NAOMI
Fifteen Days Left
The scent hit me first something warm, spicy, nostalgic but i couldn't place it. I stood frozen for a second in the hallway, the smell wrapping around me like a memory i didn't have.
Then the shouting began.
"Where are you coming from?" Aunt Mabel's voice sliced through the air like a blade. Her back was to the door, one hand stirring a pot on the stove while the other gestured wildly.
I stepped in fully, closing the door behind her with a soft click. "Good evening, Aunt Mabel," i greeted, voice low but steady.
Mabel spun around, wooden spoon dripping sauce, her lips already curled with disdain. "Three days! You disappear for three damn days and now you stroll in here like a damn princess?" Her eyes narrowed. "You good-for-nothing child of the devil himself."
I kept my face blank, unreadable. I'd learned early that silence was my armor. Words only added fuel to the fire.
"I swear," Mabel continued, louder now, "you're trying to out-useless your stupid mother and your failure of a father. You want to follow in their cursed footsteps, ehn? End up in the gutter just like them?"
At the kitchen counter, the latest boy-toy, i didn't know his name, didn't care to, he looked up from his phone long enough to smirk. That slow, greasy smirk men give when they think a girl's been broken just enough to be used.
My eyes flicked past him. Not today. Not ever.
I said nothing. No explanation. No apology. Just started walking past the rage, past the stench of cigarette and whatever sauce was bubbling on the stove, past the bitterness that clung to this house like mold.
My room was small. Not cozy, not warm. But it was mine. The one place in this cursed house where silence didn't wound.
Fifteen more days. That was my plan. I'd saved enough from temp jobs, tutoring, anything that didn't tie me down. Fifteen days and i'd be gone, out of this house, out of this life.
I locked the door behind me and exhaled slowly, like i was deflating from the inside.
But the thing about broken homes…
They don't just break once.
They crack again.
And again.
Until you either fall through the floor, or learn how to fly.
I sat on the edge of my bed, the springs creaking beneath my weight like they too were tired of holding me up. I picked up my phone from the side table, cracked screen, stubborn battery, and scrolled slowly through my contacts.
Past Aunt Mabel.
Past Landlord.
Past names that no longer meant anything.
Then i saw it, Vicky.
I hit dial.
The call connected on the second ring.
"Hey," came Vicky's voice, soft and warm, like the kind of hug i hadn't felt in years.
"Hi," i replied, my own voice a whisper i barely recognized.
We sat in silence for a moment, both of us letting the comfort settle in.
"You good?" Vicky asked gently, but there was a thread of tension in her voice. She knew me too well. "You're quiet."
"I'm fine," i lied, because the truth would be too heavy. "I just… wanted to hear your voice."
Vicky had always been my person. We met when i was just ten, neighbours in a noisy and small neighbourhood where everyone knew everyone. Vicky was all fire and fists back then, the kind of girl who fought off high school bullies without blinking. And i, small and quiet, was the easiest target until Vicky made it clear i wasn't a target at all.
Their family eventually moved out of our neighbourhood when we finished high school, but our friendship didn't. It held, through distance, through pain, through everything.
We talked for a few minutes more. Vicky filled the space with her usual energy, lightening the mood like she always did.
"I'm okay, Vic. Really," i said again.
Vicky let out a small sigh. "Alright. But I'm pulling up unannounced if I don't hear from you tomorrow."
I chuckled softly. "I'd expect nothing less."
After the call ended, i sat still for a moment, staring at the screen until it dimmed and went black. My fingers hovered for a second before reaching for my laptop on the side table.
The old device powered up slowly, humming like it was struggling to breathe.
I opened my mail, blinking against the screen's brightness in the dark room.