“I think I’m catching a bug,” I whisper, dry heaving.
“What?” she yells, the television noise going down just a notch.
Rolling my eyes, I shift back from my knees and settle against the hideous puke-green wall for a moment to catch my breath.
I wipe a hand across my face, and the smell of vomit makes me lurch forward again. I thump my head against the lid. When I finish, I catch out of the corner of my eye the outline of Diane leaning against the doorjamb. She stares at me, her eyes defeated. “Oh, my dear heavens, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
“Huh?” My sweaty face stares up at her, beads of perspiration dripping down my back.
“Don’t ‘huh’ me. You’re knocked up!” She jabs the air with her cigarette butt. “I know that face. And that telltale sign.”
“You don’t know shit.” I close my eyes as I hear the faucet turn on. I refuse to look at her and feel something cold pressing against my forehead.
Oh God, has she gone mad?
I open my eyes in surprise at the wetness, and Diane’s holding a washcloth against my face. Gently, she says, “You know you can’t be bringing no baby into this house . . .”
I nod.
“We don’t have the room.”
“I know, Diane,” I moan. “Believe me, I know.”
“I wanted you to have more . . .”
“More than what? This?” Incredulous, I motion around the dumpy apartment. “Any part of town is better than here.”
“That isn’t so. You have a roof over your head, and you don’t live on the streets.”
“But I will soon,” I say dejectedly.
“Well, maybe we can work something out. You can get a job and pay rent.” She juts her bottom lip out. “Is that wannabe model skateboarder the daddy?”
“Justin?” I say. “You mean Justin.”
“Yeah, that one.” She punches the air with her cigarette butt. “He’s a wannabe something.” She claps her hands gleefully, forcing me to catch the rough cotton before it drowns in the toilet. “Is he going to help?”
“Diane . . .” I swallow hard. “It’s nobody’s, because I’m not pregnant. The flu’s going around. Half my class is sick.”
“Sure, it is,” she says, eyeballing me intently, her wrinkled face aged beyond its years by nicotine and alcohol.
“Can I use your bed to sleep? I need some rest.”
Tiredness settles in, bone deep, as I struggle to keep my eyes open, even in my current state. I could just lie down in the small closet-size bathroom and sleep for days, or maybe years, like Rip Van Winkle.
“No, not if it’s really ‘the flu,’ as you claim,” she says, using air quotes. “I can’t get sick. I got an overnight shift tonight.” Snatching the washcloth from my hand, she adds, “Get some sleep, because later I need you to watch the boys.”
She stalks out of the room and slams the bathroom door behind her, its rickety frame groaning. I reach a hand out for the edge of the countertop and slowly pull myself up. The vanity has seen better days, the rotted oak stained in places. It’s like a guessing game, trying to figure out which of the drawers open and which are glued shut. The disgusting aftertaste in my mouth is overpowering, and I scrub my tongue with my toothbrush, gargle with mouthwash, and then repeat the process, trying to erase the taste of vomit and bile.
Still feeling dizzy, I ease myself back down to the faded linoleum. I can hear the television blaring a soap opera from the living room, the volume back up to obnoxiously high. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I curl up in a ball, the raggedy bath mat acting as a buffer between me and the cold floor. Reaching up, I yank a towel hanging from the rack and use it as a blanket. Diane’s voice shouts at the TV, or maybe me, through the thin door. I pay her no mind, shutting my eyes in surrender.
I drift off, and the image of Charlotte’s face, along with my father’s shadow, haunts me. Both of them dance in front of my eyes, their expressions a stark contrast to each other. They keep asking me questions, but no one responds to mine. It’s like neither one hears me, my voice on mute, so they talk to me over and over, but it’s the same loop. Frustrated, I start to scream, hands pressed to my ears, but they don’t notice. Louder and louder I shriek, which makes them talk faster and faster until their words are nothing but jumbled thoughts. Then I suddenly appear in a dark room, with no lights and no furniture, lying on my back on cold concrete. The ceiling starts to move, but it doesn’t levitate; instead it closes in on me, slowly shrinking the space above me inch by inch, until I can reach a hand out to touch it. As I press my palm to it, the last inch between us is removed, and my nose now rests against it.
It doesn’t stop; the smell of paint and cigarette smoke fills my nostrils as I take my last breath, and the desire to scream echoes from my lips as it clamps down on me.
I jerk awake to one of the boys perched on my chest, his weight the reason for my sense of suffocation. Tugging my hair, he giggles, “Why are you sleeping in the bathroom, silly?”
“Because I’m a silly goose.” I tickle his sides. “Okay, get off me so I can get up and make you a snack.”
“Do we even have anything to eat?”
His question breaks my heart, and I consider Justin’s idea. “Soon we’ll have all the food in the world.” I tap his nose as I slowly rise, my hands grasping for the towel rack. I’m careful not to yank it from the wall, where rusted screws precariously hold it in place.
“Someone left something outside.” He grabs my hand. “Come see.”
He tiptoes out the front door like we’re on a secret spy mission, holding his finger up like a fake pistol, his eyes darting left and right to check the hallway for the bad guys.
Pointing down, he mouths, “There it is.”
A tied plastic bag rests on the faded welcome mat, which until now I’ve never noticed. I’m unsure of when we even acquired it, and the colors are muddied by time and dirt.
Great. Did Justin bring the few items I left at his place as further confirmation that we’re broken up? My eyes start to fill with tears, and I roughly wipe them with the back of my hand.
No, he wouldn’t have come here today.
It’s the beginning of the week, and he has a full load of classes.
Maybe it was our neighbors, who couldn’t be bothered to dispose of their waste, human or animal—one and the same to me. One has a yappy terrier mix that constantly gets into scuffles with a pit bull down the hall, both trying to assert their dominance.
Kind of like Diane, I think.
Gingerly, I touch the plastic bag like it might attack me, thankful there’s no awful smell of dog shit.
Must be garbage someone left.
Deciding to take it to the dumpster, I shudder at the thought of more cockroaches and rats than we already have. But because you should always check for buried treasure, or in this case, food, I take a quick peek inside the bag.
A neighbor scrawled a quick note, saying someone in the parking lot was looking for our apartment number. In this complex, our neighbors know better than to snitch, just in case you don’t want to be found, so they dropped it at our door.
A small cardboard box is inside.