19. 19
19
Chastity awoke to the buzz of her phone. She shuffled off the couch and walked over to Smoky, petting the feline while peering into her green eyes.
She smoothed her own frazzled hair and sifted through a pile of clothes in the corner, pulling out a pair of basketball shorts. She slipped them on to cover her thong, cinched the drawstring, and threw on socks and shoes.
Barrett ambled out of the kitchen dressed similarly. In his hand, a pan of eggs sizzled.
He eyed Chastity up and down and then glanced down at his own attire.
“What is this? Who Wore It Better ?”
Chastity groggily snickered. “I’d vote you .” She gave him a sexy smile.
“Disagree.” He shook his head. “How do you like your eggs?”
“Preferably out of the shell.” That, she said with a straight face.
He shook his head and walked away, mumbling, “Smart ass…”
“Okay, please don’t judge me by what you’re about to see,” Chastity pleaded, her jasmine perfume all Barrett could focus on as they stood outside the closed door to Apartment 208.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s bad.” She didn’t hesitate. “Think about the last crack den you saw on Intervention . It’s pretty much that.”
Barrett took a dramatic inhalation and chewed his gum, pretending to prepare himself for the worst.
The flickering halogen bulb outside of her hallway suddenly stopped blinking, casting him in a steady beam. For a split second, she couldn’t help but feel as if Barrett himself was, indeed, a light in all of her darkness.
He wagged a roll of trash bags at the door like a wand and said, “O pen-ee-oh-sum! ”
“ You’re not a wizard, Harry,” Chastity said, mimicking Hagrid’s voice.
“Surely, that would have worked at Hogwarts .”
“Nerd.”
He rolled his shoulders back. “I’m ready. Open it.”
Chastity shifted the pail of cleaning supplies to her other hand and unlocked the door, throwing it wide open.
Barrett stepped in, eyes wide with momentary horror as he looked around. Then, his expression changed to one of confidence. “Oh, yeah. We got this.”
“This is going to take forever.” Her shoulders slumped.
“No way. Darlin’, you’re looking at a semi-trained amateur-professional.”
Barrett’s eyes studied the graffitied walls, the chaotic landscape of litter, and the paraphernalia that covered almost the entirety of the floor’s surface in the living room.
“These are your new digs, huh?”
“Yup. Home-crap-home . I told you. I wasn’t exaggerating.”
“I see that. The upside is that this place is tiny. Shouldn’t take that long to clean.” He shrugged and looked at her. “The upside for me, personally, is that at this moment, my apartment looks real good in comparison.”
She laughed. “Not that good.”
Barrett wandered through the rooms, taking mental notes and figuring out an order of operations. He halted, peering down at something in the bathroom. “Is that a blow-up doll?”
Chastity sighed. “You saw that, huh?”
“Yeah… I kinda like it.” He cocked his head to the side. “Kinda makes the place feel homey. You should put her by the door like a little Costco greeter.”
Four hours later, the apartment was garbage-free and smelled of lemon-scented disinfectant.
“We’ll get you some fresh paint and posters to cover the graffiti.”
“Thank you for this. It already looks a million times better.”
“You’re welcome.” He smiled. “Hey, maybe since you’re starting out on a new adventure, we should start fresh, too.”
She scrunched her brows, confused.
“I’ll start.” He stood up straight and smiled. “Hi, gorgeous. What’s your name?”
He held out a hand.
She shook it reluctantly. “Hi, Barrett.”
“No, dude, you don’t know my name is Barrett yet. We’re starting over.”
She chuckled. “Fine. Hi… there. I’m… Chastity Erikson. And you are?”
“ Zeus .” He was serious, expression never wavering.
Chastity chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I guess I deserved that one.”
“It’s fine. Women have every right to be cautious.”
“Yeah, but I feel like most people are good. It’s just the assholes that get the spotlight usually.”
“Hmmm. True.”
There was a long silence between them. Finally, Chastity looked up at him, nervous.
“I’m bipolar,” she blurted.
She had no idea why she’d chosen then to say it. She just suddenly wanted to let him know. To warn him before he got too close.
Barrett just looked at her, stunned that something so deeply personal came out of her, seemingly out of nowhere.
“I mean,” she cleared her throat. “I know you’re being sweet and… you’re trying to spend time with me… and you’re doing these nice things, but before you think that this could be anything, I wanted to let you know.”
“You say that like I’m trying to pressure you into dating.” His tone was gentle. “Or like being bipolar is, like, somehow a deal-breaker.”
“Well, yeah .”
“It isn’t. ” He shrugged. “And for the record, I’m not trying to pressure you into dating. I just… like being around you. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”
She didn’t say a word.
“You’re like this fast, beautiful, unbridled mare, unable to be broken by anyone. You’ve got this spirit that is…”
“Feral?”
“No.” He laughed. “ Wild . Free .”
“So you think I’m a horse ?” she joked.
“I meant it as the highest possible compliment.” He stepped toward her, cupping her face in his hands softly, aching to kiss her again. Deeply. Passionately.
He wanted to lay her on the stained carpet and fuck every last ounce of sadness straight out of her gorgeous body.
“You are not a horse. You are Aphrodite… goddess of sex and fake numbers.”
Chastity laughed as a tear dribbled down her cheek. “You don’t have to stick around now that you know. Everyone thinks I’m some kind of ticking time bomb. Who knows. Maybe I am.”
