Yolk(31)

“You should get all the same socks.” Mine are uniformly black, from Uniqlo. I stick my toes out at her. Shaking my feet so she sees, but when she doesn’t say anything, I look up. That’s when I realize, to my horror, that June is crying. Again. The expression on her face is unchanged, but there are fat droplets coursing down her cheeks and falling onto her hands, which are lying in her lap like upturned bugs.

“June…” They announce our stop. I get up and she follows.

We walk the three blocks to the apartment. I beep the fob on the door, and we march upstairs, her behind me, our footfalls matching.

“Is he gone?” June asks, even before I’ve opened the door. She’s clearing her throat and blotting her eyes. I unlock the door and switch the light on. We remove our shoes.

At first glance I can’t tell. There is, however, an enormous dead cockroach right in the center of the living room.

I rush into the bathroom, bundle up some toilet paper, and throw it out. My face burns. I can’t stand to look at her.

The sunken West Elm love seat off Craigslist is still there. Same with the bookcase and the particle-board café table and chairs that I use when I’m doing homework. The house smells the same. Lightly floral from a candle that sits in the kitchen. Not a hint of ylang-ylang shower cleaner. My bedroom door is ajar, and as I approach it slowly, I feel a crawling dread, as if I’m the final girl in a horror movie. I peek in.

The curtains are drawn. I feel my way in the dark, turning on the bedside lamp on the floor inside the closet since the overhead bulb shorted out ages ago. The bed’s been stripped. He could be out. Just as I say “He’s not home,” I’m shoved from behind onto the mattress.

“BWWWAAAGH!” screams June, standing over me.

I flip around, heart pounding. “You’re such a dick!”

June laughs in my face, pinning me to the bed. “Why are you scared? It’s your house,” she says. Then she looks around the room. I see it through her eyes. This is precisely why I didn’t want her coming. I watch as she registers the mattress that’s flush to the walls. The bubble of condensation trapped under the white paint above the window. I brush the crumbled pieces of ceiling plaster off the bed and grab a fitted sheet from a shelf to put on. The bare mattress suddenly seems obscene. June reaches out to tame the bottom of the elasticated clump of fabric. She has to stand in the hallway to do it.

I eye a yellowing hexagon on the white terry surface of the mattress. I don’t remember the last time I changed the sheets. It looks like the outline of France.

“Is this the mattress I bought?” She pulls the quilted corner away from the wall to hook it into the sheet pocket expertly. “Didn’t I tell you to get a full?”

“I paid you back.” I do the same from atop the bed. “And a full didn’t fit.” I’d love, just once, to live in an apartment where I had my own full bed.

June smooths out the sheet. “Jesus, haven’t you heard of a mattress protector? This is a year old.”

“Two and a half.”

She glares at me. “I just hope these cum stains are yours.”

I drag her onto the stain and when she falls, she laughs so hard it makes me laugh.

“I hate you,” I tell her.

I check the bathroom. And the coat closet and the cabinets. From what I can see, he has every intention of coming back. Most of his stuff is still here. I immediately change my Netflix password and delete his profile. Fuck him.

June’s in my fridge. “Jesus, he doesn’t eat food either?” she says, flinging the door open, causing condiment bottles to clang. She pulls out a crusty jar of honeyed yuzu from the shelf, so I put the kettle on. She holds her palm above the radiator and looks at me with concern. Then she puts her coat back on. It’s cold in here.

“I don’t think he’s gone,” she says.

“I have no idea,” I tell her, noncommittal.

“Mom would shit if she found out you were shacking up with some dude.” She turns on the kitchen faucet and holds her hand under the water. Then she turns the hot water on full blast.

“Jayne,” she says.

I watch her fingers wriggle in the stream.

“You can’t be serious.”

“What?” I glare at her.

“Look around, asshole,” she says. “You can’t live like this! You have black mold on your bedroom walls.” She points accusingly. “It smells like cats have been peeing in here for centuries. Please tell me you withheld rent this month—you don’t have hot water.”

“You can’t tell Mom I’m living with a dude,” I tell her, nudging her out of the way to open the cupboard by her head. I might live in a hovel, but at least I want her to see how normal people store their mugs.

I make our tea.

“Jayne.”

I give her the good mug, offering it to her with the handle facing out, burning the shit out of my fingertips.

She takes her sweet time reaching for it and walks over to the couch. For a split second I see her wrinkle her snobby nose before perching on her seat. I sit down next to her, squishing in.

I want to put my coat back on too, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. I lean back and stretch my legs out as if June’s being a priss.

I set my mug on the floor since we don’t have a coffee table but pick it up again. It’s gross down there. There are so many dust bunnies and hair clumps that I’ve never noticed before.