Chapter Nine: The First Rule (The Apple Core)

[Pa****]

I found it at noon: a crescent of wet pulp on the counter, seeds sticking like small eyes. Not forgotten—placed. A mark left to see what kind of house this is.
I didn’t move it.
She drifted in a few minutes later, a borrowed T-shirt hanging loose. Her gaze landed on the core and then slid away, like it belonged to no one.
“Seraphine,” I said.
She looked at me, not at the counter. Waiting for tone, for danger, for the old script.
I tapped the wood beside the core. “Yours?”
A heartbeat. “Maybe.”
“No,” I said. “It’s yours.”
Silence stretched. The cat leapt up, sniffed the sweet edge, then sat between us like a blue-eyed judge.
“This house isn’t a shelter you slink through,” I said, calm as the kitchen light. “It’s a place you live. What you touch, you tend. What you take, you finish. What you mark, you clean.”
Her jaw set. It wasn’t rage—just the old habit of bracing. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Own it,” I said. “Then fix it.”
She stared another moment, waiting for the trick that never came. Then she picked up the core, dropped it into the bin, and stood there, unsure.
I handed her a cloth. “Wipe.”
I slid the soap toward the sink. “Rinse.”
I touched the knife she’d left. “Dry. Put away.”
She moved stiffly at first, every motion a negotiation with pride. But when she set the knife back in its place, something in her shoulders eased—barely, but it did.
“That’s the first rule here,” I said. “Respect. Nothing is free—not silence, not shelter, not the hands that keep it. If you leave a mark, you make it right. If you’re unsure, you ask.”
She nodded once, eyes lowered, not in defeat but in thought. The cat brushed her wrist, a soft absolution.
“Say it back to me,” I said.
Her throat worked. “Respect. Nothing is free. If I leave a mark, I make it right.”
“Good.” I stepped aside, giving her the space she’d just earned. “Go on.”
She didn’t bolt. Didn’t bristle. She folded the cloth, set it where it belonged, and for the first time left the room without taking the air with her.
The first rule was never about the counter. It’s about the line between a place you pass through and a place that begins to be yours.