One Buzz Short Of Mine

My building's buzzer has never worked right. Half the panel's mislabeled, so people ring 4B for 4D all the time and I stopped answering years ago.

Tonight it started at unit one. Then two. Working straight up the panel, one buzz each, maybe twenty seconds apart, like someone reading down a list. I told myself it's a delivery guy who can't find the right unit, or somebody locked out and drunk enough to just try everyone.

By the time it hit unit nine I was standing in my own kitchen with the light off, which I don't remember deciding to do.

I live in ten.

It rang nine. Long pause. Then it started over at one.

I've lived here four years and never once put the chain on. I put it on tonight, quietly, the way you do something you don't want to admit you're doing. I keep telling myself the sensible thing, that it's nothing, that whoever it is gave up on the actual person they wanted and moved to the easier game of just trying doors.

I don't buzz anyone in. I don't call the front desk. I stand in my dark kitchen holding my phone with the intercom app open, watching the little screen for a face at nine, and it never comes, and I don't know if I'm relieved or if not seeing anyone is the actual bad part.