The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

34

"Oh baby I surrender to the strawberry ice cream, na na na na nener ba da da!"

I lean in closer to the mirror so I can peel the last pieces of my face mask off, the soundtrack to Shrek blaring at a deafening volum. Even though I don't know a lot of the words, I sing along loud enough to drown out the sound of Jamie banging on the bathroom door. He's been doing this for a solid minute now and I figure if I wait him out, he'll get bored and give up.

I'm not prepared for the lock to turn from the other side, and Jamie to come bursting in.

I scream and clutch my bathrobe tighter around myself. "I could've been naked!"

Jamie smashes the off button on my Bluetooth speaker and gives me a withering look. Since I am (unfortunately) fluent in Jamie, I know the look means, It's bad enough that you're taking over my bathroom with a million girly products and making me wait an hour to do a five minute shave, but Counting Crows is going too far.

Instead of saying any of that out loud, he tosses my speaker out of the bathroom, shuts the door, and hip checks me away from the sink.

I gape at him. "What are you doing? I'm in here. You can't be in here when I'm in here."

"You're wasting time. On purpose." He pulls his shaving cream out of the vanity cabinet and starts squirting it onto his face. "We both have to be at your parents' house in twenty minutes. Remember?"

"Or you could just not come." There's no way I'm getting him to move, and I still have to rinse my face and put on my mascara. With a huff, I squeeze into the tiny spot he's left open for me and reach under him to turn on the sink.

He's got his razor out now, meticulously going down his jaw. I shut my eyes to splash myself with cold water, and he pretends not to notice when I accidentally on purpose get half of it on him. As I dry my face off, our eyes meet in the mirror. It would be a lovely domestic moment if we weren't wearing identical scowls.

It's been three days, nineteen hours, and approximately twenty three minutes since Jamie's little declaration of war, which means three days, nineteen hours, and approximately twenty three minutes since I've felt safe in this house. I thought Jamie was trying to ruin my life before, but it turns out that was just him having fun. Now he's got a vendetta.

I can't sleep because he works in the living room until 3 am blasting his weird grunge bands. I've been late for work twice because he keeps blocking my car from leaving the driveway, and last night when I dragged myself into the kitchen to heat up leftovers after a grueling twelve hour shift, the microwave made a piercing shriek so loud I almost died from the shock. His attacks have kept me so busy that the most I've been able to do for Operation Money Pit was to hide his toolboxes in the crawlspace, and all that did was tick him off. I'm exhausted, and it's made me cranky enough to stoop to his level of pettiness. Hence the hour long shower.

I miss the days before the bathroom flood. That disaster may have helped me towards my end goal of stopping the house from getting sold, but since Jamie hasn't gotten around to fixing the plumbing in the only other shower in the main house, we're forced to share the carriage house bathroom. It's got me seriously considering showering in my swimsuit via garden hose."Will you leave so I can get dressed?" I point to my clothes that I'd put on the little storage shelves. 

"Nope." He pops his 'p'. 

"Fine, then I'm getting dressed in your room." I snatch my sundress and unmentionables and dart down the hallway before he can stop me. He yells something about how I've got five minutes and then he's popping the lock to his room too.

Sadly, the carriage house is old, and all the handles have those locks that are insanely easy to turn with your nail. It's also small, with one bedroom and one bathroom, so unless I want to run across the yard in my fuzzy purple bathrobe—which I don't—this is the only other spot for me to get changed. I try my best not to look around, because I don't need to know that Jamie still makes his bed with hotel corners and uses the top of his desk as a catch all spot. It's too personal and I want none of it.

I'm still recovering from the shame of what I've decided to call The Incident. Every time I think of my pain meds-induced moment of insanity, I want to bang my head into the nearest hard object. Obviously I'd never behave like I did if it wasn't for the drugs, but even with that excuse, I'm disgusted with myself. Jamie is the enemy. He basically declared it. And you don't go around grabbing enemies' shirts and letting them whisper in your ear. I have to do a better job of keeping my guard up.

Of course, the best defense is a good offense, which is why tonight's dinner is not just a family get-together for me. It's a mission. My objective? Make Jamie look bad in front of my parents. Getting him fired is a long shot, but at the very least, I can apply a little pressure to the situation. I've been told I'm very good at stressing people out.

By the time I'm dressed, Jamie's in the small but cozy living room, clean shaven and wearing his usual cargo shorts and vintage tee combo. 

"You ready?" he asks, twirling his keys impatiently.

"You don't have to wait for me. I'll take my own car." I sling my purse over my shoulder.

He reaches out and takes my injured hand, lifting it up in front of my face. "Sprained wrist. Can't drive."

I pull out of his grip too fast, and have to hide a wince at the little twinge of pain. "It doesn't bother me."

He doesn't look like he believes me. "Lissa. We're going from the same place, to the same place, and returning back to the same place all at the same time. Taking two cars is wasteful."

Curse him for using my environmentalism against me. 

"I'll bike," I decide. It'll make me late, but I can deal with it.

"Again, sprained wrist."

"I'll walk."

Jamie leans in, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "If you walk, I will drive next to you the entire time and go through every single step involved in safely hanging heavy objects from a drywall ceiling."

I stare back stubbornly, but I have no reason to believe he's bluffing. It's exactly the kind of ridiculous and pig-headed thing he'd do to prove a point.

"Fine," I snap. "But we're not listening to the radio, and you don't get to talk."

He follows my rules without argument, so the whole ride to my parents house is spent in dead silence. I use the time to catch up with all the texts from my siblings. Aside from Single Pringles, I'm also in four other group chats with random subsets of the DeLuca kids. Between those, my private messages, and my contest with Marco, Enzo, and Christy to see who can get the weirdest out of context screenshots, I have to check in multiple times a day or I just get flooded. 

As I'm scrolling through a debate about whether it would be better to fight an unarmed chicken every time you get in your car or an orangutan with a sword who shows up randomly once a year—Enzo always asks the really important questions—a message pops up from Connor, checking if we're still on for our date this week. He's probably asking because I've gone radio silent since we worked out a time and place. Yesterday I was on the verge of backing out, with some lame excuse at the ready about not wanting to jeopardize our working relationship. But this morning Jamie took my wet clothes out of the washing machine and dumped them in a basket.

I tell Connor I can't wait. Then I add a winky face for good measure.

We pull up to my parents two minutes late. Jamie does not open my door for me, which I didn't want him to do, but it's still rude. Hello, sprained wrist.

We step onto the front porch at the exact same time, and I race to grab the door handle before he can. When I beat him to it, I throw a gloaty smile over my shoulder. He uses the moment to push past me and get through the doorway first. As he slides past, he spins so he's walking backwards and says, "By the way, you have a sock stuck to your butt."

I snatch at the skirt of my dress. A neon orange fuzzy sock shocks me with static cling. 

"Lissa! Jamie!" Mom calls from the kitchen. "Come join us."

And so the battle begins.