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CHAPTER ONE
Aria Jensen stared out the window of her car at the two-story building she had parked in front of. The exterior looked nice enough, but it didn’t reflect what was in her apartment. She’d lived there for almost a year, but she would never call it home.
To her, home was a safe space. A warm and welcoming place. Somewhere she was happy to be.
She’d had that in the small home she’d shared with her mom. Until she could no longer afford it. Even with a roommate, she hadn’t made enough at her current job to pay half the rent.
Aria gripped her steering wheel so she wouldn’t scratch at the anxiety that itched beneath her skin. So much had happened over the past year, and Aria wasn’t sure if she could handle things getting any worse. Surely, being homeless was better than her present living situation.
Knowing she had no choice but to go inside, Aria loosened her grip on the steering wheel and grabbed her things from the passenger seat. Clutching her purse and water bottle to her chest, she made her way across the cracked sidewalk to the concrete steps that led to the door of the building.
The door swung open, and a slovenly dressed man stumbled out, catching himself on the railing of the steps as he leered at her.
“Well, hello, sweetheart,” he mumbled. He reached out a hand, but Aria skirted past him and went inside without responding.
If only he was the worst the building had to offer. With heavy steps, she climbed to the second floor. When she reached the door of the apartment, she paused and took several breaths, praying that the apartment was empty for a change.
Aria gripped the doorknob and twisted it, not surprised to find it unlocked. Whether or not her roommates were home, they never locked the door because they always forgot their keys.
Wrinkling her nose at the smells that assaulted her, she stepped into the apartment. Burnt and rotten food seemed to be a constant in the air, and it made Aria want to gag.
“Ariaaaaaaaa!”
Aria ignored the call and hurried toward her room. Her steps faltered when she saw that her door stood open, the doorknob broken. She swung around to face the woman who came toward her with unsteady steps.
“Why is my door open?” Aria demanded, the sick feeling in her stomach intensifying.
“Is it open?” the woman asked as she bumped into the wall, then just stayed there leaning against it. “I guess you left it open.”
“I didnotleave it open,” Aria said.
She hated moments like these. She’d never been good at confrontations, and this one was going to leave her shaken. With her door broken, she had no safe place to go.
“Did you bring food?”
The woman who had seemed to be such an ideal candidate for a roommate initially had turned into a nightmare. And now Aria just wanted to be free of her. Unfortunately, she had nowhere to go.
“No. I didn’t bring food.” She turned on her heel and went to her room.
Tears stung her eyes as she took in the destruction. They had pulled her clothes out and strewn them all over the room, as if they’d been searching for something in her drawers. The lamp on her nightstand had been knocked over, and her mattress sat at an angle on her box spring. The blankets and pillows were tossed all across the floor.
Aria wanted to scream at Tonya that she’d had no right to go through her things, but she knew she’d just deny it had been her. Turning, Aria closed her door, wishing she could still lock it.
She began to put things back into place, but when she got to her clothes, she paused. There was no way she could keep living there. Her anxiety was constantly high, meaning she struggled to sleep, fearing what might happen while she was unaware. And now, with the broken lock on her door, there was no way she’d be able to fall asleep at all.
Instead of putting her clothes back into the drawers, Aria went to the closet and pulled out her two suitcases. As quickly as she could, she crammed all her clothes into them.
When Tonya had first showed up to view the apartment, Aria had thought she’d make a decent roommate. The woman must have come during a rare moment of sobriety, and she’d managed to pull the wool over Aria’s eyes. But since the day she’d moved in, she’d been either drunk or high, and the same was true for her boyfriend, who had become a second roommate that Aria hadn’t agreed to.
On top of eating all her food and only giving her part of the rent money they owed, they didn’t clean up after themselves. Basically, they were the worst roommates ever. Until they’d broken into her room, Aria had been willing to tough it out. But she was done now. She was better off sleeping in her car.
Thankfully, they had a month-to-month lease, and she’d paid until the end of that month. Let them deal with next month’s rent. She’d covered for them for the last two months—at the expense of her food budget—so they could figure out how to pay the next month if they wanted to stay.
With all her clothes and toiletries packed, she went to the kitchen to grab a couple of garbage bags. Tonya and her boyfriend were passed out on the couch, which was just fine, as far as Aria was concerned. Maybe she could get out without them realizing she was leaving for good.
Back in her room, Aria put all her bedding, pillows, and towels into the garbage bags. The bed was hers, but she didn’t care about it. She would happily write it off if she could just walk away from the nightmare her life had become.
In just over an hour, she’d packed up everything she wanted to take. Now she had to get it all down to her car without waking the terrible twosome.
