Roommaid

by Sariah Wilson

  I reached up for it and then put my hand in the sink so that blood wouldn’t keep spilling everywhere. At least I knew something about caring for cuts, as second graders seemed especially adept at getting them.

  Washing the wound out, I opened the kit with my free hand and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I poured it over my palm, gritting my jaw as it stung. Once I’d cleared out the blood, it seemed the cut wasn’t as deep as I’d thought it was. I used my teeth to help open the packaging for a large gauze bandage and put it on my palm.

  I’d be fine.

  But the couch . . . I ran back into the living room. Splotches of blood were standing out brightly against the light-gray fabric. How did I clean up blood?

  I knew you could soak it in cold water to get rid of a bloodstain. But I couldn’t soak the couch in cold water. What was I going to do? What could I do? My heart jackhammered in my chest and I felt like I couldn’t think straight, until my brain finally came up with an idea. What about bleach? I’d used that before for blood.

  Running to the laundry closet, I grabbed the bleach off the top shelf. I went back into the kitchen and snagged a white rag, rinsing it in cold water.

  I went back to the couch and started scrubbing at the blood with the rag. Only that made it worse; there were now streaks of blood instead of just splotches. “No, no, no,” I muttered. I then opened the bleach, setting it down on the cushion, and poured a little bit of it onto the rag. This time I tried dabbing at the stain.

  It seemed to be working until I realized the reason why. It was turning the fabric white. I had ruined the cushion.

  What was I going to do? Maybe I could just flip the cushion over and no one would ever be the wiser. Although I knew I would feel guilty every time we sat here to watch TV. Maybe there was, like, a cushion-covering store and I could bring it in and have them put on new fabric. That couldn’t be that expensive, right?

  I reached for the bleach, intending to put it away. Not knowing what I was going to tell Tyler. Because some part of me knew I had to tell him. I couldn’t keep being dishonest with him about little things like this. I wanted him to know everything about me.

  But just as I got my hand on the bottle, Pigeon chose that moment to nudge my arm and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The bleach bottle tipped forward; I gasped and tried to grab it, but it slipped through my fingers. The bleach splashed all over the back cushion, as well as the one I’d been trying to clean.

  I righted the bottle and then I put my body between the spill and Pigeon. I didn’t know what bleach might do to dogs but I figured it couldn’t be good. I took both the cushion and the bleach to the patio and left them outside.

  Pigeon seemed fine when I went to check her, but I was not a vet and didn’t know if she was okay. I brought her into my room in case there were fumes or something.

  We sat on the bed and I thought about what had just happened. Although I couldn’t guess at how much that couch had cost, especially one chosen by an interior decorator, I knew it had to be on the expensive side. I didn’t have the money to buy a new one. I couldn’t call Violet again; she had enough of her own problems to deal with.

  How could I replace it? I didn’t have anything saved up. I’d been paring down my expenses one by one, trying my best to stick to the budget Tyler had helped me create, but there was no way I had what I would need to pay for that couch. Maybe I could pay him off in installments?

  Or maybe I could sell something of mine. But even if I combined everything I owned, it still wouldn’t be enough.

  Except . . .

  Even though it made me heartsick, I knew there was only one way. I went into my closet. First I changed my shirt, putting the bloody/bleached one into my trash. Then I grabbed my Birkin bag. I closed the closet door and sank onto the floor, holding it. I would have to sell the bag. I’d been so desperate to move beyond my past, to give up everything that had to do with my parents. Maybe this was some kind of cosmic reminder that I had to let it all go.

  I wrapped my arms around my bag and I started to cry. Pigeon came over and licked my face, trying to cheer me up, but I couldn’t stop sobbing. If I’d believed in karma, I might have taken this as a punishment for not telling Tyler the truth about all the things in his house that I’d wrecked already.

  He was going to kick me out. I was going to lose my apartment, Pigeon, and, most importantly, I was going to lose him.

  Curling up into a ball, I kept crying. This was so stupid. It was so stupid to be this upset. Pigeon lay next to me, warming my body with hers. Which, for some reason, made me cry even harder. My chest started to ache, my lungs to burn, and my eyes became swollen and sore.

  That was how Tyler found me.

  “Hey, Madison? Why does it smell like bleach in here? And what happened to the couch?” His voice came closer and I felt him get down on the floor next to me. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “I’m a terrible person!” I lamented. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, too humiliated to even look at him.

  His strong hand rubbed my back, trying to comfort me. “Why do you think you’re a terrible person?”

  “Because I ruined your couch!”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay!” I wailed. “You don’t understand. I don’t know how to clean.”

  “What?” He sounded so confused.

  “You said you needed someone to move in and clean up. And I had never cleaned anything in my entire life. I messed up so many times! I made the dishwasher shoot out bubbles because I put dishwashing liquid soap in it and then I put your cast-iron pan in there and had to buy you a new one—”

  “You did?”

