Page 8 of The No Touch Roommate Rule
“Shit!” Dropping the mop, I race into the back again, adrenaline spiking hard enough to banish the last of the three a.m. exhaustion.
My fancy knives from Paris! My grandmother’s recipe box! The vintage vinyl record collection I just got back from my stupid ex-boyfriend, Chuck, two weeks ago! The photo of me and my father at a daddy-daughter barbeque competition in third grade, before he decided my obsession with cooking was an embarrassment and a waste of the good grades I should have used to become a lawyer like him.
I grab a milk crate and start throwing things in, but it’s barely half full when water starts leaking into the kitchen.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, grabbing the bins with my clothes from the bathroom and using my stepladder to shove them atop the storage unit as fast as I can.
At this point in my life, I can’t afford to buy a completely new wardrobe. Or a new vibrator. Or new anything else, for that matter.
I get all three bins up, but by the time I step back to the floor after the third, the water is up to my ankles.
How is this happening so fast? At this rate, I’m going to have to run out of here wearing nothing but La Perla underwear bought at a time when my financesweren’tin the shitter.
I briefly consider heading back up the ladder to fetch something decent to wear and change, but fuck that.
My records are more important than my dignity.
“Not today, Satan,” I mutter, hefting the crate containing Joni Mitchell, The Doobie Brothers, and all my other precious vinyl goodies onto the highest shelf. Next, I fill a larger crate with pots, pans, and my specialty spices. My arms shake as I hoist it up, and I nearly tumble backward as the heavy weight leaves my hands.
I reach out to catch myself on the shelf.
Itwobbles,Iwobble, and for a split second, I think it’s over for both of us.
Thank God, it rocks back into place a beat later, but me and my shelf aren’t out of the woods yet. The water is still rising—fast. By the time I get the box with all my legal documents shoved in beside everything else, it’s up to my waist, and I’m trembling all over from a mixture of cold and adrenaline.
It’s time.
Time to get the fuck out of here.
I wade toward the counter again, planning to exit the building and head up the stairs on the left side toward higher ground. There’s a little terrace up there, where the smokers hang out after lunch. I’m not sure if there’s a way to get out of downtown from there, but I should at least be safe from the floodwater while I call for help.
Call for help…
I freeze a few feet from the front, dread icing my veins as I remember that my phone is still in my dress.
The dress I was so happy had pockets so I didn’t have to carry a purse.
The dress that’s currently underwater in the corner where I tossed it over twenty minutes ago.
Bleating out an obscenity from the core of my being, I spin and slosh back toward it, knowing better than to think my shitty cell case protected the phone, but feeling compelled to grab it just in case, when…the lights go out.
I freeze again, blood pressure skyrocketing in the sudden darkness.
The emergency lights kick in a second later, casting everything in horror-movie red, but the damage is done.
I just got the wake-up call I needed: I can’t afford to waste another minute fucking around or I might be about to find out.
Heart in my throat, I whirl around again, wading back to the front and climbing on top of the counter. I’m about to slide back into the water on the other side when I spot a car floating by outside. It’s a tiny car, one of those itty-bitty things from Italy that look like a cartoon come to life, but it’s still a hell of a lot bigger than I am. Ifit’sbeing swept away, the chances of me making it through the current to the stairs and the terrace beyond are slim to none.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter, fighting tears as my thoughts race.
I can’t afford to waste time having a breakdown. I have to figure out another way to higher ground before it’s too late.
Pulse racing, I scan the ground floor, but the stairwell—my only real escape route, considering the elevator isn’t going to be working in an emergency back-up power situation—is on the other side of the lobby, near Allan’s place.
But that side is five steps lower than my side, and my counter is already nearly underwater. I can’t see the coffee shop clearly from here, but it, and the door leading to the stairs beside it, has to be completely under by now. I could try to swim down to it, but I don’t know what else is floating around in the flood, and the water pressure would probably be too strong for me to wrench open the door, anyway, even if I could find it.
Fuck.
