Page 8 of Damaged

“Cocky” is all I say.

“Mm. No. Confident,” James corrects me. “So where do you live, specifically.”

“I’m at the Blossoms.”

“On Cherry Street?”

“You know it?”

He’s dead silent for too long. “Oh yes, I know it,” he says, like he has history there. An ex, maybe.

“It’s not bad. I don’t need roommates, so I’m not complaining.” I say this, but a roommate to split rent with would make my life much, much easier. I’m trying to make something like that work with my two best friends, Hailee and Alana. Right now, I don’t have an emergency fund or a retirement fund. Or any of those funds that articles online tell me I should have by a certain age.

I watch James’s right hand resting on the center console. Thick blue veins web the back of it. I feel myself growing hot, and I point the vent fan away from me and speak to fill the air.

“I’m probably moving out soon, anyway.”

“How come?”

“They converted the floor above mine into a single penthouse, and this nightmare moved in.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He’s a comically bad neighbor. Unless you’re deaf. It’s loud sex. Loud music. And then he does what I can only assume are burpees at four in the morning, banging the floor.”

“I—” James starts to talk, but I interrupt him. I’m finally venting about something that’s been getting on my nerves for months, and I’m not holding back.

“Last week I had to look at a painting done by a man who dipped his balls in paint and dragged them across the canvas. It’s supposedly some masterpiece of masculinity. Can you guess how much it went for?”

“Um. Thirty thousand?”

“About ten times that. Over four-hundred grand. It would take me years to make that money. I’m getting off topic, but I’m trying to paint the mood I was in. So, I get home after I’m forced to hear all about this one-of-a-kind piece, and I lie down to go to bed, and you know what I hear? Sex. I hear sex. More specifically, I hear…” I trail off and shake my head.

I could only say balls in front of this stranger so many times without seeming deranged.

“Balls?” James fills in the blank again.

“Yes. I hear balls. The sound of them slapping on skin. And I hear it all the time now. It’s like my apartment is haunted by ghosts who bang.”

“Sounds like a rough time. Have you ever complained to management?”

“No. I don’t want to be that woman.”

“What about talking to your neighbor?”

I shake my head.

“It sounds like you’ve tried absolutely nothing and are all out of options.”

I lean back, a little offended. I’m frustrated, but James is right. “I guess that’s true. I just wish people had the self-awareness not to do shit like that in the first place.”

We pull up in front of the Blossoms, but we pass the entrance. My stomach shoots into my throat. Am I about to be kidnapped? “Hey, James, that was my stop.”

The SUV slows in front of the door to the parking garage. The garage door opens. My mouth is open in confusion for a few seconds before more fear fills my blood.

But it’s not fear for my life. It’s mortification.

“Do you live here?” I ask, my voice almost trembling.

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