“Why would I get fucked up? I have to chauffeur your ass bright and early tomorrow morning.”
Oh right, because most people have an intrinsic pause button. “Later,” I call out, just as I enter the bathroom. “And thanks for driving,” I tack on, because I am nice and behaving.
I shut the door, and I slump down on the other side of it.
I look around and decide to sit on the pink porcelain toilet instead of the floor.
Now, trapped in a busted motel rat palace—surrounded by shit-brown grout, cracked porcelain, and the kind of ominous dripping that usually precedes a murder in an abandoned meat locker—I decide this might actually be it. Rock Bottom. The End of the Line. The Big Sad. I’ve lived, I’ve laughed, I’ve made aggressively poor life choices. And now I’m here, in a mildew-scented purgatory that screams, “Your therapist was right.”
I cover my face with my hands and take deep pulls of air that rattle through the space between my fingers. Then I pull out my phone and open up my email, compelled, after all of this, to find some sort of comfort in Chef’s words.
I huff a dry laugh at what he’s written. How Alishines? By shines, does he mean spontaneously combusts and takes out a small village?
The door to the room slams shut, and instead of screamingTake me with you, I type instead.
From: [email protected]
I’m a miserable hurricane of serious issues. But there’s a reason for it, I think. It built and built and built through childhood into high school. Pressure and expectations from everywhere and everyone. Be the best. At everything. I didn’t live in high school—I optimized. Studied like it was an Olympic sport. Worked. Played two instruments.Volunteered. Wrote. Perfected. Then I got fucked over. And then I wasn’t the best, despite dedicating my entire existence to it. Then in the city, on my own for the first time in my life? Free? I detonated. Exploded into a million reckless pieces.
I leave the shit-brown bathroom to grab my toothbrush, brush my teeth and splash water on my face in an approximation of a night-time skincare routine, plod out, and get under the shit-brown covers. I hate it here.
I reread the deranged email draft on my phone. Then, I place my finger on the backspace key and hold it down.
I’m miserable.
And then I add:
1. I don’t shine. I’m mean and miserable.
2. I’m trying my best not to, but I make really reckless, impulsive decisions just to feel something. Like Not That Safe for Work Sexting (S-emailing? Sexemailing?) with my hot porn star coworker.
3. No one has ever given up on me.
Then I scoot all the way to the edge of the bed and fall asleep.
EIGHT
Annie
I knewthat in sharing a bed with someone, there was bound to be some accidental elbow brushing or perhaps a rogue kick.
I expected it, even.
What I did not expect, however, was to wake up draped over my worst enemy’s hard body like a cold, clingy sleep koala trying to get warm.
But apparently, my worst enemy is a human mattress. A wet mattress like the one in our original room, because there is a spot on his shirt that indicates I’ve been drooling here a while.
Did I mention the human mattress inexplicably has faulty hardware, because there is a wayward pole currently nestled in right where it absolutely should not be?
Wow, this mattress feels good. Solid. Supportive. Extra firm. I grind down just a little bit, just to confirm the firmness for sleep science and also because I haven’t had a human mattress with faulty hardware inover two years, and my eyes roll to the back of my head. Eleven out of ten, no notes. Or perhaps nine out of nine, now that I think about it.
Nico’s big hands fly to my hips. “Again,” he mutters, sleep in his voice.
I go rigid, because this likely constitutes sexual harassment. I remain frozen, praying he stays asleep so I can peel myself off the hot, firm, faulty mattress.
But because this is the worst day of my life, Nico displays all the telltale signs of waking. His body freezes under mine. His hands fly off my hips and smack flat onto the actual mattress. He clears his throat, which rumbles through his chest like a seismic event.
