"She called you a bitch and a whore, spray-painted it on your front window in pink."
Tate goes very still. Her expression doesn't change, but something hardens behind her eyes. "Show me."
"Tate—"
"Show me now."
She grabs a hoodie off a chair I can see through the doorway and pulls it on over her shirt. Shoves her feet into pink flip-flops. We go down the stairs together, but my mind keeps racing through worst-case scenarios—her calling the cops, filing charges, blaming me for bringing this into her life. All reasonable responses.
We round the corner. Morning light is stronger now, sunlight breaking the horizon, and the pink spray paint is vivid against the glass. Bright, obscene, and impossible to miss.
Tate stops and stares at it.
I watch her face, trying to read what she's thinking. Scared? Hurt? Angry? She's very still. Too still. Her expression is blank.
I'm about to apologize again, to try to explain that Marianne is unhinged and this isn't normal.
"Her man?"
"What?"
"She thinks you're her man. Are you?"
"No. We broke up two years ago."
"Guess she doesn't know that." Tate steps closer to the window and massages the back of her neck. "There's no comma."
"What?"
"It says 'my manwhore.' One word. If you're going to vandalize property with gendered slurs, at least use proper punctuation. She basically insulted you and called you a manwhore, even though she clearly meant the whore is me."
I stare at her. I came here expecting to comfort her, defend myself, and deal with her fear, anger, or tears. Instead, she's casually critiquing proper punctuation. "You're not scared?"
"I'm pissed, but I'm not scared of someone who can't punctuate correctly." She casts me a sideways glance. "You have supplies to clean this?"
"Yeah. We can call the cops first?—"
"I'm not calling cops over spray paint." She raises an eyebrow. "Unless you want to leave it up for the whole block to see what your ex thinks of me."
With a deep sigh, I turn toward Sullivan's. "I'll get supplies."
I grab everything from the storage closet—bucket, glass scraper, razor blades for stubborn spots on glass, rags, and heavy-duty glass cleaner.
I hand Tate a scraper and show her the angle—forty-five degrees against glass, short controlled strokes, not too much pressure or the blade skips. "Like this." I demonstrate on the B in BITCH. Pink paint curls away in thin strips, satisfying despite the circumstances.
She watches, nods once, and takes position on the right side of the window. I take BITCH. She takes everything else.
Spray paint on glass is stubborn, designed to stick to surfaces that are smooth and non-porous. The scraper helps but it takes effort, and my forearms burn after two minutes.
My shoulders are already protesting from the awkward position, bent forward to reach the top of the letters. The scraping fills the silence between us. Metal on glass, rhythmic and slightly grating.
Five minutes pass. BITCH is mostly gone, just pink ghosts on the glass. My back hurts, my arm hurts. I'm starting to sweat despite the cool morning air, from effort and from being this close to Tate.
"So," Tate says without looking at me. "Your ex."
"Don't want to talk about her."
"She spray-paints on my window. I deserve context."