Four
MAYA
This apartment reeks like someone died in it recently, and this isn’t the worst one I’ve looked at today.
The thought hammers through my skull as my fingers skim along the countertop, cataloging every chip and bubble in the cheap laminate. This surface actively repels light, swallowing it into fake wood grain that feels like dried syrup under my palm.
From thirteen hundred square feet to… this?
Twenty-four days until I’m homeless, and here I am, calculating if I’m this desperate. My mother would need her Xanax doubled if she knew I was even breathing this air, even though she is one-half of the reason I’m in this position in the first place.
Sophie orbits beside me, radiating sympathy.
I can feel her cataloging my every micro-expression for signs of imminent collapse, mentally rehearsing comfort speeches.
But I’ve been trained by masters, and years of Hayes family dinners have carved me into someone who could smile through her own autopsy.
“The previous tenant was very clean,” the landlord announces, right as we stand under water damage that’s clearly visible on the ceiling.
I force my facial muscles into an interested position, in case I do decide to go for this shithole. “How wonderful.”
The kitchen—and I’m being charitable with that noun—is smaller than my walk-in closet. But when I catch my reflection in the grimy window above the sink, I don’t recognize the girl staring back. She looks exhausted, ordinary, like someone who might actually live here.
When did I start looking so… defeated?
“Utilities are extra,” the landlord drones, consulting a clipboard. “First and last month required upfront, plus security deposit. No pets, no parties after ten, no?—“
“How much?”
The words slice through his monologue like a scalpel through skin, and he names a figure that’s a punch in the gut. A month ago, I dropped more than that on a single night out—bottle service and a table where you could see the entire club spread below you like conquered territory.
But now?
“I’ll think about it,” I manage, the lie sliding out slick and practiced while something dies inside me. “Thank you so much for your time.”
I turn and head for the door, my body on autopilot while my brain spirals through calculations that never balance.
My scholarship covers tuition. Work-study pays for textbooks and ramen.
But even with extra shifts and fueling myself with nothing but spite and tap water, I couldn’t afford this place.
Not without calling them .
Not without admitting defeat and asking for their help.
Fat fucking chance.
My hand clamps the railing as I head downstairs, and through designer leather I can feel decades of grime from desperate hands sliding along this same metal, leaving their DNA and their hope behind.
My breathing goes shallow, the walls compress, and for one horrifying moment, I think I might actually?—
“Jesus, how do people live like this?” The words burst out.
Sophie sighs from behind me. “Maya?—“
“No, seriously. How do they wake up every day knowing this is it?”
“Maya.”
“This is their ceiling? Their?—“
“ Maya .”
Sophie’s voice cuts through, and I realize I’ve stopped moving. I’m just standing here in this nightmare stairwell, gripping the railing like it’s the only thing keeping me standing. Sighing with frustration, I head outside, and the cool air slaps me.
Sophie falls into step, and I can feel her questions pressing against the silence. “So,” she finally ventures. “That’s the third one this morning.”
“Your counting skills are unparalleled.” Sarcasm snaps out, automatic as breathing. “Switching majors?”
She doesn’t bite. Sophie never does. It’s infuriating, really, right up there with her ability to see through my bullshit.
But as we walk in silence for half a block, our footsteps creating competing rhythms—her steady Adidas squeak against my increasingly erratic heel-strikes—I’m glad she’s with me.
The neighborhood throbs with alien life—undergrads stumbling home from bars, a food truck hawking something that costs less than my now discontinued morning latte, normal people living normal lives in apartments they can comfortably afford.
“You know,” Sophie starts again, apparently done with the silent treatment, “there are dorms available for grad students. McKinley Hall has singles?—“
The laugh rips out of me, sharp and bitter. “A dorm? What’s next, shower caddies and communal bathrooms?”
The image downloads in high-definition horror: shuffling down a hallway in a knockoff silk robe (because someone would definitely steal the real thing), clutching a plastic caddy while some hungover freshman pukes in the only working sink.
“It’s not that bad,” Sophie insists, but even she sounds like she’s choking on the lie. “Lots of grad students?—“
“Lots of grad students didn’t grow up with mothers who would literally orgasm at the thought of their daughter’s public humiliation.” The crudeness is deliberate, a shock grenade. “She’d issue a press release. ‘Disappointment Continues Inevitable Decline, Family Maintains Appropriate Distance.’”
Sophie’s face does that thing where she’s trying so hard not to react that it becomes its own reaction. “Okay, no dorms. What about… I mean, Mike and I?—“
“Do not finish that sentence if it ends with ‘couch.’”
“It’s a really nice couch?”
This time my laugh is genuine, bubbling up from somewhere deeper than despair. The sheer absurdity—me, the girl who once flew to Milan because Bergdorf’s was out of the shoes she wanted, sleeping on Sophie and Mike’s Ikea furniture.
“Sophie Pearson,” I gasp between giggles that might be hysteria wearing a costume, “are you actually suggesting I third-wheel at Mike’s apartment? Should I invest in noise-canceling headphones now, or will you schedule your intimate moments around my emotional collapse?”
Her face flares red from hairline to chest. “We’re not that loud!”
“Sweetheart, I’ve heard the gossip. The ceiling fan shakes. The plants vibrate. I’m pretty sure your downstairs neighbor knows Mike’s entire routine.” I swipe at tears, careful not to smudge mascara that’s barely hanging on anyway. “I mean, Mike is great, and I love you, but no.”
