Jordan stood at the top of his stairs, surveying the radioactive fallout zone that was once his bedroom. The loft space looked like a nuclear test site where the bomb was labeled "teenage disappointment" instead of plutonium.
"Holy shit," he muttered.
His room had passed disgusting weeks ago and entered some new territory that probably required hazmat suits and government clearance. The sheets on his bed were a color that didn't exist in nature—a sickly gray-brown with darker stains in patterns he refused to analyze. His nightstand overflowed with empty Red Bull cans stacked into a pyramid that had partially collapsed onto the floor. Fast food wrappers created a crunchy carpet layer that completely obscured the actual floor.
Jordan kicked a McDonald's bag. Something skittered away from under it.
"Nope. That's a tomorrow problem."
Except it wasn't. That was the whole point. There was no tomorrow for this. The system's countdown clock kept ticking, relentless gold numbers reminding him that procrastination had created this mess in the first place.
He tied a bandana around his face. Not because he thought it would help with the smell—his nose had given up detecting odors in this room weeks ago—but because it made him feel like he was taking this seriously. Like a surgeon preparing for a particularly gory operation.
"Let's do this."
The bedsheets came off first. Jordan grabbed them by one corner and yanked. They resisted, stuck to the mattress in places. When they finally came free, a cloud of dust and skin cells puffed into the air. Jordan held the sheets at arm's length, trying not to think about how they had become stiff enough to stand on their own.
He stuffed them into a trash bag. They weren't even worth trying to wash. Some things were beyond salvation.
The mattress beneath looked worse than he expected. Yellow stains formed a Jackson Pollock painting across its surface. The worst concentration was in the center where he slept, but satellite stains spread outward like territorial claims. Sweat, oil, spilled drinks, and... other fluids.
"I'm a biohazard," Jordan said, staring at the evidence of his own depravity.
Under the bed awaited the "biological anomaly" the system had flagged. Jordan crouched down, phone flashlight activated, and peered into the darkness.
"Oh god."
A collection of crusty socks huddled together like a colony of bleached sea creatures. They had migrated into a pile, congealing at the edges where... Jordan gagged. The flashlight beam caught what looked like the beginning of mold growth. Actual, living mold, feeding on the remains of his shame sessions.
"I need a stick or something."
He found a wire coat hanger in his closet, unbent it, and used it to drag the sock colony out from under the bed. They came reluctantly, leaving bits of themselves on the floor as they emerged. Jordan held his breath as he shoveled them into a separate trash bag, double-knotting it immediately.
That was just the beginning.
The desk came next. Stacks of unopened mail surrounded his dusty laptop. Bills mostly, some from his father's businesses where Jordan was supposed to be learning responsibility by paying his own phone plan. Past due notices with increasing urgency in their red stamped warnings.
Under those, hidden beneath a pizza box that contained a slice so old it had mummified, Jordan found magazines. Not the normal kind. The paper kind that shouldn't exist in 2024, except they did, and eighteen-year-old Jordan had paid actual money for them at a shop forty minutes away where they didn't ask for ID.
"Jesus. Who even buys physical porn anymore?"
Apparently, he did. The stack was thick—ten, maybe twelve magazines with women in various states of undress on their glossy covers. Jordan had ordered them online during a paranoid phase where he'd convinced himself the government was tracking his internet history. The irony that he'd used his credit card for the physical purchase was something Old Jordan had never considered.
He flipped through one absently. The pages stuck together in places.
"Fuck."
Those went into the trash too. Along with all the unopened bills, the pizza fossil, three empty bags of chips, and a collection of sticky notes with half-written reminders that he'd never completed.
Two hours in, Jordan had filled six contractor-grade trash bags. His hamstrings screamed from the constant bending and lifting. Sweat plastered his t-shirt to his back. But the room was starting to take shape.
The floor emerged from beneath its trash blanket. Turns out it was hardwood, not garbage-colored carpet as he'd started to believe. Jordan attacked it with the vacuum, watching dust bunnies the size of actual rabbits disappear into the machine's hungry mouth.
His closet was a nightmare. Clothes spilled from hangers, most unwashed, some still with tags. Jordan had spent money here too—designer shirts he thought would impress Eliza, expensive jeans that would make her see him differently. All of it wound up on the floor instead of on dates.
He sorted everything into piles: wash, donate, trash. The wash pile towered over the others, a mountain of fabric that would require multiple loads.
"This is going to take all night," Jordan groaned.
But what was the alternative? Return to who he was yesterday? That guy who let Cameron steal his girl, who jerked off to OnlyFans while crying, who spent three thousand dollars for a coffee date with a girl who didn't even know his name?
"Fuck that guy."
The wash pile went downstairs first. Jordan separated it into darks and lights, surprising himself that he even remembered how. The washing machine accepted the first load with a gurgle that sounded judgmental. He poured in detergent, closed the lid, and started the cycle.
Back upstairs, the real test waited. The mattress.
Jordan googled "how to clean stained mattress" on his phone. The internet suggested baking soda, vinegar, and sunlight. He had one of those things.
The cabinet under the kitchen sink yielded a box of baking soda his mom had left. Jordan carried it upstairs and proceeded to dump almost the entire thing over his mattress. White powder coated the yellow stains like snowfall on a toxic waste dump.
"That's... probably enough?"