Roomie

“Roommate wanted:
170 Silvia St. Princeton NJ, Apt. 46C
2 bedrooms, 1 bath, small kitchen with beer and working microwave (clean!)
Looking for a laid back guy to split rent with - no girlfriends
5 Guys and pizzaria within walking distance
Call 848 775 5776 if interested”

Ripping off a piece of masking tape with my teeth, I plastered up the last of my advertisements. The empty roll of tape hung on my wrist as I stared up at the poster and read it over again. No typos, correct address, correct phone number. I was much more worried about this than I should have been, and the thought of living with someone again was giving me massive anxiety. It seemed like a good idea to get an apartment with an extra room at the time, but when I started having trouble keeping down a job the vacant room stayed empty and sucked money straight out of my pocket.

A soft mist began to brush against my cheeks. I rolled down the sleeves of my flannel and threw the cardboard ring in a nearby trash bin as I started to leave the shopping center. My sneakers were already soaked from the previous night, having neglected to let them dry out, and my toes tingled from the cold. I didn't even avoid the puddles, I just kept on straight through them until I reached the bus stop and plopped down on the hard plastic bench underneath the tiny overhang. My bare knees poked through the tears in my jeans that I never patched up. These pants had probably been a part of my wardrobe since middle school, it was too late to fix them now. Now or never and all of that. I chose never.

My feet swung beneath me as I waited. It would have been practical for me to have gotten my own car by now, but dropping out of college had left me with no credentials and made it tough for me to get a well-paying job so I could save up. There was nothing wrong with taking the bus, it was nice enough, but it was another reminder of how I'd failed. If you asked me, I would say I was "between jobs", which is just code for "the only people that will hire me are drug dealers". And yes, I tried that. The money was great, but I was too afraid of getting caught. It was more than once that I hurled as soon as my customer was out of sight, the whole thing made me that nervous. But hey, I was a nervous guy.

A girl about my age had started waiting with me a few minutes before the bus showed up. I got on, paid, and took a seat at the back by myself. I slipped my beanie off and shook it to get the moisture out, then laid it in my lap as I stared out the window. A moment later, the bus started up again and I felt the girl sit beside me. She was the only other person on the bus. I didn't look, and sat still to try to dissuade her from talking to me.

"It's been pretty gloomy lately, huh?" she said. My tactic often failed.

I nodded without turning. "Yep."

"Where are you headed?"

"Atlantic City," I blurted out, hoping that was far enough away to shut her up.

"Really? I thought I saw you putting up flyers for an apartment in Princeton."

"For a buddy, yeah. I don't live here."

"Right. That's too bad then, I have some coffee money I was dying to use."

"I'm on a tight schedule to get home."

"That's a shame. And here's my stop, too." The bus slowed and she placed a hand on my inner thigh before getting up and walking away. My heart beat out of control and I wanted to collapse in on myself when the bus started moving again. This was one too many times that this had happened. I didn't know if it was my pathetic height, fashion sense of a homeless geriatric, or the utter hopelessness that resonated within me, but I'd been a real chick magnet as of late. A scrap of paper caught my eye and I unfolded it in my lap where she had left it. Her number. I rolled the wad of gum I'd been working on into a ball in my mouth and stuck it right in the center of the paper, tossing it on the ground. Rainbows weren't really my thing, but I thought I'd have to start wearing them if it was the only way to get women off of my dick.

I didn't have to sit much longer before the bus arrived at my stop. I wrapped my flannel around myself and said a farewell to the driver as I passed by him and stepped into the rain. The third floor felt miles above me as I walked up the three flights of slippery stairs to my room. When I reached it, I shoved the key in the lock and jiggled it around to open it. My shoes came off immediately, and this time I propped them up so they could air out a bit. I flung my wet socks into the basket by the bathroom, but before I entered my own room I stopped to glance at the one that still sat vacant.

The room had been unoccupied since before I decided to drop out. A bad breakup had left me alone and depressed, and not much had changed since then. It felt wrong to rent the room out, I almost would rather have moved to a new apartment complex just to get away from the memories but I'd renewed my contract again out of a fear of the unknown, and so here I stayed for another six months. By now, it was borderline masochism for me to stay where I was.

Prying myself away, I went into my own room and closed the door. It felt safer to be more confined, like I could block out some of the memories. I started to hang up my flannel when my phone vibrated in my back pocket. I dropped the garment and hurried to answer the unknown number, saying into the speaker:

"Hey, this is Frank."

Notes

1 of 10