Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
And yeah, alright, the apartment can use a bit of loving—bras and socks and a feather boa hanging over the back of the couch, raunchy laundry pile amassing by the TV, which itself is situated on the floor because no one’s gotten around to mounting it yet, a coffee table buried under stacks of mail, books, shoe boxes with some of them still containing actual heels and pumps she bought and never wore, some dead laptop that won’t charge anymore and needs a new battery, and an empty pastry box crusted with sugar. Juni has a bad habit of ordering random shit online—artwork, weird lighting, furniture, boxes of paints and an easel because she thought she might try to become a painter someday, a zillion cat-shaped throw pillows because she loves cats but is allergic to real ones, tiaras and a plastic scepter because she has a weird princess fetish—and all this stuff gets piled around everywhere, none of the artwork put on the walls, none of the furniture built. Any odor in the room is overpowered by the flowery perfumes, powders, and whatever else she keeps stuffed in her three-mirror vanity in the corner by the window—it was put there and then never made it to the bedroom for whatever reason—all of it pink, pink, pink. It’s a mess in here, and once you misplace something, kiss it goodbye.
Though it’s technically Juniper’s place, I pretty much live here too. She was one of the auction winners. I was the lucky bachelor she won for $1,075—just a drop in the bucket of her fortune. But after our obligatory date, we found we made much better friends. She gets me. I get her. Everything sucks less when we’re together.
“I dunno where your charger is,” I say. “Check the bedroom, the drawer with all your sex toys you never use.” I finally get my stupid pants off, then perform a dance trying to get my boxers off as I hop awkwardly into the bathroom and twist on the shower. One thing I love about this place: perfect-ass water pressure. It sure beats the water at my parents’ house. I moan as I get under the stream and yank the curtain closed behind me.
The curtain sweeps right back open. “What did you mean I’m different?” she asks.
This is normal. We have no boundaries. “Dunno. You just are.”
“Different in a bad way?”
“Different in a you way. Will you get my back?” I ask, handing her the bar of soap.
She takes it but does nothing with it. “I wonder sometimes if there’s something wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with Prom Night Barbie.”
“Maybe depends on the prom.”
Even washing my pits and chest vigorously, the gasoline smell cuts through the body wash. I’ll stink for days. “Stupid prick.”
“Whose prick?”
“He fuckin’ dowsed me in gasoline.”
“Like, on purpose?”
“Probably. Are you gonna get my back or not?”
“This soap has your pubes on it.”
“And now Mr. Duncan probably won’t ask me back. And I need all the jobs I can get.”
“I can pay your rent, y’know. It’s no biggie. I got the money.”
I grab a bottle, squirt shampoo onto my palm, then squish it into my hair. “Nah, I’m not moochin’ off of you like that.”
“You can mooch all you want.”
“Did I just put your weird-ass moisturizer shit in my hair?”
“Smells like candy.”
“Feels like tar.”
“I still think there’s something wrong with me.”
I turn. She’s still inspecting the bar of soap, lip wrinkled up. It always surprises me, how nothing seems to faze her, nothing at all disgusts her, like her whole life is this cartoon she’s just stumbling through in her high heels, hot pink lipstick, and wet-dream model looks. I haven’t known her long and it feels like we’ve been friends for years already. I know she’d ditch this apartment and follow me anywhere if she felt like it. Even getting a place here in Spruce was a spur of the moment thing. Every second of her life is a surprise.
I guess mine is, too. “Hey, Juni, listen, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re fine just like you are. Life has no rulebook.”
“I can see your penis.”
“We do whatever we want. Be whatever we want.”
“You’re always so nice to me.”
“So who cares what others think?”
“Should we go out tonight?” she asks. I don’t know if anything I said got through to her, but when I give a why-the-hell-not shrug, she says, “I’ll grab my pumps. You need another Band-Aid,” then saunters off. I touch my nose, reminded that it’s still there, and peel it off, flinging it out of the shower toward the trash can. Yes, it misses. As I rinse the mystery goop out of my hair, I realize she walked off with the soap. “Juni!” I call out. No answer. I hiss when goop gets in my eye. “Lick a dick,” I growl to myself as I rinse my face off in the stream while my eye stings something awful.