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Slumped in the doorway was none other than Adam. His hands in his pockets, his blond head bent and looking, probably, for his lost dignity in his scuffed shoes, or perhaps for my lost inheritance, the mean streak in me thought. He startled when the door scraped open. What did he think? That I wouldn’t open the door? Come to think of it, why did I?
“What the hell are you doing here?” Did I have to see this addict today? Stealing all your girlfriend's money and gambling it away, even if it is in a posher place like the stock market, didn’t make him any better than an addict.
“I live here.”
My hands clutched onto the door so I could rein in my temptation to let my hands claw his face off. “You live here if you pay the rent. You haven’t done that for the last six months. And now I can’t pay my rent either. Because of you.”
He shuffled his feet, guilt dancing on his face. There was a scuffle from downstairs, and he looked uncomfortable. “Baby, can we go inside and talk about this? Come on.” He pleaded, trying to grab my arm.
I whacked his hand out of the way like the annoying fly that he was. “Don’t “baby” me, Adam. You didn’t think of your baby when you were gambling away my inheritance. My inheritance, Adam. That was the only thing left of my parents for me. What right did you have to go after that?”
“Come on, baby, it’s just money. What we have together is so much more. We went through your parents’ deaths together and came out strong. We have each other.”
He might as well have punched me right in my heart.
“How dare you bring my parents’ deaths into this!” I didn’t care anymore that I was yelling. I wanted the entire building to know what he had done. “What did you go through? Huh? Were they your parents? Did you support me? Did you feel the loss? Poor you. Flying out to their funeral was an effort too much for you, you big fucking idiot.”
“Come on, baby, you know that’s not fair. Funerals really aren’t my thing.”
“Nothing is your thing, Adam,” I screamed in his face, ignoring the puppy eyes he was putting on. The time that I fell for that was long gone. “You couldn’t stand by me when I needed you the most. You couldn’t bother to support me. Hold my hand. The only thing you could do is apparently gamble all my money away.” I thought I had forgiven him for not coming with me. Turned out I hadn’t.
I heard voices below. The neighbours were getting a great show tonight.
“Why are you here, anyway?”
“I miss you, baby.”
A sigh left my body like the air of a burst tire. My anger ebbed away to give way to disappointment. I felt deflated.
“Do me a favour. Stay out of my life from now on. I would sue you if I could. I am sure I would have a case. But thanks to you, I have to struggle for everything now.” My voice cracked. It always let me down when I was overwrought with emotion. “I can’t start my studies. I am struggling to pay my rent. I need to find a job soon. So unless you have a solution to that, get the hell out of here.”
I would have loved to slam the door in his face. But of course, I had to be stuck with an old door hanging lower on the hinge, which took all of my energy just to get it to close.
Leaning against the door, I listened to his shuffling feet move away. I could faintly hear a conversation with the neighbours down. Good. He could explain all his shit to them.
Cleaning up appealed to me even less than before. Exhaustion overtook me as I dragged on Adam’s stupid shirt to sleep in. I really needed to find something else, it was just that it was so comfortable. He owed me that much, at least. Switching off the lights, I crawled into bed. Tomorrow was another day and hopefully a better one.
I must have been lying in my bed for no more than ten minutes when the usual banging from downstairs started up.
The show of every night.
Covering my ears didn’t block the stream of Russian being screamed out and the noise of the headboard banging onto the wall. Did they have to go at it all the time like a couple of rabbits? Did that guy not need a break? I had never seen his lady friend, but at the sound of it, she was one hot piece of sex on Red Bull.
I tossed and turned and tried covering my ears with my pillow. All I asked now was for one good night, then tomorrow, I was going to come up with a plan. Find a job, try to save something, … or maybe I should move back home. There was nothing for me in Boston anymore.
Adam was in a casino. He sat in a coffin and yelled that he hated funerals. He was handing out my dollars to strangers while watching my neighbour banging a hot Russian woman on the backgammon table in front of him. In the next minute, it was Adam with the woman, and the neighbour turned around to me. “You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen,” he whispered and touched me. I felt cold. I tried to move away, but I couldn’t. All three of them were there in front of me and covered in nothing but dollar notes. There was a piece of repetitive music in the background, which got louder and louder. It sounded like a tribal song and increased in volume, taking over whatever they were yelling at me. It hurt my ears. Suddenly, it sounded like a doorknob and softened in volume. Wait.
I jerked awake. That was the doorbell being rung again and again with a repetitive tapping on the door. Half asleep, I stumbled to the door and found my neighbour had popped out of my dream to stand on my doorstep.
“Sorry, didn’t realise you were sleeping.” His eyes visibly licked me from top to toe, leaving me in need of a shower, badly.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to focus on him.
What was he doing here?
“We heard your argument yesterday with your man.” His eyes settled on my cleavage again.
I collected my open shirt collar together, driving his eyes back to my face. No point hiding my story anymore. “We broke up.”
