Page 59 of The Way I Am Now
“Of course.”
“If I’m not out of the bathroom, just come in and wait in my room, okay?” she whispers. “I’ll leave this unlocked.”
Dominic is standing in the kitchen eating cereal when I walk in. “What the hell?” he says, turning to look out the window. “Is it raining?”
“Nope,” I tell him, rushing past without explaining.
I brush my teeth and take the world’s quickest shower to wash the chlorine smell off my skin. I hang my wet clothes on the back of my door and get into clean ones. T-shirt, boxer briefs, because they’re comfortable and I also read somewhere that women find them the sexiest, a statistic I didn’t think I cared about or even remembered before, well, this very moment. I go back and forth about jeans versus shorts—Dominic’s voice in my head telling me cargoes should be outlawed—but if we’re just in her room, sleeping, it can be casual. I decide to go with one of my newer pairs of athletic shorts. I hesitate at my nightstand, not sure if I should bring them. Is it presumptuous or just being prepared? I open the drawer and decide to take one, just in case.
In the kitchen, Dominic is watching me rush around.
“Do I look all right?”
“All right for . . .what?” he asks, this horrified yet baffled expression twisting his face.
“Sleeping over,” I admit.
“Do you really want to have this conversation?”
“No, actually.” I grab a bottle of water from our fridge. “Thank you. Gotta go.”
“Have fun, stud,” he calls after me. “Remember, practice in the morning—don’t overexert yourself!”
I’m back at her door within ten minutes. I knock quietly before I open it and tiptoe through their kitchen, past the straight line of light from under the bathroom door.
I let myself into her room. I would sit, but she has a bunch of clothes spread out on her bed and chair. So I stand in the center of her tiny room instead. It’s dark except for the dim light coming from the small lamp on her desk, and it reminds me of when I was in her room back home. How oppressive it felt in there.
But this room feels like Eden already. I admire her things spread out all haphazardly. She has her laptop open on her desk with a music app on pause and a copy of this year’s course catalog and some other books and papers teetering dangerously close to the edge. But that’s when something else on her desk catches my eye. Three prescription bottles, tucked in behind a tube of lotion and some hair products.
It’s none of my business, God, how I know that.
But, my brain insists.
Because all my stupid brain can think of is my dad and his problems, all the times he would hide pills and bottles—all the times we’d have to hide themfromhim. She’s not my dad, though. She told me all that stuff was in the past, and I believe her.
The sound of the shower turning off carries through the quiet of the apartment.
“All right,” I say out loud, taking a deep breath and forcing myself to look at something else. Her bookcase. Perfect. I go over, but I can’t seem to focus enough to read a single title. I walk back over to her desk and glance at the closed door once more.
I don’t need to knowwhatthey are; I just need to know that they’re hers. Carefully, I reach for the first one, memorizing their exact positions. Her name’s on the label. And the second one. And the third. All prescribed to her. By a doctor in our hometown. Nothing wrong with any of this. It’s absolutely none of my business.
But, again.
Now I do kind of need to know, at least, what they’renot. And I still hear the fan going in the bathroom.
God, I hate myself.
I go back to her desk. The labels don’t say what they’re for, but I also don’t recognize the names, which is a good thing. The only drug names I’m familiar with—because of my dad, of course— are the dangerous pain-related controlled substances. And at least these aren’t that. The first one says to take once a day, the second is one tablet at night, and the third says as needed. All have refills. I set them back down in their spots.
There is no reason for me to fixate on this. It’s not even surprising that she would be on some kind of medication after everything she’s been through. Fuck,Ishould probably be medicated too.
Just then, the fan shuts off, and I hear the bathroom door creak open. Quickly, I park myself in front of her bookcase, bending down to slide one of the books out, as if I’d been standing here reading the jacket this whole time.
“Hey,” she whispers. “You’re here.”
And as I turn around to see her face, the glorious fruit and flower scents following along behind her, I can almost forget about the things that are none of my business. “Of course I’m here,” I tell her, setting the book down as she starts walking toward me.
But then she stops short, looking at her desk, and my heart starts racing like she might be able to tell I’ve handled the bottles. “I’m sorry it’s so messy in here.” She turns around and gathers up all the clothes from her bed and tosses them on top of the desk, covering all the stuff I am now pretty certain she didn’t want me to see.
