My Guest in Apartment 10B

Bittersweet Endings

A wise woman once asked if the highs of falling in love was ever worth the pain. Well, this only held true if you were expecting it and had made the decision to fall in love.

She would have chosen the highs despite knowing of the inevitable fall.

However, Arabella felt that she was in a unique situation that no singer could ever capture in lyrics.

How could you sing about unintentionally getting attached to a ghost, sending an ex-fiancé to jail, and losing a job in the span of a month? No poet nor songwriter would have been prepared for what she had gone through.

And yet, why did all heartbreak songs sound as if they were written for her?

She spent so much time on Google that she had found out more about Italian cuisine and pesto origins in the last few weeks than she had known in her whole life. The sandwich that James had prepared for her wasn't just Italian, as it had basically been a gourmet grilled cheese. But its similarities to pizza were as undeniable as Lombardi's influence on James's culinary skills.

James had concealed the fact that he had known the missing recipe as soon as he saw Mrs. Rothschild's pesto. She replayed the day multiple times in her mind, and as she recounted his words, it all pointed to that very fact—that he had known and not said anything. He had known and hadn't waited to say goodbye.

Coward. Arabella wanted to strangle him. He should come back so that she could strangle him one last time. She wanted to strangle Mrs. Rothschild too, but the poor woman couldn't have known, so Arabella decided to let her hostility slide just this once.

She just missed him so much.

Her heart ached as she made meals for herself, missing him when she did the dishes, missing him when she saw Mrs. Rothschild in the hallway, and missing him each time the clock hit 6 pm.

Even her cupcakes had taken a bitter turn. She had made deep dark chocolate mini cakes that almost tasted like burnt cacao beans, and on another day, she made an espresso muffin which Bertie had a hard time swallowing.

But mostly, her apartment looked like shit.

Some days were better than others, and today was one of the meh days, not good, but not too bad either. Arabella toyed with the idea of giving Sylvia K. a call when someone knocked on her door. Whoever was at the door had just saved her an embarrassing encounter with the faux psychic.

The door was unlocked save for the slide chain lock. Even her door was feeling sloppy. Arabella lazily grabbed the lever and pulled the door open a crack.

"Bertie?"

He shifted uneasily, a cool but awkward expression forming on his face. "Hey kid, how are you?"

Arabella released the chain from the door and pulled the door open. "I'm okay, Bertie. Come in."

He entered with a few hesitant steps and stopped as Arabella closed the door.

"What brings you here?"

"The store has been a little slow lately and I thought to check up on you." He smiled weakly, perching on a stool as he glanced at the messy apartment.

Such was a hallmark of a broken soul, there was filth of every kind everywhere.

Arabella picked up some of the trash and shoved the dirty plates into the sink. "Oh?" She was embarrassed, but she also didn't give a damn. She hadn't been in the mood to clean lately.

"I know you've been a little low. The boys noticed when you came by with your uh..." he formed cups with his hands, and for a minute Arabella thought that Bertie was talking about her breasts.