Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(32)

She nodded. “Yeah, but it’s just his legs. He was able to call me. He’s not in any immediate danger. I don’t think he’s hurt or anything. He just can’t get out by himself.”

I shook my head. “And you didn’t want to call 911? They would have gotten there faster.”

“I can’t call the police to that house. They’ll red tag it.”

I drew my eyebrows down. “Red tag it? What’s wrong with it?”

She let out a long breath. “Remember I told you about the muddy hill of shit yesterday? And you were all cavalier and wanted to be my friend anyway?”

I changed lanes. “Yes…”

“Well, this is the slide.”

Fifteen minutes later we pulled up to a two-story house in Eagan. Vanessa jumped out and ran up the walkway and went inside without waiting for me. When I came up behind her, I stopped dead in the doorway.

The smell hit me like a wall.

I came slowly into the entry breathing into my elbow. I’d never seen anything like it. Not in real life.

Floor-to-ceiling stacks as far as the eye could see. Shit literally everywhere. Every standing surface had a pile on it.

The love seat in the living room was completely covered with some sort of magazine/newspaper collection piled so high it blocked the light from the window. There was a broken blender on the credenza filled with bottle caps next to a rotting gourd with fruit flies buzzing around it. Bins everywhere, lining the walls with God knows what in them, the rim to a tire, a box filled with broken picture frames, one of those white wicker baskets used for flowers at weddings in the 1980s with a dented pink helium tank sitting in it—

There was a chaotic method to some of the madness. Certain things seemed to be grouped together. A stack of board games piled on a chair, a CD collection. But all around it was garbage and decaying food. Broken, useless trinkets and appliances.

Vanessa called me from somewhere deeper in the house and I picked my way over the clutter on the floor to a hallway that was so crowded with stuff I had to turn sideways to squeeze through it. Vanessa stood in a room at the end trying to lift a fallen armoire off a pile of clothes.

“I got it,” I said, heaving it up and leaning it against the wall. Only after I had it moved did I realize there was a man under it.

Vanessa was already digging her dad out from under shirts and pants. “Dad, you okay?” she asked, pulling him to his feet.

He brushed his sweater down, a sock still draped over his shoulder. “Fine, fine, pumpkin. I put some laundry on an open drawer and it must have been too top-heavy. Toppled it onto me. Had a nice little cushion for the fall though.”

Vanessa looked back at me, a tired expression on her face. “Thanks for helping.”

Her dad gave me a broad used-car-salesman smile. “We haven’t been formally introduced,” he said, extending a hand. “Gerald Price.”

I was feeling nauseous. My eyes were starting to water. “Adrian Copeland,” I managed, shaking it.

Gerald put his hands in his pockets and rocked jovially back on his heels. “So, Vanessa tells me you’re a lawyer.”

He smiled up at me like nothing was wrong. Like I hadn’t just lifted a dresser off him and we were running into each other in a Panera or something.

I couldn’t make small talk with him here, standing in this garbage pile. I was having a hard time breathing. Not just because of the smell, but because the room was so crowded with junk it was giving me anxiety. The floor under my feet was uneven. I was standing on blankets and balled-up socks and my head was too close to the ceiling. I felt claustrophobic.

“I’m sorry, excuse me. I need to step out.”

I left them standing there. I didn’t stop moving until I was outside again on the porch, gulping fresh air.

How the fuck had Vanessa grown up in this? I wouldn’t say my own childhood was without trauma, but this made me feel like calling my mom and thanking her.

Three minutes later I was still on the front porch when Vanessa came out and plopped down next to me on the weathered bench I’d retreated to by the screen door.

I shook my head. “Wow.”

She scoffed. “I prefer a four-letter word, but sure.”

I looked over at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude back there. I just needed to get some air.”

She sighed. “It’s overwhelming, I know. Especially when you’re not used to it.”

“You’re used to this?”

“I’m used to a lot of shit.” She laughed a little mirthlessly. “I found a raccoon living in one of the closets one time. Once you realize you’re one open window and a hoarded bathroom away from living with trash pandas, the whole second half of your life begins.”

I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.

She nudged my arm. “So, you still believe that whole ‘other families just do better PR’ thing?”

I snorted and shook my head at the yard. “Has he always been this way?”

She took a deep breath and blew it out in the cold air. “Pretty much. But this is honestly the worst it’s ever been,” she admitted. “It gets worse every time something big happens. Mom, Melanie. Annabel. I think it’s his way of dealing with it.”

She dug into the neck of her shirt and pulled out a yellow tube of Carmex.