Only If You’re Lucky

By the end of the week, I’m standing on the sidewalk with three suitcases full of stuff, a single bead of sweat trickling down my spine and an old gray house looming before me. The past few days have gone by in a blur: finishing finals, packing up the dorm. It’s like I’ve been operating on autopilot, my mind blank and body simply going through the motions as if all of this is normal.

As if I’m not about to move into a house with three girls I know nothing about.

“Why me?” I had asked.

Lucy had invited herself into my room by then, trailing her fingers along my desk, her eyes drinking in all the knickknacks tacked to my corkboard. I’ve always been something of a hoarder—no, that’s the wrong word. A collector, maybe. The kind of person who saves ticket stubs and old receipts, applying sentimental value to inanimate objects. Like they have feelings. The idea of tossing even a single happy memory into the trash is enough to make my eyes prickle—and that’s not even the worst of it. There’s also the whittled-down pencil stubs and practically empty nail polish bottles; the crusty tubes of expired mascara and the used notebooks that pile up in my desk drawers for no reason other than the fact that I just can’t seem to throw them away. Mom says I have attachment issues; Dad says I’m a slob. I think I’m just afraid of getting rid of something prematurely; of dipping my hand into my purse and looking for some familiar comfort only to remember that I had disposed of it.

That it’s gone forever. That I’m left with nothing.

“Why not?” Lucy had responded, picking up my perfume and spraying a spritz on her wrist. I watched as she brought her nose to her skin and sniffed, wincing, before setting it back down.

“You don’t even know me,” I continued. “Why do you want to live with someone you don’t know?”

She looked up at me then, saucer-round eyes drilling into mine.

“Why do you?”

I blink now, my own eyes stinging in the brightness of the summer sun, and start to wonder if this was a mistake. I think about breaking the news to Maggie, admitting that I had made other plans in the hour between her telling me about the apartment and coming back from the dining hall, my mind still trying to process what had just happened. My vague explanation of a house off-campus and the hurt in her eyes as her lower lip quivered. The twist in my chest as she turned away, pretended to look for something in her backpack, too humiliated to even act mad. The truth is, she had every right to be mad. I left her, abandoned her, flicked her to the side like a cigarette the second some swanky new vice came prancing along.

Not only that, but Maggie saved me this year. Without her, I don’t know what I would have done.

It’s true that I didn’t feel any real attachment to her, I didn’t love her in the way I loved Eliza, but that’s only because I didn’t feel any attachment to anything. I spent the entire year floating, totally unmoored, completely removed from not only my body but from reality, too. In hindsight, I was definitely depressed: spending day after day in that concrete box, Eliza’s smiling face tacked to my corkboard mocking me as I got ready in the mornings, studied in the evenings. Lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, replaying the events of that night over and over and over again. My parents never noticed; my teachers didn’t, either. I was required to go to counseling after the college learned of Eliza’s passing but my grades never suffered so they simply egged me on, signed my slips, told me to keep doing what I was doing.

That whatever it was, it was working just fine.

Somehow, though, Maggie could always tell when that film started to descend over my eyes. The one that turned them glassy and gray, somewhere far away, my mind wandering to all those deep, dark places it sometimes escaped to when the memories of Eliza became too much. Maggie could see when my attention would start to dart around the room, wildly searching for something to distract me—a handful of painkillers, swallowed dry, a few too many to knock me out; the sharp bite of a thumbtack pushed into my finger until the skin popped—and she would gently nudge me back, suggesting we watch another movie or grab an ice cream, anything to snap me out of it.

All that to say, Maggie deserved more than the awkwardness of this past week together. The tension between us was physically painful: sidestepping one another in our little box of shared space, murmuring apologies and avoiding each other’s eyes. Saying goodbye with an uncomfortable arm hug and a promise to hang out after summer was over—a promise we both knew was dead the second it left our lips. Maggie is a good person, a great person, a person I don’t deserve.

But now, with an entire year lost since I lost Eliza, I don’t just need to be saved anymore. I need to be resuscitated.

I pick up my bags and start walking up the steps, the splintered wood in desperate need of a power wash. There’s yellow pollen caked to everything: the porch railing and rocking chairs and giant cooler situated between them, smudges of it everywhere like crusty mustard stuck to the cap. I drop my bags and open the cooler, peeking inside at the collection of beers bobbing in a foot of warm water, the ice long since melted. There’s a mosquito floating on its back, spindly legs thrashing in the air, and I close the lid again, wondering how long it’s been in there. I take in the portable speaker on the windowsill next, the collection of lighters piled up on a small table, black ash dotting the wood. The giant pair of flip-flops with dirty toe stains like someone just kicked them off before standing up and walking inside.

