Playing the Part

2. you dirty liar

Everett

There's something so humbling about sobbing uncontrollably mid-party to the news of your six-month girlfriend breaking up with you because 'our lives were too different'. 

Because apparently, my life did not constitute cheating on Tori with multiple women. 

Because the one time I decide to break my sacred rule of meaningless fucking, it comes and bites me in the ass like a feral pitbull. 

But I'd say the highlight of those few shitty hours was, surprisingly, the fact that I woke up with drops of a miscellaneous liquid balancing precariously on my forehead. 

"What...the," I swipe it off my face, still drowsy from sleep, and take a sniff because why the fuck not. 

I look up and gag at the accumulating brown stain on the bathroom ceiling as the stain visibly spreads like mold. 

"Alex! Get your fucking ass in here." I yell in between gags. 

But instead of my best friend's sister showing up at the door, it was Allie. 

Her long, brown waves swoop across her face as she peeks her head out, her deep green eyes widening at the sight. An involuntary smile creeps up her flushed cheeks and if I knew any better, I'd say she looks fucking adorable right now. 

But I do know better.

 And that is that I've got shit water on my face and Allie is laughing hysterically at me. 

"I swear I had nothing to do with this! Bring it up to the superintendent. Though I have to warn you, the neighbour upstairs is a nightmare. I mean she filed a police report because Alex and I played Mariah Carrie 'too loud' and it was disrupting her 'circadian rhythm'. It was 6pm woman!" Allie rambles on about how nightmarish the lady upstairs was without realising that her rambling is equally, if not, worse right now.

"Allie, stop." I get out of the bath tub and scrub my face with the Dettol hand wash on the sink. 

"Look, I'm sorry this happened to you. I mean the shit water probably didn't mean to land on your face. You were just collateral in the grand scheme of things. It probably wanted to drip a long time ago and the timing was just very inconvenient."

I narrow my eyes at her after splashing my face with water. "I don't think we're talking about shit water anymore." 

I strip the hoodie that's at least two sizes too small off of me. "Do you have another shirt? I don't want dead skin cells clinging onto me." 

"You read that tweet too?!" She says incredulously. 

"What tweet?" 

"Never mind. Hold on. I might have something for you." Allie disappears from the door and comes back with a red t-shirt that says 'It's Ramen Time' in bubble letters. 

"You can't be serious, Allie." 

"I am serious. Don't lose the shirt. I wear it to sleep." She tosses the cursed abomination at me and I reluctantly slide it over my torso. 

Instantly, I'm hit with the scent of fresh laundry and a hint of what I can only describe as vanilla figs. 

"It fits just right on you! Come on, I'll bring you out to lunch. On me." I know she's trying to give me the post-breakup special but I know that's not what I need right now. 

What I need right now is to file a fucking complaint on the shit-stained ceiling. 

"Let me speak to the lady upstairs."