“Give me more credit than that. One of my best friends in high school was bipolar. One of the nicest people I ever met. Sure, he had po-mouth. He was shit with money, and God damn was he impulsive, but he was also the biggest Teddy bear you’d ever meet.”
“Are you guys still friends?” Chastity sniffled, sinking deeper into his cupped hands.
He stroked some rainbow-colored hair from her face, and his smile fell. She could tell from the pain in his expression that the friend in question was no longer alive.
“He would have probably really benefited from medication. Scientists didn’t really know then what they know now. Now, it can be managed. Now, doctors know a helluva lot more about it.”
She nodded.
“One or two?” he asked.
Chastity pulled away and put some of the solvents back in the pail. “I have… bipolar two. Just got the diagnosis about a month ago. I was going to a counselor at the college for a bit, and she sent me to a psychiatrist. Next thing you know, I have this label that I can’t ever get rid of and a list of medications I’m supposed to take.”
“Good.”
“No. I won’t do it.” Chastity whipped her head to face him.
“Wait, what? Why not?”
“I’m not going to be some kind of zombie just to make everyone else’s lives easier. Have you ever felt real mania, Barrett? They’re… amazing. I want to savor every second of those highs that I can . I don’t want to just float through life emotionless . I wouldn’t be me .”
Barrett stayed silent for a moment. Nodding.
“You knew I was weird, right? Well, now you know why.”
He stepped toward her. “First of all, I like weird. No, I fucking love weird. Second, there is nothing wrong with being different. Look, my Gam-Gam always told me to think about people like a field of flowers. How boring it would be if they were all the same?”
She smiled a little. “Gam-Gam sounds pretty kick ass.”
“She’s the best. My parents died in a motorcycle accident when I was nine. Mom was riding on the back. Some lady in a soccer van didn’t see them. Turned right into their lane. Clipped the front wheel and sent them over the edge of a raised part of the highway.”
“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
“It was bad. Closed caskets for both of them. Still have a newspaper clipping somewhere of the mangled bike. Lady in the soccer van didn’t even know what happened til the next day when the cops tracked her down.”
“I’m so sorry, Barrett.”
“My Gam-Gam and Gee-Paw raised my brother and I. For the most part, despite it all, she held it together. Stayed real positive. When I got older, I was the spitting image of my father, like a doppelganger almost. Gee-Paw had a hard time even looking at me. He died last year. Now it’s just me, Gam-Gam, and my idiot brother, Dusty.”
“What’s Dusty like? I mean, besides being an idiot.”
“He’s older. Has a wife and two little girls who, thankfully, take after their mom. He owns a little house in the ’burbs with a Homeowner’s Association that tells them how tall their grass is allowed to be. You’ve seen my place. That kind of structure is pretty much my worst nightmare.”
She nodded, rubbing the sole of her untied Vans against a black stain on the carpet.
“I can’t live a life like that. One where I feel dead and alive at the same time, living the same routine day after day, same co-workers telling you the same jokes, same meatloaf nights and taco Tuesdays, same ol’ missionary position.”
“Hey, don’t you dare knock the missionary position…” she joked, moving closer to him.
“Speaking of missionary position…” He wrapped his hands softly around her waist.
She looked at her watch and purred, “Mmmm. No can do, handsome. I have to be at work in a half an hour.”
“Okay.” He backed away, fighting his smile and picking up two bags of trash by the door. “I should probably head out, too. Got a hot date tonight anyway.”
“Oh yeah? What’s ol’ Gam-Gam making y’all for dinner?”
He laughed, shoulders sagging that she’d ruined the punchline. “She’s been on a tilapia kick lately, if you must know.”
Chastity smiled and headed toward the front door with his pail of supplies. It was only then that she noticed words written in Sharpie, ‘ There was once a hole here, but now it’s gone. ’ A red circle was drawn where a peephole would go.
Yup, the last tenants were definitely on some heavy drugs…
Chastity opened the door for him, took one of the bags out of his hands, and replaced it with the handle of his supply bucket. “I’ll take this one down when I leave.”
He shook his head and grinned. “ Stubborn .”
“You know it.”
He readjusted the bag and stared at her for a moment.
“Thank you for letting me crash at your place.”
“No sweat.”
“And thank you for… all of this.” She motioned back to her now-empty apartment. “I wish I had some cash to give you.”
“All good. I needed the practice. This was some great on-the-job training.”
“Well, damn, I should have had you do this dressed as a slutty dark angel in a speedo and nipple clamps or something.”
“Whatever you do, don’t say that to my boss, or else it’ll end up as a drop-down option on the website, for God’s sake. Cleaning in feather wings... I take back what I said earlier… that’s my damned nightmare .”
Chastity laughed and rose to her tiptoes, wrapping her hands around the back of Barrett’s neck to pull him down. She kissed him, long and soft, and he kissed back, cherishing the feel of her lips, her tongue.
She pulled away, eyes fixated on him for a moment before releasing his head from her hands. “Call me sometime?”
He started to walk down the hall, dragging the heavy sack on the carpet behind him. “No can do. Somebody lied about her number.”
“ Fuck .” She slapped her forehead. He was right.
“But,” he chuckled, “you know where I live and how to find me.”
“I do.”
He grinned over his shoulder. “See you around, Aphrodite.”