  “Yes! And I almost wrecked the vacuum I don’t know how many times and I cleaned the windows with Dawn and the bathroom mirror with all-purpose cleaner and I sucked a sock into the dryer and had to have a repairman fix it and then . . . then I forgot to close your closet door and Pigeon chewed up one of your shoes! I had to replace them and they were over a thousand dollars. The ones you thought were too tight.”

  “I bought those shoes used at a consignment store right out of college and they’ve held up really well. But I don’t think they were worth a thousand dollars.”

  I howled, “Now you tell me!”

  “How did you pay for all that?”

  “It’s why I’m broke. And my sister had to lend me the money for your shoes.”

  He went silent and I knew he had to be regretting asking me to move in here. I was a liar and a destroyer of his nice things and he should have a roommate who wasn’t either of those.

  I announced, “And now . . . I’m going to sell my Birkin bag so that I can replace your couch.”

  “The bag your grandma gave you for graduation?”

  “Yes. And then I’ll move out and you can bring in someone who won’t mess up your stuff and hide it from you and who will clean everything perfectly.”

  “I didn’t ask you to move in here because I wanted some expert cleaner. I invited you to stay because I liked you and you seemed like you needed the help.”

  Why did he have to be so wonderful? “That is so much worse!” I sniffed. “Do you hate me?”

  His hand moved to my shoulder. “Madison.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Look at me,” he said gently. I shook my head. I wanted to screw my eyelids shut even tighter. I couldn’t bear how often I had deceived him. “Madison.”

  Sighing, I relented. I opened my eyes and there was so much goodness in his gaze I wanted to start crying again.

  “I could never hate you.”

  “But I lied to you. About Brad, about cleaning, about your things I ruined.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I understand why you did it. I know you felt desperate that day and desperation can drive people to do crazy things. Come here.”

  Then he pulled my arm up until he was hugging me. This felt so good, so right. I knew he was only being friendly, but this was where I wanted
to be. In his arms. He felt like home. Not the horrible one I’d grown up in, but the one I’d always imagined for myself, where I would be safe, loved, and happy.

  Resting my head against his shoulder, I let him soothe me. He stroked my hair and it was wonderful.

  “I’ve felt so awful. I wanted to tell you everything but I was afraid.”

  “I’m glad you told me now.” There was a beat and then he asked, “So what did happen with the couch?”

  I explained how I’d cut my hand and that I thought I was supposed to use bleach to clean up blood, which I was kicking myself for. I should have looked it up online instead of blindly panicking. How Pigeon had bumped into my arm and the bottle had spilled and that I’d tried my best to keep her away from the bleach. “I didn’t know if it could hurt her. And I don’t know how much the couch costs, but I’ll pay you back.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It sounds like it was partly Pidge’s fault anyway and she’s my responsibility.”

  “No, I should contribute.”

  “You do contribute,” he said, his voice sounding low and serious. “In more ways than you know.”

  This was no time for me to try and search for hidden subtext. “I mean, I need to pay you back for replacing it.”

  “You’re not going to sell your purse,” he told me. “So forget about that.” He even took the bag out of my hands, as if I were going to run to my computer and post it on some auction website. “If it’s that important to you, we can work out a payment plan. Later. When your budget involves less dragon’s blood purchases.”

  That made me laugh through my tears. “How do you do that?” I asked. “Make me feel like everything’s going to be okay?”

  His mouth was against the top of my head and I both felt and heard his words. “Because everything is going to be okay.”

  “You’re not going to kick me out?”

  “No! Why would you even think that?” His arms tightened around me. “This is your home, too. And I’m so glad you moved in. It’s hard to remember a time when you weren’t part of my life, and even though we came together under some unusual circumstances, I’m really grateful for you.”

  That made my heavy-laden and exhausted heart practically sing with glee. “Me too. I mean, not that I’m grateful for me, but I’m so glad that we’re . . . roommates.”

  “Friends,” he corrected me.

  I wanted him to be right. I wanted everything to be okay.

  I should have known better.

  A new couch arrived quickly and they took away the old, bleach- and blood-stained one. The new couch was exactly the same as the old one. I figured Tyler must have called his decorator, but when I asked him how much it had cost, he just waved his hand and wouldn’t tell me.

  He did help me finish the snowfall decorations and he jokingly refused to let me handle the razor and cut all the fishing wire himself.

  Then the day of the winter festival arrived and my next pressing issue became how to transport all these stupid fluffy poms. He suggested sticking them in giant trash bags.

  The method concerned me. “But that might kill the fluff.”

  “Then we’ll have to re-fluff them.”

  Once we got them into the trash bags it was obvious that there was no way they would all fit in my car. Even if we did squish them.

  He said, “We’ll stuff your car full and then we’ll put the rest into mine. I’m going to grab some things to help set them up and I’ll meet you there.”

  We got my car loaded up and I waved goodbye to him. Delia and Shay, despite their other responsibilities, had agreed to show up early to help me decorate. For the past week I’d had recess duty while they’d been scheduled to cover lunchtime. We hadn’t had a chance to really sit down and talk since the Brad blowout. They had no idea Tyler and I had kissed.