The levity evaporates as reality reasserts its chokehold.
We stand on the corner of Maple and Third, watching traffic crawl past. A bus rumbles by, a sign on the side of it advertising some gym membership— New Year, New You!
—and I wonder if they have a program for New Year, Different Socioeconomic Status.
But my eyes narrow when Sophie’s quiet for long enough that I know something worse is brewing. “Spit it out,” I say finally.
“There is one more option,” she says. “Mike mentioned that Maine needs a roommate. His place is actually pretty nice, two bedrooms, close to campus?—“
“No.”
The word shoots out like a bullet.
Maine Hamilton.
Every cell in my body recoils as the image crystallizes: six-foot-five of pure, unfiltered hockey bro. The human equivalent of an air horn at a funeral. The guy who tried to teach everyone the “proper” way to shotgun a beer by demonstrating using a La Croix at Sophie’s birthday party.
But underneath the visceral rejection, another image flickers: broad shoulders filling a doorway. The way his t-shirts stretch across his chest like they’re fighting a losing battle. That stupidly bright smile that makes you forgive him for being so fucking loud. The way his eyes crinkle when he?—
No. Absolutely fucking not.
“Sophie, no.” The words come out as flat as roadkill. “I would rather live in my car.”
“You don’t have a car anymore.”
The reminder stings, because the Audi was the first casualty of my new economic reality. “I’ll steal one specifically to live in it.”
“Counterproductive—“
“Do you know what his apartment probably looks like?” I’m spiraling now, painting disaster because if I don’t laugh, I’ll scream.
“Hockey gear fermenting in corners like some kind of athletic kombucha. A television permanently set to ESPN. And the fridge is definitely just Gatorade and milk for the protein powder.”
“Maya—“
I start walking again, as if I can outrun the idea. “And the parade of puck bunnies doing the walk of shame every morning?” I scoff. “Good for them, honestly, getting that hockey dick, but I don’t need front-row seats to the Maine Hamilton Fuckboy Experience?—“
“His rent is less than half that place, total , and you’d be paying half,” Sophie interrupts with surgical precision. “And it’s not like you’re not a party fiend.”
Her sarcasm hits like cold water, because she’s not wrong.
“Maya.” Sophie’s hand finds my arm, warm through the Canada Goose I’ll probably have to sell next week. “I know this isn’t what you planned?—“
“Planned?” I laugh, but it comes out wrong. “Sophie, I planned to work for a charity while my trust fund kept me afloat…”
“But now you need somewhere to live,” she continues gently. “And Maine… well… underneath all the?—“
“Testosterone?” I stop again and turn to face her.
“I was going to say personality.” She squeezes my arm, and I hate how it helps. “He’s Mike’s friend. He won’t be weird about it. And it’s just temporary, right?”
Sure .
Like Eleanor Hayes is going to call up tomorrow with a personality transplant and a working heart. Like my old man will suddenly back down from a decision he’s been wanting to make for years, and when he’s never backed down on anything in his whole life.
The fight drains out all at once, leaving me deflated. My shoulders slump. My spine curves into a question mark. For the first time since that awful phone call, I feel the full weight of this disaster. Because, deep down, even though I’ve been cut off, I thought I could figure it out.
“Fine,” I hear myself say, the word scraping out like broken glass. “Set up a meeting.”
Sophie tries to hide her relief, but I catch it in the loosening of her shoulders, and the way her exhale fogs between us. She thinks she’s saving me. Sweet, eternally optimistic Sophie, who still believes in happy endings—although, to be fair, she got hers…
“It’ll be okay,” she says, and for one second, I almost let myself believe her. “You’ll see. It won’t be that bad. Maine’s actually really?—“
“If you say ‘sweet underneath it all,’ I’m pushing you into traffic.” I grin, trying to put a brave face on the fact that I want to cry.
“I was going to say ‘surprisingly clean.’”
“Liar.” I wrap my arm around her. “Thanks for coming with me today.”
She smiles in response, already pulling out her phone to text Mike. “But seriously, his place is nice. And he’s barely there between hockey and?—“
“And his rotating cast of hookups?”
“That’s… probably not inaccurate.”
She goes back to texting, setting up the meeting that will either solve my problems or finish what’s left of my dignity. Maybe both. The late afternoon sun breaks through the February clouds, painting everything in deceptively warm gold that makes the garbage look almost romantic.
And then, entirely unwelcome, another mental image arrives like an uninvited party guest who won’t leave: Maine’s hands. Big. Probably calloused from hockey. The kind of hands that could make you forget your name. The kind that could?—
Fuck.
The thoughts arrive from some deep, oxygen-deprived part of my brain that’s clearly been compromised by stress, and it takes an almighty effort to banish them back to there. It’s like some lizard-brain recognition that if I have to have a roommate, at least this one comes with a view?
“Maya? You okay?” Sophie’s looking at me like I might bolt into traffic.
“Fine,” I lie, shoving every inappropriate thought about broad shoulders and bright smiles into the same mental box where I keep my father’s disappointed voicemails. Hell, the box is getting so crowded, I might need a storage unit. “Just processing my descent into actual hell.”
“It’s not hell. It’s Jersey.”
My laugh doesn’t hide the fact I’m completely, utterly, catastrophically fucked.
And not in the fun way.