We Go Way Back

chapter three

"I WISH YOU would die, Dylan."

At first, I think Maya is shouting at her boyfriend, but her boyfriend is called Otis and he's sleeping soundly on the bunk at the corner of the room. Tired and heavy-eyed, I quickly realize she's reading, shouting, and sobbing.

I often think about the things that make people cry. My mother cries every time I give her flowers on her birthday, just because I remember it every single year, without fault. My childhood best friend Aurora — better known as Rory — cries at videos of soldiers coming home to their pets. I, on the other hand, swear solemnly that I never cry, but I can't help from bawling uncontrollably at advertisements featuring old people or when someone hugs me tight for too long. That last one I've started to interpret as a fucked up Pavlovian response.

Right now, Maya, one of my seven roommates, is causing severe water damage to the book she's reading. She has been wailing for almost an hour, and, unfortunately for me, she's a pretty loud crier — and it's just my luck that she sleeps in the bunk directly below mine. It's impossibly early, and that's me talking. I have an alarm for five-thirty in the morning, every single day; and while usually Maya grumbles at the sound of my default iPhone alarm, she's beaten me this dawn and I wake to a room that is pitch black to the exception of her bedside lamp.

I palm my bed until I find my phone, dangerously close to plummeting five feet down towards the floor. The brightness of the screen is at its minimum, but it still hurts my eyes and I take a few moments to adjust to the light. It's four-fifty in the morning, on my eleventh night in this dingy, cheap hostel in the Central District of Seattle. I flip my phone and shove it under my pillow, determined to enjoy my last forty minutes of sleep, but then Maya starts hiccupping, and I swear it sounds like she is about to have a panic attack.

"You okay?" I ask her sleepily, struggling to keep my eyes open.

"No," she murmurs, then unfurling into even louder sobs.

I really need to get out of here, I think to myself.

I do not have the patience to help Maya cope with whichever fictional death that just broke her heart, not today, but I also cannot fall back asleep. I'm wide awake already, so I might as well make the most of it. I hop out of my bunk and immediately slide my feet into the pair of slippers I leave by the steps. On the back of the room, there are a several lockers, all painted in very colorful tones — although the paint is starting to chip away. The doors open with excruciatingly loud screeches, but if the other six people haven't woken up with Maya's Emmy-worthy performance, it's not my locker that will do the trick.

I take a few clothes from the duffel bag I stashed there and my bag of toiletries, heading to the bathroom. Even in this hellhole, I do not give up my drip coffee. I had left it there for the night, now it's cold and bitter, just how I like it. I also take it with me into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I'll thank Ellie later for giving me that mug.

A few days before, I'd say that drinking coffee — or anything, for that matter — in the bathroom was the most disgusting thing ever. I do still believe that, but it's the only place where I have some privacy and silence. The silence is relative; I can still hear Maya crying outside, but I zone it out and sip my coffee, leaning against the cool wall. It's January and this building allows a ridiculous amount of air into the rooms, so I am freezing. I've learned to embrace it. My ankle, which I hurt a few years ago, is thudding with pangs of pain, but I don't care. I love this peaceful moment.

When I finish my breakfast, I rinse the mug in the sink and set it to the side to brush my teeth, staring at the wall of dirty tiles in the absence of a mirror. My phone starts ringing from the front pocket in my hoodie just a moment later, and I spit out a mouthful of foamy toothpaste onto the sink before answering.