Page 3 of Unforgettable You
Jo and I went back inside, and I made her the drink she wanted and went back to doing my damn job.
I got home after three, as usual. Having odd hours meant that I experienced the world in those strange in-between times that not many other people did.
My apartment was close enough to the bar that I was able to walk home. Sure, sometimes it was a little sketchy, but I felt safe most of the time.
The first thing I did upon locking my door and dropping my stuff was to strip naked, leaving my clothes in a pile on the floor and stumbling into the shower.
It didn’t matter that the water wasn’t warm yet. I just loved the feeling of washing off the night and letting it go down the drain. All the forced smiles and small talk and waiting on people took their toll on me.
Even though I was exhausted, I still wasn’t ready to sleep yet, so after I showered so long I ran out of hot water, I got out and went to my kitchen.
Food options were slim, since I needed to go grocery shopping, but I had some leftover fried rice and egg rolls that were probably okay that I ate cold while standing up in the kitchen. It didn’t make sense that I’d been standing all night and was still standing, but I was too hungry to care.
I’d thrown on an oversize T-shirt and underwear and once my stomach wasn’t screaming, I shuffled to my bedroom to try and wind down so I could sleep. It was always a fight. I’d never been one of those people who could crash in a few minutes and stay knocked out the whole night.
Working bar hours had made it even worse so now it was a battle every time. I’d tried all the tricks like turning off devices and meditation and counting and all that crap, but nothing had worked so now I’d just read until I finally passed out. My work schedule made doing things during the day difficult, but I was only working four shifts a week now. I’d done five or more and burned out so bad that I’d almost had to quit. Slowing down was the only option, and as much as I hated it, I refused to run my body into the ground again. Not after so many years of dancing.
Winding down after a shift when I was finally in bed was actually one of my favorite parts of the week.
My first step was to log onto my favorite fanfic site and check to see if some of my favorite fics had updated. One of them hadn’t had any updates in three years and I was starting to wonder if it would ever be finished. I was so close to sending a message to the author and begging.
I made sure to ignore my own stats; too tired to deal with all that right now. I confined my fanfic writing to certain hours that I could really devote to it.
I read fanfic for a while and then switched to the library app because I had an ebook that was going to expire soon, and I wanted to finish it before it was due.
When it came to my reading tastes, they were kind of all over the place. Most of what I read was romance, from the sweet to the depraved and everything in between. If a book was captivating, I didn’t really care about much else. As long as it kept my attention, I was in.
When I’d first gotten into fanfic, I hadn’t really wanted much romance at all. I guess I’d thought that it was silly or boring or cringey, but then I read a few and one in particular that was so good I could barely think about anything else. That had been a hard time. I’d been a junior in high school and my entire life had been school, dance, repeat. I’d been too strung out from dance to really have friends, but there was a group of people I had lunch and sometimes spent time with, and one of the girls (who I had a raging crush on, in hindsight) had told me about a great story she read and then it was all over after that. It just so happened the story was set in the world of a show that I’d become obsessed with. I lost so much sleep from reading that my teachers started worrying about me and my mom and I had never fought so much before.
Looking back, I’d been so desperate for something that brought me joy in those days. School didn’t, most of the time. Dance hadn’t for a long time. I was so grateful that I’d found fanfic at a time in my life when things could have gone very differently. I wouldn’t say that it saved my life, but it definitely was a bright spot during a dark time and still brought me so much joy, both reading and writing it.
I didn’t finish my library book before I passed out and the next time I woke, sun streamed through my window and my tablet was under me and digging into my back.
“Fuck,” I said as I rubbed my eyes and tried to wake up. Caffeine needed to happen immediately. I had another shift tonight and then a few days off, which I always looked forward to. Cade and Eloise were having a party at their house, and I’d agreed to go. The food and drinks alone were worth showing up for. I guess the company wasn’t so bad either. Cade’s girlfriend Eloise had grown on me. She was incredibly impressive, and I would die before I admitted it, but I was kind of in awe of her. Not that I wanted to be a famous romance writer, but anyone who could consistently hit bestseller lists year after year was someone to admire. I’d read her books and while they weren’t my favorites, they sure as hell kept me turning the pages. In my opinion, they would have been better if they’d been sapphic, but Eloise had heard us tell her that enough times already.
I stared at the ceiling and gave myself a pep talk to get up. If I got up, then I could order breakfast because I didn’t really have much in the kitchen that would make a decent breakfast. I could eat it on the couch with the curtains open and the sunshine pouring in and hopefully giving me some vitamin D so I didn’t actually turn into a vampire. I loved reading about vampires, but becoming one wasn’t on my agenda.
I scrolled my phone for something new to order for breakfast, but ended up just getting the same sandwich, hash browns, and bubble tea that I always did.
My brain took a while to come online and I puttered around trying to clean and get ready for my day. In between sucking down the bubble tea and inhaling my sandwich, I finally did some laundry and picked up so I wasn’t living in a disgusting pit.
Housekeeping was usually low on my priority list and my apartment had gotten bad lately.
Once things were kind of in order, I only had a little bit of sunlight left, so I went outside to walk around my neighborhood while listening to an audiobook. Even though the weather was cold, and the sidewalks were slushy, the sun was warm on my skin.
Since my book was so good, I kept walking all the way down to the waterfront. The wind coming off the water was sharp and cut through my spring coat. I wrapped my arms around myself and breathed deeply. I did love living by the ocean. Even on the gloomiest days of spring it was beautiful.
By the time I got back home, the sun had sunk below the horizon and it was time to get ready for work. Another night, another shift.
I awoke on Sunday to noise. A lot of noise. Banging and thumping and sounds that I couldn’t ignore.
“What the fuck,” I croaked as I glared at the wall behind my bed. The sounds were coming from the apartment next to mine. Things had been pretty quiet over there for a while, but it sounded like someone was moving in. Great. Fantastic. Just what I needed in my life.
When it came to my neighbors, my philosophy was that their lives were none of my business. Anything other than a polite nod was too much contact. I didn’t want to be friends; I didn’t want to knock on their door for a cup of sugar. We could live in the same space, but we didn’t have to be besties.
Hopefully my new neighbor wasn’t one of those overly friendly types. My building was pretty small but quiet for the most part. It wasn’t the cheapest place around, but it wasn’t as nice as Hunter’s place. To be fair, she had one of the nicest apartments in the whole city, but that’s what happened when you had a trust fund to supplement your income. Not that I resented her for it. She worked hard at a bunch of things when she could have just sat on her ass and done nothing. I never would have thought that I’d be close with someone like that, but she’d changed my perceptions of rich people. Plus, her parents were assholes. We had that in common.
“For fuck’s sake,” I said as the banging and noise continued. Moving was usually loud, but this felt like an attack. I’d hoped to have some quiet time to read until I had to go over to Cade and Eloise’s house.