My favorite thing about my boyfriend’s apartment in New York, located a block from mine, was probably the roof deck where he proposed to me. My least favorite thing? Gotta be the rat who lived in the wall.

As New Yorkers, we were accustomed to sharing our space with other creatures, but most rodents had the decency to remind us of their existence only around trash heaps and in the subterranean train tunnels. But that early-morning (and late-afternoon, and evening…) scratching, inches from our heads, reminded us with its creepy proximity that we city-dwellers were never truly alone. Which can be equal turns unsettling and comforting, a mixture of extremes that is so New York.

Read the rest over at The Wheelhouse Review!