I wake up on Saturday feeling good. It's just after 8 when I throw off the sheets. My belly is empty, so I find my way out my room door and down the stairs to find my dads. "Dad? Larry?"
I meet Larry standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me. I wave cutely at him. "Heyy!"
He mutters a hi and I ask if there's food. We walk to the kitchen together and he starts breaking eggs in a bowl for an omelet. I perch myself on the counter trying to find an acceptable way to tell him. I finally settle on a pre-generated set of lines I've used a jillion times. "Larry," I begin in a wheedling tone.
"Huh?"
"Well..." I drag. "Um... sooooo... you know my friend Nikki? She invited me over to her house this afternoon."
Larry doesn't look up at me and focuses intensely on beating those eggs till they foam like seawater. "Uh-huh?"
"Yeahh... Sooo... can I go?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Yes! Thanks, Larry. You're a--"
"After all your chores are done," he says with an air of finality that has its own do not argue sign. But I push it anyway. He turns on the stove.
"But Larry--"
"I went into your room last night to see if you were in. It's a mess in there. Don't you ever clean? The air is so damp and you always have those curtains drawn like you have a pact with darkness. How do you breathe at night?!"
Larry's outburst turns my face red and I look away from him. He's staring me down like he seriously expects an answer from me before deciding he'd rather not have his food get burned on my account.
"Final verdict: you clean up your space and do your laundry. Also, you would be a help if you vacuumed and also did the dishes." His look here tells me it's a command, not a debatable offer. "Max needs me at the store so I'll be out soon. I'll tell him you'll be out for the day. Make sure you're finished before you leave and we won't have any problems. Understood?" He hands me a china saucer and puts some egg on it. I roll my eyes. He nods curtly in reply.
When I'd done eating, Larry is dressed up and on his way to the store. He repeats his instructions and I wave him off. "Yeah, yeah, I'll have it done. I promise. Bye!!! Love you."
His freckles almost disappear as his face flushes slightly. "Be back by 7," he mutters, puts on his hat, and leaves. I smile.
"Alright," I say to myself when I'm done loading up the dishwasher and pressing start. "What to do next? Oh--right? My dirty laundry!"
I hurry up the stairs to my room and start picking up clothes lying around on the floor and on the chair. My phone suddenly buzzes and I set the armful of clothes on my bed. It's a message from Nikki. I open it . Somehow, I end up lying on the floor binging cat videos. By the time I realize it, Nikki is texting me: Wyd bih? Just left the crib. omw.
"Jesus!" I exclaim and throw down my phone. "It's been two hours already?!"
I begin to frantically scoop up shirts and panties and shorts into my arms and run down the stairs to the laundry room. It doesn't help that some clothes keep falling and when I bend down to pick one up, three others decide to mess with me. I'm frustrated and tired so I shove everything I have with me in the washer and start it on mix setting. I run to the bathroom and, hell, I look ill. I rush through brushing my teeth and a bath.
Of course, "bath" being me just sloshing soapy water around on my skin and in my armpits to at least feel clean-ish and less like a total disaster.
I throw on a Hello Kitty tee and three-quarter cargo shorts. I decide to style my hair in a messy little bun behind my neck with a slack rubber band and just slip my feet into my old Nikes. I know I need to get as much as I can done now or it won't ever be--not with Nikki around.
I make my bed and shove all my bits of paper and coverless novels under my bed. The dirty clothes find their way back into the closet with my cleaner clothes, well, because the future can deal with that shii. I just push the broom around the living room floor so it has a semi-clean appearance.
Just as I'm debating with my snarky inner monologue whether what I just did counts as vacuuming--and whether Larry would notice--the doorbell rings. My heart stops and sweat pierces through my skin.
"Idiot!" my inner voice snaps. "You forgot to wear deo!"
The bell rings again--more aggressive, more personal--and I immediately know who it is.
"I'm coming!" I scream with a matching energy and sprint to get the door. I toss the broom aside and momentarily feel sorry for it before reaching for the door knob.
"Some of us have ears, you know," I tell my overeager guest."Don't ruin them with your bad doorbell manners."
"Yeah, whatever," Nikki says flipping her hair in my face before face-planting onto the couch. "I knew you'd have some chore drama to deal with so I'm here to speed things up so we can leave," she mocks looking at the abandoned broom.
"Really?" I say in disbelief. "You? Helping? With chores?"
"Yeah," she shrugs like she didn't just totally switch personalities. "Let's do it."
"Um.. okay. Let's go to my room."
