CLEANING UP AFTER YOU
1431 Words
EMMA
I drop my keys in the kitchen counter and watch as Josh make slow steps into the house.
“Damn” he mutters, “this place still looks the same.”
He’s right, I didn’t change anything, not the furniture, not the curtains, not even the big clock that ticks so loudly in the quiet.
I watch him take everything in like he’s seeing the house for the first time. Maybe he is. The last time Josh was here, Grandma was still alive.
“You want something to drink?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck like it’s suddenly too heavy. “No. Just… needed a minute.”
A minute.
That’s all he ever asks for.
A minute to breathe.
A minute before the next disaster probably finds him.
A minute before everything probably falls apart again.
He drops onto the old couch, and I stand there for a moment, waiting for him to say something—anything—but he doesn’t. His leg bounces, restless, jittery, like his nerves are running on frayed wires.
“You wanna tell me what that was?” I finally ask, leaning against the counter.
Josh lets out a sharp breath. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Josh.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to. He knows my tone.
He squeezes his eyes shut, jaw tightening. “Just… made some stupid choices, Em. That’s all.”
“That’s what you said the last time.”
“And I fixed it, didn’t I?”
I laugh—short, humorless. “Is that what tonight was? You fixing it?”
He runs a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands. “It was just a stupid mistake, I didn’t expect that to happen. And I had no one else to call.”
“Well I certainly didn’t expect to walk into some abandoned auto shop and find you surrounded by men who looked like they crawled out of a crime documentary,” I snap.
I’m angry at him, not because he got himself in this trouble, but because he keeps getting himself in troubles I end up fixing. It’s so exhausting.
“Who were they?” I ask.
He hesitates. Too long and I hate it.
“Josh.”
His shoulders slump. “Some guy, Rico. And his guys.”
My stomach twists. Of course. It’s always someone with a name like that. Someone who smells trouble before they wake up in the morning.
“You owe him money,” I say, not a question.
He nods.
“How much?”
Silence, which tells me everything.
“Jesus, Josh…” I whisper, pressing my fingers to my forehead.
“I’m gonna fix it,” he says again, voice cracking this time. “I swear, Em. I just need time. I didn’t want you to see me like… that.”
“I’ve seen you like that before,” I remind him quietly. That hurts him. I see it in the way his eyes dart to the floor.
“Look… I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”
“Wow very unfortunate of me.”
He sighs in defeat.
I take a breath, trying to settle my heartbeat. “We’ll figure something out. But you have to tell me everything, Josh. No more secrets. No more disappearing acts. I can’t keep cleaning up messes I don’t understand.”
He nods again, but I don’t think he’s fully listening. His eyes are glassy, distant.
“I need to take a shower, you should too,” I say softly. “We’ll talk after that.”
He pushes off the couch, wobbling a little. I steady him with a hand on his arm.
“Thanks,” he whispers.
“For what?”
“For showing up.”
I don’t respond. Because I’m not sure if showing up was the smart choice or just the only one I know how to make. Josh disappears down the hall into Grandma’s old room. I listen as the door clicks shut. The house settles into silence once again. I walk to the sink, stare out the window at the dark street. Rain still taps against the glass, soft and relentless.
And suddenly, too sudden, my mind pulls up the image of him. I close my eyes, exhaling slowly. What were the odds that the same man I had snapped at in the café this morning would end up pulling me and Josh out of a nightmare hours later?
And why do I keep bumping into him?
I exhale heavily and make my way to my room, trying to force him out of my head.
•
I step out of my room in a peach nightwear, Josh is in the living room, staring blankly at the TV – it’s volume at the lowest.
“You’re hungry?” my voice breaks the silence across the room.
He glances up to look at me, “Yeah I guess so”
I walk to the kitchen and turn on the microwave again, the pasta I had left was still in it. I set the timer and walk back to my room to get the first aid kit.
When I walk back to the living room with the bag in my hand, Josh looks at me confused.
“Your jaw, doesn’t it hurt?” I ask him, and settle down on the couch beside him.
He moves his hand to his jaw, pressing lightly like he’s only now realizing the swelling. “Not really”
“Well, it should,” I mutter, unzipping the bag. “Sit still.”
He obeys—not because he wants to, but I know it’s because he’s too tired to argue. I dampen a small cotton with antiseptic and tilt his chin gently. He winces.
“Thought you said it didn’t hurt,” I say.
“It didn’t until you touched it,” he grumbles.
I give him a look and dab the cotton again. He sighs dramatically, letting his head fall back against the couch.
“Emma, I said I’m fine.”
“And I said sit still.”
He falls quiet after that. Up close, the bruises look worse—thin red lines, the shape of fingers across his jaw, a faint cut on his cheek. His eyes are shadowed, tired, older than they should be. He’s twenty-four, but tonight he looks thirty.
“You should have told me,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t answer.
“You should have told me before it got this bad.”
Still nothing.
I drop the cotton, apply adhesive plaster on his jaw and close the first aid kit. “Josh I’m talking to you.”
His throat moves as he swallows. “If I told you, you would’ve freaked out.”
“I’m freaking out now.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, “but at least you freaked out after I tried to fix it.”
I stare at him. “That wasn’t fixing it. That was you walking straight into something you can’t get out of alone.”
He shifts uncomfortably, eyes flicking back to the muted TV. “I didn’t think they would actually show up tonight.”
“People like that always show up.”
He rubs both hands over his face. “I know.”
The microwave beeps from the kitchen—very loud beep.
I get up to the kitchen to grab the pasta and dish it out into two bowls. I walk back to the living room and place one bowl into his hands. He murmurs a quiet “thanks,” stirring it absentmindedly before taking a bite. He eats like someone who hasn’t eaten all day, maybe longer.
I throw myself on the couch and take a tiny bite from my plate too. And then suddenly he asks quietly, that I almost miss it, “Who was that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The one who showed up and made those idiots scurry off.”’
I pause almost immediately and hesitate before replying, “He probably just seemed to be there”
He takes a pause too, probably suspicious, “No it didn’t seem that way. He said something about owning the property”
I wouldn’t be surprised, he owns the biggest mansion just across the street.
“I don’t know,” I mutter and continue eating my food.
Josh doesn’t utter any other remark, he continues with his food as well.
- Writer
