Move out or else.
You owe me.
I can’t imagine what I could possibly owe her when she’s taken everything from me. Every time I turn around, she wants more. My food, my clothes, more money for rent…
Last week while I was at the Hartwells, she called me. She’d found out where I worked and threatened to tell them the truth about me.
I’ve been living on pins and needles ever since, waiting for her to take the last, final piece of my life from me.
I pat the small wad of cash in my pocket. Combined with my savings stashed in my room, I officially have enough to move out. Then she will never get the upper hand on me again.
The lights are off, and our tiny apartment is devoid of all Christmas decor. Not surprising, seeing as how we don’t decorate for anything. Worse, though, is the smell. It’s one part old building and two parts garbage. No one took out the trash. Again.
My shoulders slump as I shut the door behind me. I was so excited to get home until I remembered what “home” is.
The home where I wanted to be is in Connecticut with my family, like always. But Mom and Dad decided that since they had successfully endured thirty years of parenthood, they would reward themselves with a cruise for Christmas. They deserve it; they really do. They barely survived my little brothers. When my brothers heard Christmas was canceled, they booked a ski trip to Aspen. Emotionless robots.
I wander into the kitchen in search of a snack, but the fridge is nearly bare. I find a granola bar in the cupboard and rip it open, dropping the wrapper in the trash.
Someone threw away the newspaper, and there on the cover is my boss, Mr. Hartwell, who I’ve yet to meet.
I peel it out, inspecting it for rotting food, but it’s clean. I drop it on the table to read later while I eat. Something about a physical paper makes me feel educated and classy. But first, I need to change.
I drag my tired body down the hall and open the door to my closet-sized room.
My heart stops beating, and then it beats too loud, practically echoing off the brick walls around me because my room… is empty. Stripped bare.
I flick on the light, willing it to bring me a different view, but it only illuminates all that’s missing—all I’ve officially lost.
No, no, no. This isnothappening.
Everything is gone, even my mattress. All that remains is my old bed frame, currently being held together by pink duct tape, and my dead succulent in the twelve-inch window.
We were robbed. Unless they moved me out because I haven’t been around in so long. I paid rent last month, right?
I run across the hall to Jin and Sophie’s room.
It’s just as I remember, which means… Only one person hates me enough to do this.
I turn to Katie’s room.
It’s a desolate island; she won’t be returning. Her clothes, once strewn about the room, have vanished. Her easel and all her artwork are gone.
Only now do I realize the kitchen and living room are devoid of anything worth money that once belonged to me. My only remaining contribution to this apartment is the ripped throw pillow in the corner of the ugly yellow couch.
My chest feels too tight, and the backs of my eyes sting. I stumble to my room in a daze. Everything can’t be gone. It can’t.
Pain shoots through my knees as I collapse to the floor and pry open the crack in the floorboards where I hid my money—a.k.a my only hope for the future—and my few valuables. One valuable, really: the ring that has always meant more to me than any other possession.
A shallow, empty hole is all I find.
Nothing. I drag my hands around every inch of the crevice, searching for the ring. It’s gone, along with everything else.
I havenothingleft.
Propped against the foot of the bedframe is something I missed before. A large rolled-up piece of paper, and a note. I snatch the note, ripping it open to find the familiar loopy handwriting of my roommate.
If you want your stuff back, you know what to do.