Already, the house feels lived-in, even though the lease just started a week ago.

I raise my hand, ready to knock, but before my fist can connect with the door, it swings open on its own, a burly boy standing directly on the other side of it. I stare at him for a second, wide-eyed, trying to keep my attention from traveling down his bare chest, the thin line of hair sprouting beneath his belly button and pointing like an arrow to the waistband of his shorts.

“Who are you?” he asks, a mop of brown hair tousled like he just rolled out of bed.

“I’m Margot,” I say. “I’m … supposed to live here.”

Suddenly, a sense of horror descends upon me and I cannot believe it didn’t dawn on me before.

I peer past the front door and into the house, a place so disheveled it looks like a cave occupied by animals. I think about the shoes outside, the men’s shoes, and take in the shirtless guy in the living room staring at me with a smirk on his lips. It’s the same way Lucy had looked that day in the dorm, almost like she was laughing at some joke I didn’t understand.

This is a prank. All of it, a prank.

She must have seen me staring at her that day on the lawn and thought it would be funny: inviting me here to live with her, with them, knowing I was desperate enough to say yes. I wonder if she’s watching me right now through the window of some neighboring house, pointing. Laughing.

I wonder if it’s too late to call Maggie and apologize. Beg for mercy, take it all back.

I feel the tears well up and start to mumble excuses, ready to pick up my bags and run away, until the door opens wider and I see Lucy standing on the other side of it.

“Sorry,” she says, pushing the boy out of the way. Her hair is pulled up into a bun and she’s wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt and black biker shorts, her toned legs bronzed and beautiful. “This is Nicole’s boyfriend. Trevor, Margot. Margot, Trevor.”

She gestures between us and the boy smiles at me again, nodding that thick shock of hair before sticking his hand down his waistband and scratching his crotch. Lucy rolls her eyes at me like we’re sharing some kind of mutual disgust and I smile, feeling the relief fill me up fast.

“Everyone’s still asleep,” she says, gesturing for me to come inside. I grab what I can of my bags and watch as she motions to the empty beer bottles littering the floor. There’s a giant bong on the coffee table, cloudy water specked with debris, next to a glass ashtray shaped like a peace sign. I notice a bowl of assorted candy in the center; a handful of coasters I doubt anyone uses. “I’ll show you to your room.”

The house is one of those old homes Rutledge is known for: two stories with a giant front porch, big white columns, and defunct fireplaces in almost every room. The floors look like original hardwood, and they would be nice, if someone had cared enough to take care of them. Campus is small—a cluster of old buildings situated between bars and restaurants, coffee shops and independent boutiques—and although most students live in apartments downtown, out here, mere minutes from city center, there’s space to roam. Room to breathe. Already, I can feel the rural air infiltrating my lungs; the weight of the last year slowly easing off my chest. We’re about a mile from downtown, only a few blocks to a campus bus stop. Greek row looms large on the street perpendicular to ours and I can’t help but think about how this section of town has been overrun by students who can only afford to live in big houses like these because their rich parents pay for them to.

My own parents weren’t thrilled about me ditching out on a summer back home, but at the same time, when I explained the situation—a group of friends, real friends, the kind my mother’s friends were so sure I would find—they begrudgingly agreed to send me a security deposit and the first three months’ worth of rent.

“Nicole and Sloane sleep upstairs,” Lucy says now, weaving me through the living room. It’s furnished with two mismatched couches, a coffee table, and a floor lamp; on the opposite side of the room there’s a TV on the floor and an old record player propped open on a side table, a collection of vinyl covers decorating the main wall in a grid. “You and I are down here.”

When we get to the back of the house, Lucy gestures to two closed doors: one, apparently hers, and the other, mine. She swings open the one on the right and I peer inside, my eyes scanning it all.

“It came furnished, so it’s actually good you don’t have much to bring.”

There’s a little twin bed in there, a bedside table, and another fireplace, though it doesn’t appear as if it actually works. I thought about bringing my own furniture from home at first, but now, after seeing the way this place looks, I’m overwhelmingly glad I didn’t—I can just imagine her smirk watching me lug my wrought iron headboard and lace duvet into this place, the kind of stuff that fits right in in my parents’ beachside mansion but would feel horribly childish in a house like this.

“It’s perfect,” I say, dropping my bags in the center of the room. And I’m not just saying that: really, it is. The house radiates an effortless cool the way Lucy does, too: a kind of grunge aesthetic that could not be more different than Maggie’s matching throw pillows. Exactly what I want. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” Lucy says, hands on her hips. “You just got here.”