Flynn

The second I hung up with Ethan after committing the mortal sin of begging him to talk to strangers, I grabbed a sheet of paper and set myself the task of figuring out what the fuck my budget was. My weekly income was a mystery to me. My hours weren’t consistent week to week. I also didn’t know how much I’d been paying Clau in rent. He’d come to me and tell me rent was due, and I’d give him the amount he asked for, but it wasn’t always the same amount and I didn’t keep track of how often he did it. Theoretically it was a lot less than rent in a normal place, but theoretically that would mean I should’ve had savings. I didn’t.

But maybe that was on me? I knew my phone contract was kind of a lot. Dean took my old phone away because technically it belonged to him, just like everything else down to the clothes on my back (which he didn’t take, thankfully), so I’d signed up for a phone contract that came with a free phone. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time since I couldn’t afford to buy a phone outright, but now I was locked into paying a dumb amount every single month for what felt like forever.

And then there was food. I think I’d been rounding down the price of my sausage rolls and meat pies to zero in my head, but a few dollars here and there added up. Even the dollar a day I spent on bus fare wasn’t nothing. And the meal replacement shakes. They weren’t too bad per serving, but a serving wasn’t a meal. I used three or four sachets at a time.

To make matters even worse, I went back and looked at the ad for the room and realised the price for the room was plus bills. How much were bills? What were bills? Like… electricity, water, wifi? Maybe cable, rates… ugh. I had no idea what I was doing.

I scribbled over my attempt at a budget. That wasn’t getting me anywhere.

Okay, so, where was I at? I definitely couldn’t ask them to cut the rent any more. That’d be insane. My original dumbass idea where I’d just mow the lawns for a discount was also dead in the water, because when you lived with people, you shared the chores, and the lawns were about the only thing I maybe wouldn’t fuck up in that house. I’d already be doing less than my fair share.

Turning down the offer was also just not an option. I didn’t know why they’d picked me, but they had, and according to Justin, they’d had plenty of other people through. They’d even been willing to give me a discount. Nobody had ever wanted me like that before. And yeah, they probably just had the wrong idea about what they were in for, but still. I wasn’t giving that up.

So really the only option I did have was to just pick up whatever extra hours I could at work, cut my spending by as much as possible, and wait and see what happened to my bank account. Maybe I could get a second job? I wouldn’t mind working more, and maybe Dean was done showing up to sabotage everything I did. Not that I couldn’t sabotage most shit I tried just fine on my own.

Of course, this was all assuming they even still wanted to live with me after they talked to Ethan. He didn’t really know how to put on any kind of a performance, and I’d just put him in a tough spot by asking him to do this. There was a good chance he was right now telling them I was the most annoying person he’d ever met. Which, y’know, fair. 

Connor would have been the smart play. He knew my every flaw, but I’d bet he could still make a good case for me without even telling a lie. He was just that kind of person. Plus if they gave me the room, it wouldn’t even matter if Connor knew I was homeless, because I wouldn’t be anymore.

I was just considering maybe doing a little take-backsies on Ethan’s number and hoping they hadn’t gotten round to calling him yet when my phone rang. Cam.

“Heeey,” I answered, doing my best to sound totally chill and unbothered. “So, uh, if you haven’t called Ethan yet—”

“Hey, Flynn,” Cam greeted. “We gave him a call.”

“Oh,” I said carefully. “Okay, cool, uh…”

“So, we’re happy to go ahead with things if you are,” Cam continued. “When can we expect you?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll…” I searched around for my phone to check bus times. It took me way too long to remember I was holding it against my ear. “...Soon?”

He let out a light laugh. “Soon, then. We’ll let you get back to your noodles.”

My noodles were fucking lukewarm at this point, but I didn’t give a shit. They were also only mostly cooked, I realised as I shoved them down my throat while I looked up when the next bus was. 

Not for another forty minutes. There was no need to rush, but my body didn’t feel like doing anything but rushing. I packed up my things in about two minutes flat, then I daringly fired off a text to Ethan outside of the group chat.

Flynn: what did u tell them??
Ethan: I compared you to a smart cat. Bad?
Flynn: no I got the room thanks!!!

Ethan closed off the conversation with a thumbs up emoji. I had no idea what he meant about comparing me to a smart cat, since everyone was pretty much in agreement that I was more like a dog—and not a smart one. But it’d worked, so I wasn’t complaining.

I left early for the bus, jogged the whole way there, and then just had to sit and wait because unfortunately the bus wasn’t in a hurry just because I was. A light rain kicked up, but if I hadn’t been early it just would have caught me while I was walking instead, so I had no regrets. Slightly damp clothes by the time I got on the bus, yeah, but no regrets.

“Same as usual?” the driver asked when I handed over my fifty cents.

“Nope,” I said. “I’ll ring the bell.”

“Alright,” the driver said, skeptical but too indifferent to actually argue. I was notorious for falling asleep on buses, and that was in the afternoon. It was getting towards the kind of hour it might actually be normal to sleep if you were an early to bed, early to rise sort.

No way would I be drifting off this time. I’d be lucky if I slept at all tonight. And all that not-sleeping, I’d be doing in my own bed in my own room in a house with chill people. It was like some kind of crazy fairytale. It was for sure the kind of thing that didn’t last, but then, the bad parts of life weren’t forever either. Especially if I got it through my thick head that if things were bad, I should leave. 

I guess that was easy to say, but when I was actually deep down in the thing, it wasn’t always so easy. Like leaving Dean when I didn’t have a job or money or any place to go, when I didn’t even have any ID, didn’t know shit about the world or how to do anything—that’d been hard. 

And finding a new place this time had been… well, not so hard, actually, but only because this crazy miracle had happened that didn’t make any damn sense. They just didn’t know that day one I was going to accidentally ram my entire body into something expensive and breakable while trying to go through a doorway because somehow I still hadn’t figured out how to move through space without colliding with things. 

The rain picked up outside, so I got out my phone to track where I was so I wouldn’t miss my stop. I’d need to bury it deep in my bag to keep it dry after I got off, so I zoomed in on the map and followed the route I’d need to take on foot to reach the house, murmuring street names and turns to myself. Then I zoomed back out and slammed my hand on the bell when I realised I’d just missed my stop. Fuck.

I did my best to track where I was and where I needed to go, but by the time the bus stopped and I stepped off into rain so heavy I couldn’t see two steps in front of me, all I had was a general direction and a prayer.