Chapter 10 Jessica
JESSICA
I shift. The bed squishes.
Beds are not supposed to squish.
I bolt upright so fast my head spins, and that's when I hear it. Water. Rushing water.
"No," I tell the universe out loud. "Absolutely not. I already had my crisis this week. I'm fully booked on disasters. Check back in six to eight months."
The universe responds by making the rushing sound louder, which is just rude.
I scramble out of bed and my feet hit the floor with a splash that sends ice water shooting up my calves.
"This is fine,” I announce to no one, my voice climbing several octaves. "This is totally fine. People wake up to indoor swimming pools all the time. It's probably a new interior design trend. Aquatic chic. Very Atlantis-core. I'm sure it's all over Pinterest."
I'm talking to myself. I'm definitely losing it. And I'm wading through ankle-deep water in Dad's old Guns N' Roses t-shirt at three forty-seven in the morning.
The bathroom door is closed, which seems ominous. Water is seeping out from underneath it in a steady stream, like the world's worst hotel wake-up call.
I grab the doorknob.
"Please be something fixable," I whisper.
I open the door.
Water explodes in my face.
Shooting from under the sink like a geyser that's been training for the Olympics and is really committed to getting the gold medal in property damage.
"WHAT THE HELL!" I shriek at the pipe. At the water. At God himself. "What did I ever do to you? I've been nothing but nice! I used drain cleaner! I was RESPECTFUL to your plumbing sensibilities!"
The pipe continues its aquatic assault, completely unconcerned with my attempts at negotiation.
Water is everywhere. The floor is flooding. The walls are streaming. My makeup bag floats past like a tiny, waterlogged refugee fleeing a disaster zone.
I need to turn off the water.
The shutoff valve. Basement. Next to Dad's old workbench where he kept all his tools organized by size because he was that kind of person.
I run, because I’ve never run for anything in my life, but lately this is becoming my new habit.
Except "run" is generous. It's more like "slip and slide while screaming internally and possibly externally.
" The hallway is a death trap. The stairs are trying to murder me.
I grab the railing and take them two at a time while my soaking wet pajama pants do their absolute best to trip me and end this whole situation quickly.
The basement door is stuck.
This house was built in 1952 and apparently everything in it has decided to stage a coordinated rebellion on the same night.
I throw my shoulder against it. Once.
Nothing.
Twice.
Still nothing.
"OPEN, YOU GLORIFIED PIECE OF COMPRESSED SAWDUST!"
It flies open on the third hit, and I stumble into the darkness, catching myself on the wall before I can face-plant down the stairs and add a concussion to tonight's festivities.
I fumble for the light switch. Find it. The fluorescent bulbs flicker to life with a sound like angry wasps who did NOT appreciate being woken up at this hour.
The basement looks exactly like it did the last time I came down here. Which was approximately never, because basements are where spiders live and spiders are basically tiny demons with too many legs.
But it's also Dad's space. Was Dad's space.
His workbench still has tools scattered across it, arranged exactly how he left them.
His jacket still hangs on the hook by the furnace.
His coffee mug, the one that says "World's Okayest Dad" that I got him for Father's Day when I was twelve, sits on the shelf gathering dust.
My throat gets tight.
Not now. I can cry later. Right now I need to stop the flood before my childhood home turns into an aquarium.
I splash across the concrete floor because yes, the water has made it down here too, because why wouldn't it, and locate the water heater.
The shutoff valve is right there. A red handle crusted with age and what looks like decades of accumulated rust and possibly the remnants of a spider's architectural ambitions.
I grab it with both hands and pull.
Nothing happens.
"Come on," I grunt, bracing my feet against the floor and pulling harder.
The valve doesn't budge. It's rusted shut, probably hasn't been turned in a decade, and my arms are shaking with effort.
"MOVE!" I scream at it.
Still nothing.
Upstairs, I can hear the water still rushing. Still flooding. Still destroying my bedroom and probably the hallway and possibly spreading to the other rooms while I'm down here wrestling with a valve that's decided to cosplay as an immovable object.
"I swear to GOD," I snarl, "if you don't turn right now, I'm going to... to..."
