Page 32 of Love Decoded

This time when I touch it, I use my nail to scrape it off.

Mold.

Fuck.

I sneeze again. Fuck.

Suddenly, I’m looking at my apartment with new eyes. I noticed the fresh paint when I moved in, but I chalked it up to a landlord who gives a shit. Now, I’m wondering if I made that assumption too hastily.

Tracing my hand over the wall, I search for more bumps. And find way too many.

I’ve dealt with mold before, when I was a teenager and living in less-than-perfect conditions with my dad.

I shake my head, quickly ridding my mind of those memories before they can take over and distract me.

It doesn’t look so bad that I can’t clean it myself. It’s only a few areas, so if I run out to get some vinegar and a scrubbing brush, maybe a fan, I can get this cleaned up to the point of being habitable. Because I really, really don’t want to deal with leaving this apartment, both from a logistical standpoint and a call-your-landlord-this-is-now-a-legal-problem standpoint.

I glance toward Milton where he’s sleeping soundly in my laundry hamper. The hardest part is going to be figuring out where to put him while I’m doing this. I won’t be using any harsh chemicals, but even still, I need to get him out of the apartment. The studio apartment.

I nibble on my lower lip. Maybe I can just put him in the bathroom while I clean, and then put him on a harness and walk him around the block while the apartment airs out.

I grab my wallet and Septa pass, deciding that’s my best option.

It only occurs to me after I step outside my building that I have yet to walk around here. When I signed my lease, I did it with internet knowledge of the area. I have no idea what these streets are really like.

Unfortunately, I find the answer to that question before I’ve even left my building.

I’ve just opened the door to the stairwell when I smell it. I’ve lived in enough shitty areas to know what crack smells like when it’s being smoked.

The door slams behind me before I can hide my entry. Two men are huddled a half level down the stairwell, their heads lifting to meet my gaze at the sound.

One man has a pipe in his hands, his eyes already glazed over with the drugs. The other one looks sober. And when I see him slide cash into his pocket, I put two and two together that it’s a drug addict and his dealer.

I freeze in place. I want to run back to my apartment to lock myself away from the world—from this world—but my body was already intent on leaving. I can only stare at the men, my mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“I—uh, I’m sorry… I’ll just⁠—”

“Hi there, sweet thing,” the dealer says with a slimy grin. “Don’t mind us; it’s just business. You going somewhere?”

Fuck. Am I going somewhere?

I can’t make a decision. The stairwell is the only way out of here, so if I want to leave, I have to pass by them. And I really don’t want to get that close to these two.

My other option is to just go home. But there’s mold in my apartment, enough to make me—and possibly Milton—sick, and I need to clean it out.

I need to get out of this apartment building.

The realization hits me like a truck. I shouldn’t have blindly signed the lease for this place without seeing it for myself. And now I’m stuck here for at least three months, with mold growing on my walls and drug addicts getting high in the stairwell with their dealers.

This feels just like old times.

The thought makes me want to cry. I tried so hard to get away from the life my dad created for us, had spent so much of the years following building a safe life for myself. Had put my blood sweat and tears into making enough money that I don’t need to live in areas like this. To know I’ve ended up right back in it is…devastating.

“Uh, that’s okay,” I finally force out with a polite smile. I squeeze my hands together to hopefully stop the shaking. “I just realized I forgot something.” And in a lame attempt at hiding any part of my identity, I add, “In my friend’s apartment.”

I don’t wait to see if they bought it. I just spin around and bolt from the stairwell.

My heart is beating out of my chest, and my hands are shaking so hard, it takes me several tries to get my door unlocked. When I finally push inside, I quickly slam the deadbolt before turning my back to the door.