I’m really, really sure.
Nicole looks up from her phone. She has been texting again while I contemplate going home because it’s two-thirty and I’m exhausted. ‘When can you be out of your lease?’ she asks.
‘I’m month to month.’
‘Perfect. The place is empty because the tenants just moved out. Brooke’s mum is replacing the carpets next week, and then we’ll be good to go. What furniture and appliances do you have? So we can make a list and figure out who’s getting what.’ ‘I don’t have any major stuff beyond my own bedroom. It’s all Bee’s.’
Nicole scrunches up her face. ‘Eh, that’s fine. None of us have anything either, except I’ve got the option for the couch at the holiday house if we want it. Anyway, if we used any of your stuff from Bee’s, we’d have to do, like, a sage cleansing ceremony to get rid of the bad energy.’
‘I don’t think an Ikea table can carry any energy, good or bad.’
‘It definitely can. We’re going to have to teach you about aura healing so you don’t immediately throw the whole space out of balance, the feng shui’s bad enough as it is. Do you have any crystals? Oh! And before I forget, Brooke’s asking what your star sign is.’
‘No idea,’ I say truthfully. I can instantly tell it was the wrong thing to say, and the comments about sage and energy healing should have been my clues to avoiding the misstep.
Nicole sighs. ‘When’s your birthday?’
‘January 12.’
‘Hah! Typical Capricorn.’
I have no clue what that means.
‘What are you going to tell Bee?’ she asks now. She’s not looking at her phone anymore but directly at me. That’s how I know this conversation is taking a serious turn.
‘I know it might make me a coward,’ I begin, ‘but I kind of want to leave first and talk about it later. I don’t trust myself to not crumble. I just generally don’t want to deal with her reaction and my inevitably shitty reaction to her reaction.’
‘I think that’s a perfectly reasonable step to take. You have to protect your peace. Besides, she’d probably do the same to you.’ This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard a sentiment like that.Would she do the same for you?I’m not sure it makes me any less of an asshole for ghosting. But it certainly does help me justify it.
Then I remember something. ‘Question, are your parents planning to pay your rent while you’re away?’
Nicole looks confused. ‘Yeah. Why?’
Oh, right. It’s just assumed. Must be nice. ‘No reason.’
She hugs me again, knocking over an empty bottle. ‘This is going to be awesome!’
Let it be said that it is super easy to plan a stealth escape when your housemate was never very interested in what you do in the first place and is actively avoiding you now.
Reg and Nicole, kept up to speed on any new developments in my frosty apartment, have started taking bets to see how long it will take for Bee to even notice that I’ve left. Then Stewart joins and puts his money on a full month.
When she’s at the gym I sneak some boxes into my roomthat I snagged off the online community forum. I remove my contribution to the kitchen—a Pantone mug I got in a Kris Kringle years ago—early on. I choose to leave behind the shitty Ikea table; in exchange I pinch the garlic crusher just to be petty.
With my door closed, and the knowledge that Bee will never be curious enough to open it, my packing is safely hidden away.
I falter a little when I talk to Brian about breaking the lease. He tells me he’ll have to be in touch with Bee to see if she wants to renew on her own or with someone else. He assures me she’ll be able to stay. It does still remind me that I’m saddling her with the entirety of the rent, forcing her to either getin some creep off a flatmate finder or move out elsewhere.
And then I remember she told everyone at school about my mum’s gambling problems, and I don’t feel quite so bad.
The night before the move, I panic. The heart-palpitating, hands-shaking, uncontrollable-crying, shortness-of-breath kind of panic. My fingers don’t feel like my own; I can’t clench them and I definitely can’t keep my phone still enough to open one of those calming meditation apps Bee told me to download.
I wish I could call Arthur. But even if that were an option, it’s probably better that I don’t. I need to learn how to deal with me by myself without my emotional-support hot man, and now’s as good a time as any.
It takes about four hours, but I exhaust myself to sleep with the light still on, surrounded by my little box city—an entire life tucked away into twelve little cubes. When I dream, I’m transported back to my childhood home. Except I’m barricadedinside, and a swarm of zombies (no clue where this comes from) are trying to fight their way in. Modern houses are not made to withstand this kind of assault, and I’ve been cornered into the upstairs toilet, the only room without windows…and then I hear groaning on the other side of the door.
It probably would have been better to just not sleep.
‘Why are you yawning so much?’ Stewart asks as we stand behind his ute, looking at my cubed life and dismantled bed. He has agreed to transport all my stuff to the new house in exchange for a bottle of mid-priced bourbon.
