9. Juliet
9
JULIET
I peel off several bills from the wad of cash I hold in my hand, feeling my chest tighten with each one until the stack I’ve pulled free is considerably larger than the leftovers in my palm. I hand the cash over to Mrs. Ritchie, the apartment complex’s ‘receptionist’ aka the landlord’s wife who runs the front like a general at war.
She takes the money, glaring at me over the top of her cat-eye glasses. The old me might have haughtily informed her that they’re about seventy years out of date. The new me could not give a shit less what she wears or looks like as long as she takes my money, and I have a place to sleep for the next several months.
“This ain’t rent for one month,” she states, eyeing me as if trying to determine where I got this kind of money when everyone in town knows all my parents’ money is being held in governmental assets—the joys of living in Silverwood. Big enough to catch federal attention, but small enough that everybody knows every-fucking-body’s business.
“Yeah,” I say. “I want to pay the next six in advance.” Who would say no to that?
“You want to pay out your lease?” Her tone is suspicious, and though I hate the snide glances and the obvious disdain she has for me—this is the only apartment complex in town that hadn’t slammed the door in my face. So, I offer a smile, albeit a tight one.
The rent is too high and their facilities are a joke and I’m not too stupid to realize that they charged me double the deposit because I ‘don’t have any rental history.’ The real fact is, everyone knows I don’t have a dollar to my name, but Mr. Ritchie is a sucker for drama and the closer I am, the more he and his wife can watch my life fall apart. They’re givers like that.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say as politely as I can manage.
“Hmmm.” The old goat hums in the back of her throat as she licks her fingers and thumbs through the bills. After a moment, she hums again. “It’s all here,” she states.
No shit, Sherlock.
I try not to show my disgust as she licks her fingers once again and then fans the green stack out as if she’s just double-checking despite her words. Doesn’t she know how dirty money can be? Unfortunately, I do. I know exactly how dirty that money is. It’s probably why I’m kinda grossed out by how intimate she’s becoming with it. Maybe she wants the room.
“Great,” I say quickly, spinning on my heel and shoving the puny amount I have left into my back pocket. I hope it lasts until I can get a job and make some money to cover food and other things. “Email me the receipt, please!” I call over my shoulder before pushing out of the office and ducking across the walkway toward my building.
I stomp past the green ‘pool’ Silver Creek Apartments boasts about in their lease pamphlet. Thirty years ago, it had probably been the same sparkling blue that the picture on the front portrayed, but now, it’s nothing but a cesspool of disease and algae. They’d be better off just cleaning the shit out and filling it full of cement, but so long as it exists they can claim it’s a part of their perks—even if the “closed for renovation” sign has been there for far longer than I’ve been alive.
The parking spot in front of my building that used to be relegated for my BMW just a few weeks ago is now empty, and the sight of it makes my throat squeeze with discomfort. It’s the first time in my semi-adult life that I haven’t had a car to get me places, but it’s for a good reason.
Gripping the rickety metal railing, I climb the steps to my second-floor studio and then look over the exterior barrier across the street to the Dollar Mart. I glance at my apartment door with the number ‘2’ hanging crooked. My stomach rumbles. There’s nothing in my fridge aside from half a cup of saved ramen and a carton of milk.
With a sigh, I turn right around and head back down, the rusted metal steps creaking with each footstep. I hurry across the lot and then the road, the money in my pocket burning a hole. The door chimes as I step inside the cool air-conditioned corner store.
“Wel—” The attendant’s pleasant voice is cut off and I duck my head, ignoring her hard stare as I grab a basket and head towards the too-narrow aisles.
A box of cereal. A couple of cans of red sauce. Boxes of cheap pasta. Mac and cheese. A loaf of bread and some cheese. I fill up the basket and head back towards the front.
The attendant scowls as I set the basket on the counter and then rock back on my heels. I wait, keeping my eyes averted as if doing so will keep both of us from acknowledging my presence so we can just get this over with. After another tense beat of silence, the middle-aged woman begins to unload and scan the barcodes in annoyed jerking movements.
I bite down on my lower lip and the tension in my shoulders finally eases. At least she’s not going to kick me out. My eyes lift some more and I turn to watch the numbers on the till.
$11.98…
$13.49…
$17.97…
Come on, I beg silently. Stay under twenty . I’d calculated correctly. I know I did. Yet, still, the underlying anxiety that I missed something remains. What if I’d gotten the tax amount wrong? The last item passes over the scanner, and the woman looks at me, her thin lips twisted.
“That’ll be nineteen fifty-six,” she bites out.
