I peel my crusted eyes open, wiping the residual tears away. It’s not quite dark in my living room, but the sun has given up for the day. I remember putting on Schitt’s Creek, pouring alcohol into me, and letting the bitterness creep in. Bitterness about everything that’s ever happened until my brain and body couldn’t take anymore.
I pull myself up from the musty couch that has been soaked in misery, every muscle and joint sore from my void slumber, from the heaviness in my chest. I’m still in my stiff work pants. I somehow managed my shirt off but not my bra, so it’s all twisted.
I push the half-empty wine bottle onto the far end of the couch, where it’ll stay put for later. I slide out of my pants and leave them on the floor as I stumble to bed.
My eyes fall closed and heavy as I wait for the void to give me mercy and take me away again.
They were right about me.
The next time I wake, I check my phone and see a few messages from my mom. She’s talking about some DJ she’s booking for the party at a steep discount that her third cousin says is best. I guess Armin hasn’t said anything yet. I text her, That sounds good, and toss my phone on the floor.
I peel back a curtain to check the time of day. Outside my window, Miley is sitting on the stoop. Her gaze shifts to my window as she notices the curtain move, but she stays in place.
I’m too numb, too distant, to feel anything.
“Go inside,” I say to my closed window. “Nobody’s coming to talk to you.”
My phone chimes several times as I disappear under my covers and drift into another dreamless slumber.
Day two, I have instant coffee and search for jobs from bed. There’s no market for a socially fucked-up administrator anymore.
I could never do an interview anyway. I can’t leave this apartment. Maybe I could live here until the money runs out and they send me away somewhere in the countryside.
I order fried chicken and wash it down with gin.
Outside my window, Miley is tying two balloons to the streetlamp. Beside her sit two of her demented crochet figures.
There she sits, still not broken from it all.
I should do something for her birthday.
Later, I’m drinking and watching another early 2000s comfort show from the same spot on my bed, when I hear a commotion outside. I check through the window and see two girls Miley’s age standing by the streetlamp. Miley runs out and talks to them, a bounce in her step. I pull the windowpane up an inch.
The girl on the left’s voice carries. “This place is gross. I don’t want to sleep over here. Come on, let’s go.”
Miley mutters something, but they walk away anyway.
She walks over to the bench and collects the crochet figures she placed earlier. Her shoulders drop in a way I recognize too well.
Finally, she turns toward the stairs, the bounce in her step gone, face torn.
A hallway door slams as I take another big drink. I should say something. I should want to hug her or to comfort her in some way. But all I keep thinking is: Finally, you see what it’s like. It stays that way forever.
But tears fall from my eyes for no reason, confusing and foreign. I don’t need them. I can’t feel them in a way that matters.
My phone chimes over and over. I never check it, and eventually the chiming stops. I fall asleep and know that there’s nothing inside me. I’m a hollowed-out void.
The next days are the exact same. Nothing at all happens, and I am alone. I’m only pretty sure I’m disappearing.