The Roommates I Never Chose
None of them signed the lease, but yet they all live there.
When people ask if I live alone I always say ‘yes’, because it's easier than the alternative. The truth is I live with the other versions of myself. None of us ever signed this lease, we just sort of ended up here, all of us, in the same house. Nobody ever agreed to it but here we are I guess.
I make my coffee around all of them most mornings and call it normal. When you live somewhere long enough you stop asking why the furniture is where it is, you stop asking why there are so many coats by the door, toothbrushes, different handwritings on the grocery list stuck to the fridge.
To know me, you have to know my roommates.
Four is always in the living room in the same chair, the same one she’s been sitting in since the day he walked out the door. I don't think I've ever seen her get up, she just sits there staring at the door, trying to will him back. The memory is still stuck in her head, him walking out, everyone crying except her, she doesn't know why she wasn't crying, she just knows that maybe if she had cried he would've stayed. If he would only come back she would cry and everything would be fine. So she just sits there. Unflinching. You can see her trying, you can see the tears trying to come, but they just won't. Something clearly died in her that day, she's not old enough yet to understand that or really know what it was.
None of us really know what to do with her, if you try to talk to her she just stares through you like you're getting in the way of her ill-fated attempt at crying. Sometimes I think she's trying to tell me something, that if the house would just get quiet enough I could hear her whisper, but the thought passes as quickly as it comes. Besides, the house never gets that quiet so Four just sits there in the middle of all of it, waiting for someone who isn’t coming back, trying with all her might to cry.
Twenty-Two is always in the bathroom. Showering off whatever happened to her. She doesn't talk about it but we all know, we've always known, you can tell by how long the water runs, how hot the stream seeping out the door is, by the way she won't look at anyone when she finally comes out. Nobody asks. Nobody has to. Some mornings I stand outside the door and I can hear her not crying either, the water running and running under nothing, and I think about knocking, and I never do.
Twenty-Six turned her bedroom into an office. I swear I peeked inside once and there was no bed. I looked again because I figured I was wrong, but no, there was no bed, just a desk and a chair and a wall of things she hasn't finished working on. She says she's going to be something and she can't stop until she makes it, so she doesn't sleep, barely eats, she just powers through. She says it like a fact she's still waiting to be true. I used to think she was the one who had it together. Now I think she's just the best at hiding it. By roommate standards she's probably the best one, doesn't make much noise, rarely leaves her room. I’ve always liked that about her.
Seventeen won't stop talking about moving out, how she has to get out of this place. She has big plans but those plans that don't really untangle if you ask her to explain them, but she's convinced herself that anything is possible, or at least it has to be. She stays in her room most days, but every time she comes out she's back to talking about going. You can hear it in her voice, if it doesn't happen she won't make it.
She's the only one who ever stops in front of Four's chair. I've watched her do it, bag on her shoulder, and say, “you can come with me, you know”. Four never moves, doesn't even look up anymore. I don't think Seventeen's actually offering a plan, I don't think she really has one. I think she just doesn't want to be the only one who knows there's a door. Of course she's still here though, but at least she believes there's a way out.
Thirteen is the loudest one in this house, by far. She won't stop yelling about how they called her a slut, her classmates, her friends, they all called her a slut, after some boy told everyone they kissed. Of course he didn't tell them that he shoved her up against a wall and stuck his tongue down her throat…there was definitely no kissing involved. But she didn't scream, she didn't push him off, so now she's the slut. So she stands in the kitchen ranting and raving about it, screaming now, I guess, to make up for not screaming then.
I've seen her walk past Four's chair on her way to the kitchen and snap at her without slowing down, why are you just sitting there, DO something. Four doesn't move. Doesn't even look up. I keep meaning to say something to Thirteen about it, tell her to stop, to be more understanding, I never do.
She and Twenty-six don't get along either. Twenty-six needs it quiet to work and Thirteen doesn't believe in quiet, so most nights you can hear the typing through the wall stop every time Thirteen raises her voice, then a long exhale, then the typing starts again. Neither of them has ever said it out loud, but I think they're furious at each other for both still existing. I don't think either of them realizes they're fighting about the same thing, just from opposite ends of it, one of them trying to disappear into silence and the other trying to disappear into noise.
I make coffee around all of them most mornings. I walk past the chair, I knock so Twenty-two knows I need the shower eventually, I leave a glass of water outside the office door in case Twenty-six remembers to drink it. I've gotten good at this, taking care of them. Good enough that when people ask if I live alone I say yes, and it's not really a lie, it's just not the whole story.
But some nights the shower's still running and Thirteen's still yelling and the light's still on under Twenty-six's door, and I sit in the kitchen and do the math on the rent none of them pay, and I think, I don't actually know how many of us there are, these are just the ones I can still see. All I know is I'm the one who has to pay the electric bill for all of it. I know I should probably knock on one of these doors eventually, sit in the chair next to Four instead of walking past it, ask Twenty-Two what the water's supposed to be washing off. I haven't yet. Some nights I just sit in the kitchen instead, listening to all of them at once, and I don't know when I became this version – Thirty-Three – and left those other ones behind, when they broke off from me, why they still won’t move out. So, I’ll just make the coffee in the morning like I do everyday.