1 Rachel was obsessively, hopelessly obsessed with food. Not just eating it, but creating it—spending hours in our cramped kitchen meticulously testing recipes for her cooking vlog, layering spices, measuring temperatures, chasing some elusive culinary perfection. The real problem wasn't her cooking. It was the leftovers. When she packed up a pristine, oversized glass container for the ninety-sixth time and headed across the carpeted hallway toward Apartment 2601—where Frank Bodine, a fifty-year-old newly released ex-con, lived alone—I finally reached my limit. "Rachel, please," I said, stepping into the doorway to block her path, my voice tight with an urgency she consistently refused to hear. "Just make smaller portions. Or throw it in the trash. Seriously." Rachel paused, balancing the heavy pink insulated tote bag in her hands. She gave me a look of mild, patronizing exasperation. "He’s our neighbor, Paige. He lives on instant noodles and gas station sandwiches. Why waste good food?" "Because you're asking him to clear your plates ninety-six times!" I pleaded, my heart hammering against my ribs. "He’s a lonely, volatile older man. What happens when he misunderstands your charity? What happens when he thinks you’re doing this because you’re in love with him, and he decides to confess?" Rachel shrugged, her expression as casual as if we were discussing the weather. "Then what? I just say no." "Rachel, do you even hear yourself?" My voice cracked, rising an octave into a near-shriek. "Frank didn't go to prison for armed robbery or tax fraud! He served twenty years because he slashed a woman’s throat after she turned down his romantic advances!" Before Rachel could reply, Megan—our third roommate—slid off the couch, setting her phone down with an audible pop of her bubblegum. She rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might roll right out of her head. "God, Paige, give it a break," Megan scoffed, crossing her arms. "Frank already did his time. You think he wants to go back to a federal penitentiary over some girl? He’s practically an old man now. He’s scared of his own shadow." She leaned against the kitchen counter, tossing her long, highlighted hair over her shoulder. "You watch way too many dark true-crime podcasts. It’s making you paranoid. You always jump straight to the worst possible scenario about people." I stood there, swallowed up by a suffocating silence. I looked from Megan’s dismissive, smirk-tinged face to Rachel’s soft, unbothered smile, and a cold, heavy lump of dread settled deep in the pit of my stomach. They thought I was dramatic. They thought I was crazy. Later that evening, around eight o'clock, I took the elevator down to the lobby to grab a package. The doors slid open on the way down, and Frank Bodine stepped inside. He was wearing his usual greasy gray canvas jacket, smelling faintly of cheap cigarettes and sawdust. He was holding an old smartphone to his ear, his thick back turned to me, completely oblivious to my presence in the corner. "Yeah, ninety-nine of them," Frank’s voice echoed in the enclosed metal box, deep, raspy, and unnaturally smooth. "Long-stem, premium red roses. I’ll pick them up in two days." He paused, listening to whoever was on the other end, before letting out a low, guttural chuckle that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "Just in case she says no," Frank added quietly, his fingers tightening around the phone, "I’ll have the heavy nylon rope and the hunting knife ready in my jacket." My blood ran instantly cold. My breath hitched in my chest, terrifyingly loud in my own ears, but Frank never turned around. The elevator chimed at the lobby, and I practically stumbled out into the cool evening air, my hands trembling violently as I pulled up my phone and opened a rental app. I needed to get the hell out of this apartment. Fast. 2 When I got back upstairs, Rachel was already stationed at the dining table, surrounded by plastic prep bowls, carefully scoring lines into thick slabs of pork belly for tomorrow’s dish. Megan was curled up on the sofa again, mindlessly scrolling through short video clips. I slammed the front door shut, leaned against it, and took a deep breath. "Listen to me. Both of you. I am not joking, and I am not being paranoid." I repeated every single word I had just heard in the elevator—Frank's gravelly tone, the order for ninety-nine roses, the rope, the knife. "Rachel, I did the math," I said, stepping closer to the table, my voice trembling with raw desperation. "Two days from now is Saturday. Saturday will be the ninety-ninth time you’ve brought food across the hall to him. Ninety-nine meals. Ninety-nine red roses. He’s planning to confess his love to you on Saturday. And if you say no, he’s going to use that rope and knife to force you." Rachel laid her chef's knife down on the cutting board with a sharp thud. She lifted her head, her face contorted in sheer irritation. "Paige, seriously, go get your head checked," she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "You need professional help. You literally have clinical persecutory delusion." Megan burst into a loud, mocking laugh from the couch. "Oh, absolutely. Paige needs to stop working at the bank and go write cheap airport thrillers. Her imagination is insane." I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat. I looked at the two of them—so smug, so completely blind, tucked safely inside their own ridiculous bubbles of