  I pulled into the school parking lot, wondering how exactly I should break the news. Wondering if they might be mad that I hadn’t told them yet. Although I should have learned my lesson by now about being distracted, I somehow managed to get out of my car and lock it shut, leaving my keys in the ignition.

  With all the poms inside.

  “No!” Why did this stuff always seem to happen to me?

  Leaning my forehead against the cold car frame, I called Shay. “I’m in the parking lot and I locked my keys in the car.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  True to her word, she arrived quickly. I’d hoped she’d know some magical trick, but she only looked worried. “Do you have an extra set of keys?”

  I did, but they were back at the apartment somewhere. In my dresser? My nightstand? I couldn’t remember where I’d put them.

  Delia came up behind us. “What’s going on?”

  “Madison’s keys locked her out of the car.”

  This caused Delia to reach inside her big bag and pull out a long rectangular piece of metal. “I’ve got this.”

  She had the door unlocked in less than half a minute.

  Shay and I just gaped at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “How do you know how to do that?”

  At the same time Shay said, “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  I made sure to get my keys and they helped me grab all the trash bags. We brought everything inside the gym. The other decorations were on par with any formal event my mother had ever thrown. Christmas trees lined the walls, white lights twinkling softly. Dark-blue tablecloths with pine cone and pine branch centerpieces were set up throughout the room with silver plates and pale-blue linen napkins. A string quartet was warming up in the far corner.

  I suddenly felt very bad about the things that I had created. Somehow I’d imagined this would be geared more toward children. With, like, homemade snowflakes or candy canes made out of pool noodles. I felt underdressed in my red sweater and jeans. Shay and Delia both had on casual dresses, but they were still more dressed up than me.

  A little heads-up would have been nice.

  I started unpacking the poms, trying to fluff them back up. They most definitely had been squished and it killed me to think about all the time I’d spent making them look nice only to have them end up being lopsided and flat.

  My despair must have been showing on my face, because Delia said, “Don’t worry. We’ll fix this.”

  The three of us sat on the floor doing just that, getting little shreds of tissue paper all over the place. I felt bad for making a mess, especially considering how nice everything else looked. “Someone’s going to need to sweep this up.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re into now?” Delia asked.

  “I thought this cleaning thing would get easier. Or that I’d like it more,” I confessed. “But neither one of those things has happened. I feel like fairy tale princesses have been lying to me for years now. Especially Snow White. She tried to make it seem like going from being a princess to a glorified maid was fun. It’s not.”

  “You’re forgetting that those princesses had all those woodland creatures to help them out. Cleaning definitely might be more fun if tiny animals did most of it,” Delia reminded me.

  “You know the moral of the Snow White story,” Shay said.

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “Don’t eat poison apples?”

  “No. Do housework and maybe wind up with a prince. Speaking of handsome people you live with . . . how have things been going with you lately? I feel like we haven’t talked in forever.”

  While she had specifically referenced Tyler, I kind of wanted to work my way up to it. “My mom summoned me. And I told her not to do it anymore and I wasn’t ever getting back together with Brad. She threatened me.” And I’d been expecting her wrath to fall down on me in some way ever since. I wasn’t sure whether the silence meant that she’d backed off, or if she just hadn’t come up with a good enough way to punish me yet.

  “Good for you! Look at you with your adamantium-covered ovaries, standing up to your mother. I am impressed. And glad that she didn’t tu
rn you into stone,” Shay said.

  “Thanks. Also, I kissed Tyler.”

  Shay shrieked while Delia just frowned at me and asked, “Why do you do that? Hold on to these things and not tell us? You should call us right after it’s happened! If not during.”

  There was no way I would have called them during. Nothing could have gotten me to stop kissing him. Other than, you know, him stopping kissing me. “It was the night we ran into Brad at that club.”

  Shay grinned. “And you told him about your terrible ex-boyfriend and then Tyler kissed you because he felt obligated to show you what it’s like when a real man does it.”

  “No. He was a little drunk and trying to make me feel better about myself.”

  “He can make me feel better about myself anytime he wants,” Shay responded, then threw up her hands. “See? This is why you need to carpe date this guy already. He should not be running around single. It’s dangerous for womankind.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t date him as he hasn’t asked me out.”

  “No, he’s only kissed you.”

  “While he was drunk.”

  “Which could happen again,” she retorted.

  “The kissing or the drunkenness?”

  She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Both.”

  I laughed and then Delia said, “I think Madison should ask Santa to put Tyler under the tree as her present this year.”

  Shay disagreed. “Mrs. Claus is the one she needs to hit up for that wish. She gets it.”

  “You guys, he doesn’t want to date me. He asked me to forget about the kiss and move on from it. It was a mistake and we got carried away.”

  “Hm,” Shay grunted. “Some men don’t know what’s good for them.”

  “So now I’m the kale of the dating world?” I asked. I was on the verge of telling them all about how I’d wrecked his couch and then told him all the bad things I’d done to his possessions and that I didn’t know anything about cleaning, when I noticed rustling whispers and murmurs. I turned to see what the commotion was about.

  It was about Tyler.

  Who walked into the gym wearing a tool belt, holding a ladder with one hand and a drill in the other.