With a relieved sigh, I withdraw one of the twenties from my pocket and hand it over. “Can I have change?” I ask, keeping my eyes off the small glass jar in front of her register. Who even tips a cashier?
Her scowl deepens and her movements turn even more aggressive as she presses a button to release the register and then rifles through it before slamming it again. The woman slaps the change into my hand. She does it so hard that a quarter slips between my fingers and hits the floor. She eyes me as if expecting me to dive on the floor for it. I’m not that fucking far gone, but I’m not leaving it either. Slowly, I bend down, pick it up, and then slip the change into my pocket before lifting my bags.
She turns away and begins fiddling with the displays of cigarettes behind the counter. I hesitate, sure I already know what her answer will be, but with how dangerously low my bank account is now that I’ve paid six months of rent upfront, I have to try.
“Um … do you have an application I could fill out?”
The woman turns around and eyes me as if I just asked her to clean out my cat’s shit-filled litter box. “We’re not hiring.”
I grit my teeth and force a polite smile. “Still,” I say, “just in case you are in the future?”
She narrows her gaze on me and then huffs before stomping towards the end of her counter. She ducks down and I can hear her cursing and grumbling under her breath as she riffles through some papers. A moment later, she stands up and practically throws a piece of paper at me.
I grab it before it can fall and then carefully fold it and tuck it into one of my bags. “Thanks,” I say. “Can you tell me when the manager is in, so I can return it?”
“Tuesdays.”
I nod, but she’s already turned around again and ignoring my presence. I head back outside to see that the sky has begun to darken and the streetlights over the main road are already on. What sends me running isn’t the sudden darkness, but the rumble of thunder in the near distance. Hoofing it across the street, I make my way back to my apartment in record time. I climb the stairs and slam into the nearly empty studio without a second to spare as the skies outside open up and rain begins to drizzle over the overhang of the balcony.
I go about unloading the groceries and putting them in the closet-sized kitchen before heading over to my futon with a bowl of cereal in hand. Exhaustion pours through me as I force myself to lift a spoonful of stale Wheat Rings in milk to my lips. Outside, the rain comes down harder. Once I’m done eating, I clean my bowl and spoon and pull out my homework.
Five minutes in, I hear the repeated banging against the wall opposite my bed where my only neighbor connects to me. At first, I try to tune it out, but then the moaning gets louder, filtering through the walls as it rises in intensity.
Are you fucking kidding me? I pass a glance outside where the storm rages hard against the glass. Leaves fly past and circle in the background. What spindly little trees there are around the grounds of the complex are practically bent in half with the force of the winds. Inside, though, someone else is having a storm of their own if the faster thumps against my fucking wall are anything to go by.
Irritation pours through me and I get up, stomping across the room to pound on the wall. The thumping stops for a moment, and then I hear the soft tinkling sounds of feminine laughter and the creaking and thumps start up again—harder and faster than before. Assholes.
Turning away from the wall, I go to the side of my futon and rummage through my backpack until I find headphones. Plugging them in, I quickly scroll through a hard rock playlist, select something from Linkin Park, and sit back down.
With the sounds of Chester Bennington’s voice ricocheting through my head, I manage to finish the homework that the few teachers that didn’t seem to care that it was the first fucking day back had assigned. Once I’m done, I tuck it away in my bag and reach for the folded-up paper I’d brought with me from the corner mart. I unfold it and lay it flat on my lap, looking at the black and white script. Few places actually still have paper applications anymore, but before I even put pen to paper, I feel like I already know how this will turn out.
Why am I even doing this? Why am I even trying?
I’m not going to be hired. No one with any sanity would dare hire the daughter of the man who ruined half of the town’s lives. I’d done this song and dance before already. As my pen hovers over the ‘name’ section, I bite down on my lip and growl in frustration. Before I can think better of it, I jab the pen downward, stabbing a hole through the application. I do it again and again until the top part is littered with ink-stained holes. Then, I crumple up the page, balling it in my fist and squeezing it as tight as I can as if I can make it—and the emotions of unfairness and anger—just disappear.
It doesn’t. Neither the paper nor my emotions.
I throw the ball away from me, tossing it across the room with no real direction. It’s not like I have a parent coming through my apartment demanding I keep it tidy or a maid to clean up my messes anymore. Being angry is tiring, more exhausting than people know. It smothers me, squeezing around my lungs like it’s trying to kill me. Sometimes, I wish it’d finish the job.
I’ve truly become pathetic.
