—overcooked onions, someone arguing softly into a phone, my mail shoved halfway under my door like bills that learned to crawl.

I put my groceries away. The watermelon survived. The day felt normal, plus one extra layer, like wearing a shirt under a shirt. I set the Polaroid on the fridge with a magnet that says PAY ELECTRICITY as if joy is a utility. I tucked the draft to Tasha in my bag. I used my keys to slide the LEAVE note into the bowl, and at last, I felt the ceramic receive it like a pocket does a coin.

I rode to the lobby and back that evening, half out of habit and half out of dare. The panel behaved. No F. Just numbers doing their best.

“Fine,” I told the metal. “Be a building.”

I climbed the stairs the following morning with confidence in my own legs. A neighbor remained motionless on the third-floor landing, gazing at the panel beside the service elevator. An elegant F had lit up where the inspection sticker should be.

“You see that?” she asked me, voice small.

“Yeah,” I said. “Floor Between.”

“What’s that?”

“A place to put down one thing,” I said. “Or pick up one thing. Then come back upstairs and eat breakfast.”

She blinked. “Huh.”

We stood there a second like we were listening through the door of the day. The light went out. She shook herself and smiled. “Thanks,” she said, like I had done something. I hadn’t. I had just named it.

At lunch, I mailed the letter to Tasha. I went home and didn’t rehearse a conversation with a coat rack. I walked past the elevator without asking it for miracles.

Now and then, though, my thumb slips. The F glows, polite as ever. I step out, visit KEEP to remind myself I own good days too, peek at LATER to see which fear is calling itself practical this week, and drop one soft thing in LEAVE like a tithe.

I never stay long. Groceries, knees, taxes, sunlight, you know. Life’s upstairs.

But when the doors close and the car lifts, I touch the photo in my pocket and feel a little lighter, a little taller, like a building that found one more floor it can carry.