I'm Your Wreck

1- I Will Get Everything Right

Being the last to arrive at the house meant that I got the shittiest room. The third floor attic that was flipped into the smallest bedroom with hardly any air conditioning and a bird's nest by the window that housed the most talkative birds I'd ever heard.

I was drenched in sweat by the time I lugged my furniture from the back of my dad's truck, up the five steps of the porch up two flights of stairs, and then cramming it all into the dark little room with an angled ceiling. If I stepped too close to the left wall, I would smack my head if I wasn't paying attention. Which happened five times in the first half an hour of maneuvering the furniture in an attempt to fit everything into the small space.

"Well, that's the last of it," Dad said with a huff, breathing heavily through his nose as he dropped off the last box of my things. "I would stay for lunch, but I have to get back. Your mother is hosting her book club tomorrow and if I don't get the yard work done, she'll bite my ear off."

I walked him back through the empty house- convenient how all four of my house mates were too busy to help move my stuff in- and hugged him goodbye on the front porch. "Thanks for the help."

"Remember what I taught you about running the garbage disposal," he said, wiping some sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "They can be finicky and you don't want it to rust."

"I know, Dad."

"And the HVAC filters."

I nodded along, as if he hadn't spent the entire summer sending me emails about how to take care of a house. This was my first time living in one without my parents, since I spent the first two years of college in the dorms, and he was suddenly very nervous that I wouldn't know how to operate a stove.

The house was bigger than it looked in the pictures, only two blocks from campus with a decent back yard and five bedrooms. Well, after seeing the pathetic space in the attic, it felt more like four bedrooms with a closet upstairs. We should have fought for bedroom rights before the move so that I at least had a fighting chance for one of the bigger rooms on the second floor. Our lease started on Wednesday, but my internship in Rochester didn't end until Friday and so the four others had a couple of days to settle in without me.

From our lively group chat, I already knew that Walker got the only room with an en suite bathroom and Ollie got the biggest closet. Kenji, the second to last to arrive, got the room closest to the main bathroom and only one small window to let in any light. Banks, who was the only person in the house I hadn't met yet, was first to arrive and got the best room at the end of the hall. At least twice the size of my closet-like crawl space with bay windows and a decent sized closet.

I was immediately jealous of the guy, even though I had no idea who he was except that he knew Ollie. They were cousins, he was transferring to Tate University from their home town and we had an extra room to fill. That was all I knew. Ollie was one of my closest friends, so if he vouched for the guy, he was probably fine. Still, I regretted agreeing to let him sign the lease with us.

If it was just the four of us, I still wouldn't have gotten the big room but I at least wouldn't be relegated to the tower of doom, not even on the same floor as the other guys.

I posted a picture in the group chat of my bed pressed against the wall beside my desk, which was crammed against the corner of my dresser so that I would have to wheel my chair to the right whenever I wanted to open the drawers. I typed out a message and hit send.

Liam: Kill me now

Walker: That doesn't look very fung shway

Kenji: feng shui, dumbass