We go to my room and begin the daunting task of sorting clothes into clean and dirty. It's crazy how when you need to go out, your closet is the emptiest thing in the universe. But when it's chore day, suddenly you have more clothes than the entire cast of Henry Danger during the entire show.
Nikki is NOT a help. She hold up one of my dirty panties and squeals, "EWWWW!!! ANYA, LOOK!!!"
My entire body flushes and I snatch it from her. "Nikki!" I snap feeling hurt and she stops laughing. I cover my face in my hands and pinch my cheeks to try to calm down and Nikki shrugs an embarrassed sorry.
After a short while, we have everything sorted in two distinct piles and now we have to fold the clean ones. Nikki hold up a shirt. "I didn't know you still had this."
I peer at the shirt in question. It's a white tee with horrifically faded print. Nikki senses my confusion and adds, "That Blackpink shirt I got you."
"Oh!!!! That's what that is."
Nikki looks through the pile. "Why do you have so many of them?"
"Uh... 'cause you keep getting them for me? Duhh."
Nikki just rolls her eyes at me and proceeds to fold my clothing into the most unconventional shapes known to human kind. I just roll my eyes at that girl whose attention is mostly on her phone. Occasionally, she would come across a new dance trend and stand up so suddenly the pile of "folded" clothes would fall over.
"Annie! Look!" she would say every five minutes if a cat video accidentally crossed her feed. I'd just groan like, "Ugh! Nikki! You've knocked it all down again!!"
"Mmm.. sowee," she would say in a very exaggerated way and we would spend the next two minutes rolling on the floor laughing hard.
At 12, all my dirty laundry have been run through the machine and the earliest load was in the dryer. Nikki and I are in my room trying to master the latest dance trend when she suddenly says, "Hey, we're supposed to go see Aidan today, remember?"
"Ohh! Right! Let's get going then."
We head out the door, Nikki practically bouncing beside me. The walk is short, but my belly is doing an entire gymnastics routine. Meeting someone new has always been nerve-racking for me, and though Aidan isn't exactly new to me, we don't interact very much. And Nikki being in full chaos mode isn't helping my case.
When we get to his apartment, Nikki wraps her arms around my shoulders. "Brace yourself, Annie, you're about to meet the legend himself." She raps her knuckles on the door in perfect rhythm, still not letting go of me.
"Who is it?" Aidan's voice calls from inside.
"It is I!" Nikki announces, pressing her lips against the door. I grimace and stop myself from mentioning how unhygienic that is.
Aidan opens the door with a big smile. Without skipping a beat, Nikki torpedoes herself at him and wraps her arms around his waist. "Addy Oppa!!" she squeals and I smile at them, suddenly envious that I don't have an older sibling.
"Hey! You made it!!" he laughs and plays with her hair. He's really tall, and Nikki just looks tiny next to him, though she's about four inches or so taller than I am. Aidan faces me and invites me in warmly. "Come in. Come in."
"Thanks," I say and shut the door behind me. His apartment is small and messy with half empty boxes scattered around. It smells like coffee and old books--two of my fave dopamine triggers. I look around thinking, I like, I like. I glance nervously at Nikki who is already raiding the place for snacks.
Aidan runs a hand through his hair and gestures for me to sit. I smile awkwardly and stiffly plant my ass on the recliner.
"So, how's life treating you girls?" Aidan asks brightly, trying not to overwhelm me. He leans casually against the counter, and I can't help but notice his muscles ripple under his thin white shirt. My skin heats up.
Nikki emerges with a bag of chips tucked in the crook of her arm. "Cool. You?" she chirps.
"Life's been going fine for me, thanks," I mumble.
"Would you like the fan on?" Aidan asks me.
"Uh..." I fumble, trying my best not to trip over my own words. "Yeah, thank you."
Nikki conveniently chooses this time to bring up the dance we were learning earlier and soon, we're all standing in the middle of the living area trying to teach Aidan to twerk. Watching him struggle so terrible makes me laugh soon, all my tension fizzles away. We play Mortal Kombat and later, Aidan and Nikki build a paradise in Minecraft. I, instead, sit in the corner looking through one of his boxes. I find some thick novels in there and leaf though them, craving a good read.
I notice Aidan looking at me and I stiffen. "I was an English lit major," he explains quite unnecessarily because I already know. I shrug and he runs his fingers through his hair again. I notice Nikki turn around to me with her brow raised slightly in that way. I wanna yeet her to tomorrow.
"Uh... you wanna read that?"
I look at the cover and realize I'm holding Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I nod frantically and accept his gift. And though I've read this a thousand times before, knowing it's from him makes me want to read it again.