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We introduce ourselves, and she tells us her name is Natanya as she opens the apartment door. Her perfume gently wafts over us, dissolving the smell of dust I’d been getting since we got to the landing.
The front room has a fresh coat of paint. The stark white walls are not a favorite, but at least they look clean. Skyla gives me a thumbs-up behind Natanya’s back, and I return her smile. This isn’t bad at all. Instead of heading to the kitchen where I thought the landlady would take us, she heads straight to the bedroom at the back. It’s tiny, the twin bed taking up most of the space in the small room, but it’s not like I’m going to be doing anything in here besides sleeping, right?
I open the closet expecting it to smell musty, but I’m pleasantly surprised, and it looks like there’s a fair amount of space. The only bathroom in the apartment is off the bedroom, which I don’t love, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers. It’s not like I have money growing on trees. With my salary only covering rent, food, and my studies, things are going to be really tight as it is.
We enter the bathroom, and I stare at the tub. Around the back of the bath where I’d normally rest my head to have a nice soak and read, two of the tiles are missing, so I’d essentially be resting my head on bare concrete. There’s a dark brown stain in the sink from where a leaking tap kept dripping onto the blue porcelain, and the toilet has a giant crack down the middle.
“Well, I guess a few tweaks here and there will be in order, but it’s not so bad. Jensen can help with the tiles.”
I give a noncommittal shrug. I guess Skyla is trying to be the optimistic friend we just joked about, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to do much about the sink stain, and do they even sell blue toilets anymore?
“I don’t have any fresh tiles, so you’d have to replace all the tiles around the bath to give it a cohesive look,” Natanya says, giving me a pointed stare.
Oh-kay then. As if I would just slot in two random tiles, but anything would be better than it looks now.
“Shall we head to the kitchen?” Natanya asks.
The kitchen gives me more of that false sense of security that the fresh paint offered. Each cupboard I open gives off a fresh pine smell and looks in good condition. Skyla and I are beaming at each other. While it’s far from perfect, it’s not all bad, and there’s certainly nothing that can’t be fixed.
You know what they say about something being too good to be true? The moment I open the oven door, hundreds of cockroaches come streaming out. They run in all directions, some even crawling over my boots at breakneck speed. I kick my leg out, trying to get the bugs off me. Skyla does this crazy rain-dance looking thing and just about strips off her clothes. What’s weird about the whole thing is the landlady just steps on the cockroaches as if she’s playing some sort of dance versus whack-a-mole challenge. It’s like a massacre with squashed roaches all over the tiled floor.
Within moments, we’re out of the apartment and in the car, both of us giggling from the insanity of it all.
Two hours and four more apartments in varying states of disarray later, and I’m no longer laughing. The second apartment we looked at wasn’t bad, but when the realtor asked me if I’d be willing to bed bathe his uncle on the second floor for a discount, I hightailed it out of there. At the last apartment, we didn’t even get out of the car after seeing the outside. It’s a situation that becomes more and more depressing by the minute.
“I don’t get that places can be so bad just a couple of blocks from Tyler’s apartment. His home is beautiful.” I shake my head.
“You know the offer still stands?” Skyla reminds me as we pull away from the last apartment after not even getting out of the car.
“I know, thank you.” I sound as dejected as I feel. What a freaking day.
We pull up to Skyla’s place, and she smiles at me. “Wanna come in for dinner? It’s nothing fancy, just burgers Jensen grilled.”
I smile back at my friend. “I’m pretty wiped after all the action today. Another time?”
“Sure thing. You okay?” She cringes as she asks. “Sorry, reflex.”
“I’m okay. I’m not giving up yet. Thank you for coming with me today.”
“Of course. It was entertaining if nothing else.”
“You can say that again.”
“I mean it, Jess. We have a spare room.”
“I know. I love you.” And I do love her for the offer, but I don’t want to intrude on anyone, and living with my friends would only make me feel even more worthless than I do now.
The front door opens, and Jensen makes his way down the path. Tatum is in his arms, and he looks like he’s gone through the wringer.
Skyla shares a look with me. “The guy literally goes months on a mission with little to no sleep and dehydrated food but a day with Tatum, and he looks ready to leap onto a landmine.”
I laugh. “She is a force to be reckoned with. Chris and I were exhausted that night we had her.”
My mood immediately plummets at the memory of the last time with Chris, but I refuse to worry Skyla anymore.
Jensen leans in the open window. “How did it go?”
“Ugh, I think I’m going to have to sleep under a bridge.”
