I lie on my purple sheets, contemplating my very small existence and staring at the sun. It crests the sky, shining bright rays through the slits in my blinds. An arm drapes across my bare back. I don’t want to wake him. Hopefully his eyes will flutter open while I feign sleepiness. I’ve been up since five in the morning, thinking and gazing at the same spot. The sun. The window. My life.
Bang! The noise from my door jolts me. “Lily!” Lo knocks again, his fist slamming into the white wood.
My heart lodges in my throat. I put a pillow over my head, spinning and crashing in a post-drunk tidal wave. The door clicks, and I curse the fact that Lo has a key.
My groggy male guest props himself up. “Who are you?” he asks with a yawn.
“Don’t talk so loud,” another voice groans. What?! I did not…Did I? There are two guys in my bed! I didn’t…I couldn’t have had sex with both of them. I search my memories, but I blank when I reach my anonymous “date” at a bar. Booze forgives all transgressions, but it doesn’t help with the morning after.
My limbs have petrified.
“Both of you, get the fuck out,” Lo sneers. “Now!”
Quickly, the two guys shuffle for their clothes, pulling on articles while I disintegrate into my sheets and cower underneath another comforter. When they finally disappear, silence blankets the room.
Usually whenever Lo kicks a guy out in the morning, he’s so blasé about it. Sometimes he even offers the poor guy a cup of coffee before he leaves. This is not normal.
While I avoid his gaze, Lo paces, and I hear the crinkle of plastic. I peek from my sheet-cave.
He’s cleaning?
I use a part of the sheet to cover my chest and straighten up. “What are you doing?” My voice comes out small and choked. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he stays focused on tossing the empty beer bottles into a black trash bag along with many articles of clothing. Boy clothing.
For the first time in days, I actually look at my room. Layered in different underwear, spilled with bottles of booze and tainted with white powder on my vanity—it’s disgusting. My floor hides beneath mounds of debauchery and sin. Half the sheets pile on the ground, and used condoms scatter my rug. It feels like I woke up in someone else’s bed.
“Stop,” I tell him, shame sending tears. “You don’t have to do that.”
He tosses an empty box of condoms into the bag before looking up at me. His expression remains inscrutable, scaring me even more. “Go take a shower. Get dressed, and then we’ll go.”
“Where?”
“Out.” He turns his back and continues trashing my things. I’ve cleaned his room countless times, but he was always unconscious to the world when I did it.
I wrap my purple sheet around my body and waddle towards the bathroom. After I shampoo my hair and lather soap on every inch of skin, I step out and pull on a terry cloth robe with slippers. I pad back. A full garbage bag sits by the open door, and outside the archway, I hear the faucet running in the kitchen.
I change in the closet, throwing on a comfortable black cotton dress, not knowing the proper attire for wherever we’re headed. I can’t make a guess on the destination either. My head sits as numb and cold as my body.
When I enter my room again, Lo stands by the door, the trash bag gone. He gives me a quick onceover while I tie my hair into a small pony, my fingers trembling. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod and follow him out, grabbing the keys. As I walk, I notice all my aches and pains. Blackish, yellow spots bruise my elbows and thighs, probably knocking into things last night and not remembering. My back hurts too, like I hit a doorknob or something. Tears prick my eyes, which stay nice and pink while I refuse to let the waterworks escape.
“Where are we going?” I ask again, sliding into the driver’s seat since Lo can’t.
“The health clinic. You need to get tested.”
My stomach caves. Right. Tested. “You don’t have to come.”
I watch him try to find an appropriate answer, but he ends up muttering, “Just drive.”
I put the car in gear and head down the familiar roads.
“When’s the last time you’ve been to class, Lil?” he asks softly, staring out the window, watching the buildings blink by.
“Last Wednesday.” I think.
“Yesterday?” The spot between his eyebrows wrinkles.
“It’s Thursday?” I say, startled. Why did I think it was Saturday? My hands begin to tremble again, and I tighten them on the leather steering wheel. Hot tears scald on their way down, betraying me. “I just got a little mixed up.” How did I even come to this place?