What am I going to do? I'm a twenty-eight-year-old woman in soaking wet pajamas having a breakdown in a basement at four in the morning because I can't turn a stupid valve.
Mom's in Mexico, probably doing tequila shots with men she describes as "Picante."
Dad's been dead for four years.
I'm completely, utterly alone.
Callum's voice echoes in my head. You're nothing without me.
My eyes burn. My hands are slipping on the metal. My omega is having a full meltdown, flooding my system with panic hormones that aren’t helping.
"I'm not nothing," I tell the valve. Tell the universe. Tell Callum's ghost. "I can do this. I turned you before when you were being difficult. I can turn you again!"
I plant my feet, take a breath that tastes like basement mildew and determination and possibly some spider web I accidentally inhaled, and wrench the handle with everything I have.
It moves.
Just a fraction of an inch.
"YES!" I pull harder, throwing my whole body into it. "That's RIGHT! Take THAT, patriarchy! Take that, Callum! Take that, stupid VALVE!"
The handle turns. Squeaking and protesting but finally, FINALLY giving.
The water stops.
The sudden silence is deafening.
I collapse against the water heater, panting, shaking, completely soaked. Dad's t-shirt is plastered to my body. My hair is dripping into my eyes. I'm pretty sure I have a spider web stuck to my shoulder but I'm too exhausted to care.
And I'm crying.
Full body, ugly crying. The kind where your face gets all scrunched up and you make sounds that would embarrass a wounded animal.
I slide down until I'm sitting on the cold concrete floor, hugging my knees to my chest, sobbing in Dad's basement.
"I miss you," I whisper to the empty room. To his jacket on the hook. To the coffee mug on the shelf. "I miss you so much and I don't know what I'm doing and everything is terrible and I really wish you were here to tell me I'm not completely screwing up my entire life."
The basement doesn't answer. Dad's ghost doesn't materialize with helpful plumbing advice.
But I turned the valve. By myself. While having a panic attack. In a spider-infested basement.
I did that.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, which just smears everything around since my hands are wet, and force myself to stand on shaky legs.
"Okay," I tell myself. My voice sounds like I've been gargling gravel. "Water's off. That's step one. Step two is assess the damage. Step three is figure out how to fix it without selling a kidney."
Step three is definitely going to require help.
I climb back upstairs.
My bedroom looks like a crime scene. Water everywhere, at least three inches deep in places. The carpet is making sounds that it shouldn’t make. And the ceiling has a dark stain spreading across it like a bruise, yellow at the edges, growing bigger as I watch.
"Mold," I say flatly. "Well," I announce to the flooded bedroom, "that's some middle-of-the-night psychological revelation I didn’t sign up for. Thanks, universe. Really needed that on top of the plumbing disaster."
I need professional help. The plumbing kind, not the therapy kind, although let's be honest, I probably need both.
My phone is on the nightstand, somehow still dry, like it's the only object in this room that has its life together.
I could call a 24-hour emergency plumber. Except it's four in the morning and this is Largo Waters, not New York City. The most exciting thing that happens here on weekends is the farmers market.
I could wait until morning. Except the ceiling is actively turning colors and every minute I wait is another minute for mold to throw a party in my walls.
Or.
I could call Carlos.
My thumb hovers over his name. Negrorio Carpentry.
"This is a terrible idea," I tell my phone.
My phone, wisely, keeps its opinions to itself.
"He's going to think I'm insane. Calling him at four AM about a pipe. After I literally ran away from him on Sunday. This is going to be so awkward."
My ceiling makes an ominous creaking sound.
"Okay, we're doing this. But if this goes badly, I'm blaming you." I glare at the ceiling. "This is your fault for having a structural crisis at an unreasonable hour."
I hit call before I can change my mind.
It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
I'm about to hang up because this was stupid, what was I thinking, I'll just figure it out myself somehow, when a sleep-rough voice answers.
"'Lo?"
Oh God. His voice.
Deep and gravelly with sleep, slightly confused, and I can picture him in bed. Hair a mess. Probably shirtless because he always ran hot. Fumbling for his phone in the dark with those carpenter hands.
My mouth goes dry. My omega perks up with interest.
Not helpful, I tell it. We're having a crisis.