A knock sounds on my door, dragging me out of my thoughts as it blares over the music in my ears. I open my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them, and then look out the balcony windows. The storm passed rather quickly—a fast summer rain, there one minute and gone the next. Now, everything outside appears dull and wet, but there are no more spirally leaves or bent trees.
With a grunt, I pull my headphones from my ears and get off the futon, stumbling through the short hallway to the front door. I swear to God if Mrs. Ritchie sent someone because she thought all that noise earlier was me, I’m going to?—
My thoughts cut off as the door swings open to a somewhat familiar face. “Hey, just wanted to—oh, it’s you.” The man standing in front of me is none other than Gio Vargas, the fucking playboy. His hair is more rumpled than it’d been at school the other day, strands sticking in various directions as if someone had run their fingers through it repeatedly.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand, shoving my side against the frame and dragging the door closed so he can’t look into the rest of the apartment. I’m sure it’s not hard to guess that I’ve got virtually nothing, but he doesn’t need to see it.
Playboy doesn’t seem put off by my unwelcoming response to finding him on my doorstep. In fact, as he stares down at me, the surprised expression on his face slowly morphs into a ‘cat that ate the canary’ grin. He rocks back on his heels as his eyes travel down my frame, pausing and lingering over my breasts. Pig.
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the apartment door next to mine. “I was pretty sure we pissed off the neighbors with our noise, so I was going to come over and apologize, but now that I realize it’s you…” His tongue touches the bottom of his teeth, poking slightly out as he continues to stare openly at my chest.
A part of me wants to cross my arms over my tits to disrupt his view, but I don’t want him to know that it bothers me, so I force down the urge and just glare at him. “Let me guess,” I say. “Now that you know it’s me, you’re just going to go harder next time to piss me off even more?”
He laughs and the sound isn’t completely hideous. It’s deep and masculine. My scowl deepens. “Actually…” His hand lands on the frame above my head and he leans forward until I can smell the hint of a spicy cologne and something else. I’m forced to turn my face up just to keep my eyes on his. “I wasn’t considering coming back for seconds, but if the little neighbor wants in on some of the action, I’d be all too happy to oblige.”
“I’d rather suck on an exhaust pipe,” I grit out, my nose wrinkling when I realize what that secondary scent is. Sex. He smells like pussy and I’m revolted.
“I’ve got an exhaust pipe you can?—”
“Finish that sentence, and I’ll knee your balls so far into your body it’ll take a surgeon to find them,” I warn him.
The sound of his laugh rings out into the air. I don’t know what shifted between when I’d seen him outside of school to now, but he’s in a far better mood, and seeing it is only managing to put me in a worse one. “If that’s all,” I start to ease the door shut, “maybe next time, you should keep in mind that other people live here too.”
Then again, he had said he doesn’t do seconds. I should be grateful for the manwhore’s ways. I go to finish closing the door in his face only for the damn thing to bounce back as he shoves his foot in the way. “What the?—”
Playboy tsks in the back of his throat, and gripping the frame tighter, leans in close until that scent overwhelms me. I crane my head backward. “Now, now, don’t be nasty,” he says gently.
“You’re one to talk,” I fire back. “You’re the one coming over here stinking like used cunt.”
His eyes widen and he blinks down at me as if shocked by the statement. “Stinking?” Playboy turns his head and sniffs at himself delicately. “Ah, you’re jealous.” He grins. “You want to mark me with your own scent?”
“No!” Finally breaking my internal desire not to touch him, I reach out and shove a hand against his chest. I push hard until he stumbles back and his foot and hand slip out of the way. “Now, get fucking lost, and next time—keep it down!”
I slam the door in his face and flip the lock, turning and pressing my back against the wood as I inhale sharp and rapid breaths. He’s insane. I shake my head, but then I hear the sound of his laughter again on the other side of the door. It rumbles through the wood and pierces my stomach, flooding my insides. It’s not attraction. Not even a little bit.
A thump raps against the outside—a hand hitting the door. “Deny it all you like, Prep Girl,” he says, “but if you ever want to unleash any of that anger you’re carting around, you know where to find me.”
The echo of his footsteps lingers outside of my apartment door as he walks away. My chest pumps up and down and more rage infuses my soul. As if I’d ever let him fucking touch me, the disgusting prick. Sex is the last thing on my mind, anyway, and I’m not going to be as stupid as I was before. No one is getting past my walls this time. Even before my dad was arrested, I’d been betrayed. Now that he’s in jail, the rest of my so-called friends have abandoned me as well. No one cares and even if they try, they’ll never stay anyway.