Page 21 of The Beautiful Collision
“Is that a no?”
“That’s a ‘what’s wrong with you?’”
“So many things. Want me to list them alphabetically or by severity?”
I look at him—reallylook at him—in all his disastrous glory: ancient shorts, ventilated shirt, and a grin that suggests he finds his existence hilarious. Six-foot-five of questionable choices and unexpected consideration. And, for now, my roommate, the person I’ll be sharing oxygen and the Wi-Fi password with.
God help us both.
“I’ll take water,” I concede. “But only if it’s in an actual glass. Not something that says ‘I SURVIVED SPRING BREAK’ on it.”
“Tap or bottled?”
I can’t hide my shock. “You have bottled water?”
He looks genuinely offended. “I’m not a complete Neanderthal. I shop at Target sometimes, and they have a whole aisle of fancy water with minerals and shit.”
He disappears to the fridge, leaving me alone with my life choices. Somewhere in this apartment, a surface is developing its own ecosystem. But I have a clean room. And bottled water. And a roommate who cleaned before I came just because my best friend mentioned it might matter to me.
In the hierarchy of disasters, this ranks somewhere between “survivable” and “future therapy material.”
Maine returns with water in an actual glass—not crystal, but not plastic—and hands it over with surprising gentleness. “Welcome home,” he says.
Home.
The word sits heavy in my chest as we clink drinks, his breakfast beer against my glass with a grin that’s equal parts sweet and shit-eating. I take a long sip, focusing on the clean, cold water instead of the panic performing Swan Lake in my stomach. One pristine thing in the chaos. I can work with this.
“Thanks,” I manage. “It’s a cool place.”
He nods. “It’s not fancy, but it’s good, like a favorite pair of underwear.”
“Did you just compare your apartment to underwear?”
“Good underwear.” He shrugs. “The kind that holds everything in place?—“
“I’m begging you to stop talking.”
But he’s trying. The clean room proves it. The bottled water proves it.
It counts for something.
And challenges me to try, as well.
seven
MAINE
Twenty-seven steps to my bed.
Twenty-seven steps before I can stop pretending I’m not completely fucked.
Not broke, like I was. But still just as fucked.
The door of my apartment screams on its hinges as I shoulder through, my body pickled in Pizza Plus’s signature cologne—garlic, cheese, pepperoni, and the particular reek of minimum wage—and my feet throbbing from eight hours of cooking pizzas.
The apartment air carries something pleasant and clean that makes my own stench bloom in my nostrils. Maya’s candles burning again, or her diffuser, or her perfume… the woman is basically a walking fragrance factory, and it’s no wonder she needs someone to help pay the rent with all the shit she spends cash on.
But that’s her problem, not mine, as long as she shoulders her half of the bills.
