You have to keep this job. You’re almost debt free.
I pulled up to the back parking lot of the building that housed my studio apartment. It was a rundown brick building, but at least it didn’t have bars on the windows. The rent couldn’t be beat for less than four figures a month, and while I knew I could afford a better place with a better view, I needed to use my money in other ways.
Like digging myself out of the debt my father put me into so that I could save for my future.
I barely recalled getting inside of the building. I nodded to the person manning the front desk, but didn’t really register who it was. I was so bone tired by the time the rickety metal elevator squealed its doors open for me. I was in my apartment.
Home.
“Thank fuck,” I said breathlessly before I pulled in a deep breath.
I caught a whiff of something musty.
My nose wrinkled as I walked my food over to my couch. I set it down on the coffee table, then made my way into the kitchen. I stuck my nose out and continued sniffing, tracking the scent like a hound dog.
I hated smells that I couldn’t identify.
I wasn’t sure how long it took me to track down that smell, but when I found a bag of potatoes in the back of my pantry that I completely forgot about, I groaned.
Damn it.
I’d have to clean this before I could eat.
Just how my brain worked and all.
Cleaning up the potato spill, or whatever kind of liquid it was that it left behind in my pantry, shifted to me reorganizing the entire fucking thing. I dripped with sweat by the time I loadedthe last case of bottled water onto the little bottle organizer I kept mounted to the wall in my pantry. It kept me from jamming my toes on the water cases whenever I needed to find stuff.
But my stomach growled out angrily, and it washed a wave of dizziness over me.
I turned around and closed the pantry, checking the clock on the microwave.
Goddamn it, it was nine-thirty.
“Fuck,” I groaned as I made my way back to my food.
My mango bubble tea was watered down with the melted ice. My ramen had long since gotten cold. I threw a pot onto the stove and dumped my ramen back in it to bring it to temperature, but there wasn’t anything I could do about my mango bubble tea.
Except for pouring it into the tumbler I kept in my freezer.
“This’ll have to do,” I whispered to myself.
After screwing the top onto my tumbler, I made myself scarce while the pot sat on the stove on medium heat. I went through my routine of cleaning myself up as best as I could, because I wasn’t taking a fucking shower. It was too late, I was too tired and much too hungry, and I had to be back at it tomorrow, despite the fact that it was Saturday. Per my contract, I worked two Saturdays out of each month, and those Saturdays were paid time and a half.
I could only hope that we traveled a lot tomorrow and not sitting in meetings where I’d have to pay attention.
Cleaning myself up spiraled into me just bringing my dinner into my bedroom. I wasn’t big on eating in bed, but I was exhausted, and at least I could turn my little projector on and watch some trashy television on my wall. I had a small television out in my living room, but weirdly enough, I didn’t watch TV on it too much. Not without falling asleep on the couch. And if I wasgoing to fall asleep watching TV, the very least I could do was be in my bed for it.
Hence, the little splurge purchase on the cheap projector I saw on social media.
I turned on my favorite trashy TV show, The Real Housewives, and I mindlessly scooped the ramen into my mouth. I wasn’t delicate or womanly when eating ramen. I might as well have looked like a monster devouring its own young. I chased it all down with the mango bubble tea, practically guzzling it to get it into my shivering stomach sooner.
Within minutes, the meal was gone, and I was in the kitchen cleaning things up.
Sleep time, for sure.
When I knew that enough of the mess was cleaned up for my brain to let me sleep tonight, I dragged my ass back to bed. I flopped down beneath the covers with the episode still going on the wall, and I allowed my eyes to close. Not because I was tired. I mean, I was, but it always took my brain forever to settle down so that I could actually pass out. But my eyes just felt so… heavy.
Like something weighed them down.
