Page 14 of Sorrow

Closing the door, I scoot across the hall to the only room on the other side and finally find what I’m looking for. Like the kitchen, it’s adorned with marble countertops and vinyl wood flooring. I’ve gotta give him points forconsistency... and for the water pressure when I turn the faucet on in the shower. Holy hell. Ours seems like just a sad little trickle in comparison, and he has a bathtub, too. I’ve never taken a bath, yet something tells me this isn’t the day to start.

I’m slightly horrified when I realize I’ll have to use his shampoo and his body wash, though even that pales in comparison to the fact that I don’t have clean underwear to put on after.

The hits just keep on coming.

Instead of putting them back on once I’m clean, I skip them altogether and slide my jeans up. It’s... uncomfortable. I knew it would be, but it’s better than the alternative.

I guess that’s just my life now, constantly deciding between the lesser of two evils: being homeless or staying somewhere I’m not welcome, getting chafed by denim or wearing dirty panties. Driving around in a tagged vehicle or not driving at all.

It’s enough to drive a cursed girl insane.

8

Hayes

I still can’t believe I’m letting her stay in my house. Aside from contractors, Boo is the only person who has ever stepped foot inside here, and he knows better than to fuck anything up. Sam, on the other hand, is the type to move all my shit just because she knows I’d lose my mind. Just having her here in my space has my chest tight.

It’s the exact feeling I knew she’d bring, the one where you’re staring at the forecast awaiting a storm — a goddamn hurricane.

Still, she has nowhere to go. I may be an asshole set in his ways, but I’m not a monster.

Not to mention, I’d lose my mind not knowing she was okay. I hate it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Somehow she’s gone from Boo’s little sister to someoneburied deep under my skin, and a part of me might always resent her for it.

Maybe it’s my fault. I push and tease and rile her up because I’m bored, and we live in a piece of shit city I would have left a long time ago if... well, I don’t actually know why I’m still here.

Whatever. It’s time to make that ridiculous woman some breakfast and pretend we’re just two people hanging out instead of who we really are.

Piece of cake.

But when she comes back out and walks past me smelling like my shower products, I have this strange feeling of ownership over her that doesn’t make sense. In fact, it pisses me the fuck off. I don’t own her, I can’t. Even if it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her as a kid, I call her that anyway to remind myself who she is and why I’ll never have her. Why I can’t have these feelings of desire for her. I fuckingcan’t.

So I push.

“Did you just get right back in your dirty panties?” I scrunch up my nose like I’m grossed out and not at all wondering what they smell like. Yeah, this isn’t going well.

This is exactly what I didn’t want to fucking happen.

“No. I left them as a present for you on the bathroom floor and just put my pants back on like a man,” she counters.

“Like a man?” I splutter, then try to act like my brain delay is caused by her statement and not the fact that she isn’t wearing panties. “We wear underwear.” Are they really on the ground? Fuck. “You’re a menace.”

“Call me whatever you want, I need to hold onto some of my dignity.”

By going commando. Makes sense.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll make us bacon and eggs. Go sit by the furnace, Hurricane.”

I may have just started calling her that out loud, but she’s been that for a while in my head. Samuel was just easier to stick to, no explanation needed. But she knows how I view her now, and I might as well have confessed my obsession right then and there.

She still doesn’t get it, though. Her ice blue eyes look as sad as ever as she makes her way to the couch, like Hurricane is just the next in a long list of insults she doesn’t understand. I’ve never met anyone in my life who tries to hide it the way she does.

I watch her as I cook, noting the way she’s staring at my blank television even though the remote is right next to her. She’s justgone through something traumatizing, so I don’t judge the emptiness radiating off of her as I toss together a bacon and cheese omelet. I leave her alone until I’m finished buttering some sourdough toast then pull her back to reality. “Come eat. On the table, never on the couch.”

I can’t fucking stand lying on crumbs.

“You’re a riot at parties, aren’t you?” she asks flatly, but obeys nonetheless. I get another whiff of my body wash as she moves past me to sit at the small round table. “Thank you for this. I guess I forgive you for eating my breakfast that day.”

“In my defense, I didn’t know it was the last of it, but good. You should forgive me.” I’m joking, but based on her expression, it doesn’t deliver how I meant it to. Or maybe she just doesn’t find me funny no matter what I say. “Also, I don’t go to parties. I don’t like people, especially people like the ones at the quarry.”

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