Page 4 of Like You Want It
I blink, my whole body freezing over for a minute.
My deep inhale leaves my body in a surprised rush.
What?
Did he just say…?
Well.
Okay then.
This is not how I saw this going.
My assumption was that there would be remorse. And embarrassment. Maybe a little groveling.
On his part.Definitelynot on mine.
Shit.
And don’t forget about the apology wine.
Now I’m wishing I’d stocked up on some Merlot when I went to the grocery store yesterday because it doesn’t look like Mr. Dick Lines is going to be giving me any.
“I’m in the process of moving my sister in upstairs,” he continues when I remain silent. “You’ve probably seen her coming and going, but she hasn’t officially moved in yet. She’ll be here within the next few days.”
I feel like I’ve swallowed one of those stickers that get lodged in your socks when you go hiking. The super sharp, spiky balls that are hard to get out of your clothes. Yeah, there’s like, five of them in my throat right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my whole body deflating. “When you showed up at the door I just assumed that you were going to be the one living above me. If you don’t live here, why were you the one to come down and point out that I’m a crazy lady?”
“Susie is really quiet and introverted.” His eyes flit around my apartment, the judgment clear on his face. “She won’t be bothering you. So it will probably be best if you don’t bother her either.”
I’m not a fan of the look he’s giving me right now, but I know it all too well.
I live in a small one-bedroom on the bottom floor of a two-story duplex. While I get the Harry Potter cabinet under the stairs and next to the carport, the upstairs unit is a two-bedroom, two-bath with a patio. I knew the old upstairs neighbors, Harriet and Leo, and used to be their cat sitter when they went out of town, up until they left a few weeks ago to move to a retirement community in Las Vegas. The difference between the two units in this building is stark.
But it isn’t the size of my apartment that likely has my new neighbor’s brother deciding he doesn’t want me to talk to his sister.
It’s how I’ve chosen to decorate and furnish the place.
I’ve been living here for just over five years. The minute I turned eighteen, my boyfriend, Theo, rented this spot for us even though I was still in high school. While I hadn’t really been interested in moving in with a boyfriend at such a young age and when we’d only been dating for a few months, I wanted to get out of the suffocating environment at the house I grew up in. Theo felt like my only path to freedom.
Just six months later, I came home to him getting a beejer from one of the girls I worked with at The Steam Room. He apologized the entire time he was packing his stuff, though I’m certain he was only sorry he got caught. When the apologizing transitioned into making excuses for himself – he’d been high on drugs at the time, which I told him wasnotan excuse that would get him any sympathy from me – he was promptly shown the door. And then I was on my own.
Honestly, looking back on it, him cheating was probably the best thing to happen to us. It drew a clear line in the sand. Theo had been struggling with some financial problems, which isn’t a big deal. We could have made it work. But when I heard through a friend that he had been dealing drugs from our apartment when I wasn’t home, I felt exactly zero remorse about how things ended.
After he was gone and all of the toxic energy he took with him had been cleared away with some white sage smudge sticks gifted to me by a friend in my yoga class – not really my thing, but sometimes you have to use every tool at your disposal – I decided I was going to make this place into the most amazing,meapartment ever. No more stupid boy crap and weird bong vases and black out curtains.
It became my official mission to brighten up the apartment as much as possible. And I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished in creating a space that represents my personality in as many shades as there are in a rainbow.
The walls in the living room are a bright turquoise that darkens nicely into a deep blue as it transitions into the kitchen. The massive built-in bookshelf has been branded with a hot pink to rival any Barbie product ever created, which is offset by a massive, oversized light pink, round shag area rug with funky black designs.
It’s bright and colorful and cheery in the best possible ways, with accents abundant, like lemon curtains and fuchsia throw pillows covered in hipsterStar Warscharacters.
I say that my apartment is influenced by the brilliant Lisa Frank. But my friend Dina likes to say that you can only make one assumption of the person who lives here. And that’s simply that they do a lot of acid.
So Mr. Straightlaced here probably thinks I’m a druggie living in the hovel below his precious sister. And as much as I’d love to set him straight, I’m too tired on my two hours of sleep to correct an opinion of me that I’m only assuming he has.
Instead of responding, I mimic his stance, crossing my arms and spreading my legs wider.
