Open as though resuming a conversation you both walked out of. Push off from this if it helps: a chair nobody sits in.

Yeah, no, it's still there. Wedged between the filing cabinet and the window like it's waiting for someone to notice it's furniture now, not a — I don't know what I want to call it. Marcus asked me last week if he could take it for his apartment and I said no before I even thought about why.

The leg. Back left, the one that never sat flush anyway. I keep meaning to shim it and I keep not doing it, which — fine, you can make that into something if you want. Everyone always wants the chair to mean something. Sometimes a leg's just short because whoever built it didn't measure twice. Not everything's a metaphor for you to unpack over coffee.

Marcus fixed his own radiator with duct tape and a prayer, so let's not — he's not "handy," he's confident, which is different. I'm not defensive, I just don't think a wobbly chair leg needs an intervention. It's a Tuesday problem. You're the one who brought a screwdriver to a conversation about furniture, so maybe ask yourself what you actually came here to fix.

I called because the downstairs neighbor's been leaving notes again, and I needed to say it out loud to someone who wasn't going to write it down and use it later. That's not — I didn't call you to talk about the chair, that was you. I called because you never actually apologized about the deposit, and I keep waiting for you to bring it up first.

Your hands were clean because you left before the walkthrough. I stood there with the guy for forty minutes explaining the hole in the wall you said was "already like that." It wasn't already like that, I have photos from move-in. You didn't come to see the chair. Nobody drives forty minutes for a chair. You came because it's easier than calling and just saying you were wrong.

That's not an apology, that's you telling me to accept one you haven't given yet. "Take the apology" isn't the same as saying it. I don't care about the fever, I care that you said "already like that" to a man holding a clipboard, knowing it wasn't true. Say that part. Just that part. Not the whole speech, just that.

Wall's not the point anymore. That's — thank you. No, I mean it, sit down a second, you don't have to leave right after. The chair's actually got a spare cushion if you want it, it's just been sitting there collecting dust because nobody's used it in months.

Bribe — Christ, it's a cushion, not a peace treaty. Fine, leave, but don't dress it up like you were owed honesty and got none. You just handed me one true sentence in twenty minutes and now you're using it as an exit ramp. That's not honesty either, that's just quitting with better posture.