Short

The tape kept retracting

before I could get the number down.

Third try, the edge caught my thumb—

a clean red line.

Marcus called it out

from the other side of the room.

Said it quietly—

the way you say a number

when the number is less

than what the thing requires.

We both looked at the room.

I wrote it down.

The tape was already coiled back in its casing,

the yellow plastic warm in my hand.

He said people make it work.

I nodded and looked at the window

and thought about the word sublet—

how it sounds like something

surrendered in sections.

The red line on my thumb

was already going pale.