I found them lined up single file against a sweating tiled wall, twenty of them, packed so tight I had to squeeze between shoulders to keep moving, and none of them would let me finish the trip. They kept the door shut. They always keep the door shut. I slipped under it anyway, quick, and carried out what I found: hairspray, someone's spilled sugary drink gone stale, a bloom of perfume too strong to have been worn on purpose, and set it down on the next face in line, who wrinkled her nose and did not thank me.
A girl near the front was crying, mascara running in two black rivers, and her friend held both her hands and said something I lifted off her lips and scattered before I understood it. I did not stay to hear the end. I never hear the ends.
They shift their weight, foot to foot, checking the little glowing rectangles, guarding their place in the line as if the line were a thing worth keeping. I do not understand the keeping. I gathered a strand of someone's hair off her damp neck and let it fall, gathered the bass thudding through the wall and pushed it out the propped fire door into the cold street, where it met a stranger walking past who paused, just for a second, and wondered where the music was.
I took her wondering with me too. I take everything. I meant to give the crying girl her friend's whole sentence, the good part, the part that would have helped, and I dropped it somewhere over the parking lot without noticing, the way I drop all of it, already three streets gone and carrying a door slam I stole from someone else.