Page 33 of David

Her lips tremble with a smile, and emotions glisten in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she says before we hug.

5

LIZ

Thursday

“This is the last one,” I say as the real estate agent pushes the door open and invites me in.

“The last one in your budget, yes.”

She’s far from being sarcastic.

She’s just working with what I have budgeted for my new place.

I can’t go over a certain figure, or I’ll need to reconsider living with Terry for the foreseeable future.

Every person I talked to said it was a bad idea for me to start living on my own in this economy, especially with my scarce resources.

I didn’t argue with them.

I knew that as well.

I walk in.

It’s an old house that nobody has occupied in a while.

However, the owners have made some upgrades and turned it into a rental, and it’s quite cozy.

It’s small—tiny, I should say. And it doesn’t allow pets, which doesn’t sit well with me—not because I have a pet but because I’d love to have that option.

The open layout makes it look like a studio, and I like that, although it’s far from what I had in mind.

I would've liked a creative space in a studio above a cafe on a busy street.

The house is minutes away from the coffee shop where I spend my weekends, allegedly writing, and that’s a plus.

It’s a fifteen-minute walk, to be exact, which is great.

The coffee shop is in a small plaza, where I can buy groceries, eat Chinese or Italian, and purchase home goods when necessary.

It’s not bad.

A ten-minute drive, and I’m downtown, where everything happens. The park, coffeehouses, restaurants, bakeries, and boutiques are all there.

I could have the best of both worlds.

It’s a bit far from the campus, but my school is far from my mother’s place as well, so it’s practically the same thing.

The woman walks around the space, talking, while I try to envision myself living here. The small kitchen table only has two chairs and is tucked next to the window.

The woman gives me a brief history of the place as if that piece of information could make it more attractive.

It’s not a bad place. And it’s not a great place either.

The windows are small, the ceiling is rather low, and the wooden floors creak. But it’s clean, and the walls are freshly painted, which helps.

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