ignorance. Fine, I thought, a cold bitterness washing over me. You can't save someone who is actively running toward the cliff. I turned around, walked into my bedroom, and locked the door behind me. I opened my laptop and began desperately searching for available apartments. Our current place was twenty-six miles from the city center—a massive, outdated three-bedroom unit on the twenty-sixth floor of an old high-rise. It was a brutal commute to my job at the downtown bank branch, but the rent was impossibly cheap: split three ways, I only paid $500 a month including utilities. But no amount of saved money was worth getting murdered in my sleep. At seven-thirty the next morning, I slung my work tote over my shoulder, ready to head out. The kitchen was already engulfed in a cloud of hot, shimmering oil. Rachel was standing over a deep fryer, dropping thick pieces of seasoned pork belly into the bubbling fat. "Paige, wait!" she called out cheerfully, flipping a piece over with metallic tongs. "I’m making braised pork shoulder with taro today—your absolute favorite hometown comfort food! No matter how hungry you are after your shift tonight, don't you dare eat out. You have to come home and taste this batch!" I stepped into the kitchen, looking at the counter. Just as I feared, there were pounds upon pounds of raw and fried pork—enough to feed a small army, let alone three young women. "Rachel," I said softly, making one last attempt at reason. "Please. Tonight, whatever we don't finish, just store it in the fridge or toss it. Do not—" "Enough!" Rachel shrieked, slamming the tongs against the edge of the metal pot with a deafening clang. Her face turned bright red, her eyes bugging out in rage. "Paige, if you’re sick, go see a damn doctor! Stop buzzing in my ear every single second of the day! It is incredibly fucking annoying!" I stood frozen, shocked by the venom in her voice. But I squeezed my lips together, swallowed the lump in my throat, and said quietly, "Fine. See you tonight." 3 Fate seemed to have a sick sense of humor. When I stepped into the elevator on the ground floor after work that evening, Frank Bodine walked in right behind me. My heart instantly climbed into my throat. He was wearing his filthy canvas work coat, but in his left hand, he held a thick, tightly wound coil of yellow industrial nylon rope. Tucked under his arm was a heavy, curved brush sickle with a gleaming, freshly sharpened steel blade. I instinctively shrank into the corner, keeping my eyes glued to the illuminated floor numbers on the digital display above the door. 12... 13... 15... Please go faster. Please. "Hey... Rachel’s roommate," Frank’s gravelly voice broke the heavy silence. I stiffened, my fingers gripping the strap of my purse so hard my knuckles turned white. He turned to face me, a grotesque, yellowed smile spreading across his weathered, leathery face. "Can you do me a quick favor?" he asked. I forced my facial muscles into a stiff, terrified mask of composure. "What... what kind of favor?" "What color flowers does Rachel like?" He pulled a scuffed smartphone from his pocket with his free hand, thumbing through the screen, and stepped closer to me. "Help me take a look at these. Which one looks better?" He held the screen in front of my face. It was a photo gallery filled with massive, ornate floral arrangements—dozens of promotional pictures of rose bouquets. Rachel had casually mentioned months ago that she loved white roses. My voice trembled uncontrollably as I pointed a shaky finger at a photo of a white bouquet. "M-maybe... maybe this white one?" Frank stared at the screen for two long, agonizing seconds. Then, his thumb slowly swiped across the display, bypassing the white flowers completely until he landed on an aggressive, blood-red arrangement. "White is unlucky," Frank said softly, his tone completely flat, devoid of any warmth. "White is for funerals. Red is much better." He turned his head slowly, his dark, sunken eyes fixing on mine. The sickle under his arm gleamed dully under the harsh fluorescent lights of the elevator. "Don't you think so, Rachel’s roommate?" The question felt like a blade pressed against my windpipe. I knew that if I disagreed, if I said the wrong word, that sickle would be swung straight into my neck before the doors could even open. "Yes... yes, absolutely," I stammered, nodding like a broken bobblehead. "Red is great. Red is much better!" Ding. The elevator reached the twenty-sixth floor. The moment the metallic doors slid apart, I bolted out into the hallway like a sprinter leaving the blocks, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs. I shoved our front door open and rushed inside. The dining table was already covered in a ridiculous feast—bowls upon bowls of steaming, aromatic braised pork belly and soft taro. Rachel was standing there, carefully stacking yet another plate on top of the pile like a madwoman. She was a food vlogger, yes, but whenever I used to ask her why she cooked ten times what three people could physically consume, she would always boast, ‘I have to keep making it until I get the absolute perfect shot for my audience.’ Megan was setting out forks and cloth napkins, looking up bright-eyed as I burst into the room. I paused, catching my breath, the terror of the elevator still fresh in my veins. I couldn't help myself. "Rachel... Uncle Frank is really, genuinely convinced that you are in love with him. Please, I am begging you, do not give him the leftovers tonight. If you do, something horrible is—" Rachel unbuckled her apron, hung it on the wall hook, and sat down at the head of the table. Her face was dark with an icy, simmering disdain. "Paige, Frank is fifty years old," she said slowly, her tone dripping with condescension. "He is twenty-five years older than me. He is older than my own father." She picked up her fork, taking a delicate bite of pork. "He sees me as a niece, or a daughter. Nothing more. He spent over twenty years in a maximum-security prison. He has no family, no children, no one to care for him." Megan swallowed a piece of taro and immediately jumped in, pointing her fork at me accusingly. "Rachel is completely right. Frank just looks at her like a daughter he never had. Honestly, it’s heartbreaking. He did his time, he can’t get a decent job anywhere, and he’s out there working brutal twelve-hour shifts on construction sites at his age just to survive." Megan gave me a look of deep, self-righteous disapproval. "Rachel bringing him home-cooked meals is a gesture of human kindness. She’s doing a good deed, Paige. As her friends, we should be supporting her, not judging her with your weird, twisted prejudices." I looked at Megan’s smug, pious face, then at Rachel’s proud expression, and felt a profound, overwhelming sense of futility. My jaw worked silently, but no words came out. I picked up my bowl and began eating in total silence. 4 By the time dinner was over, four large ceramic bowls of braised pork and taro remained completely untouched. Rachel carefully transferred the steaming food into a set of brand-new, oversized pastel-pink Tupperware containers. She sealed them with matching lids, placed them inside a stylish pink gift bag, and walked out the front door. I stood near the entryway, watching through the crack of our front door as she knocked on Apartment 2601. The door opened almost instantly. Standing in the threshold was Frank Bodine. Instead of his usual frayed black thermal underwear and sweatpants, he was wearing a sleek, matching set of black silk button-down pajamas. They looked brand-new, freshly ironed, and entirely absurd on his bulky, stooped frame. "Uncle Frank, I made way too much braised pork shoulder tonight," Rachel said, offering her sweetest, most charming neighborly smile. "I can't possibly finish it all, so I'm relying on you to help me clear it out again!" Frank took the heavy pink bag. But unlike the previous ninety-five times, he didn't offer a polite, awkward thank-you. Instead, he stepped closer to the doorway, his voice dropping into a low, intimate murmur that vibrated down the quiet hallway. "Rachel... I heard girls your age really like it when a guy wears a dark silk shirt." Frank smoothed down the front of his shiny black top, leaning slightly toward her. "What do you think of this set? Do you... do you like it on me?" Rachel stepped back slightly, tilting her head as if evaluating a piece of art, a bright, bubbly laugh escaping her lips. "Oh, wow, Uncle Frank! You look so handsome! Seriously, way better than those old thermals." She patted his arm playfully. "You look twenty years younger! If you keep dressing like this, I guarantee you'll be welcoming a lady of the house in no time!" I knew what Rachel meant—she was offering a harmless, encouraging joke, hoping the lonely old man across the hall might eventually find a companion his own age so he wouldn't die alone. But standing in that doorway, watching Frank’s face, I saw the exact moment the wires crossed in his distorted, violent brain. Frank’s pale face flushed a deep, mottled red. His sunken eyes gleamed with a terrifying, childlike bashfulness. His voice trembled with a dark, heavy excitement. "Soon," Frank whispered, nodding slowly to himself. "There’s gonna be a lady of the house moving in real soon." When Rachel returned to our apartment and shared the exchange, Megan literally squealed, jumping off the couch with genuine excitement. "Shut up! Is Uncle Frank actually getting a girlfriend?!" Megan gasped, clapping her hands together. "Oh my god, I am dying to know what kind of woman would actually agree to date an ex-con his age! When she moves in, we have to spy on them!" Rachel walked over to the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of eggs for her breakfast prep, and burst into a fit of cruel laughter. "Oh, please, it’s probably some desperate streetwalker from the red-light district downtown," Rachel snorted, holding her stomach as she doubled over. "What normal, decent woman in her right mind would ever sleep with a convicted felon who just got out of prison? Hahaha!" They collapsed into a shared fit of giggles, clutching each other on the couch, laughing until their eyes watered. I sat at the kitchen island, staring at them in absolute, horrifying disbelief. They had built this entire twisted dynamic—feeling morally superior by pitying him one second, and utterly despising and mocking him the next. And neither of them possessed a single brain cell to realize that the 'desperate woman' Frank was talking about... was Rachel herself. I opened my mouth, a final warning rising in my throat. But then I stopped. An ancient saying I had read years ago echoed in my mind: Do not interfere with another’s karma. You cannot bestow wisdom upon the foolish, and you cannot save those who are determined to burn. I turned around and walked quietly into my room.
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