Apartment 15. Olivia Holton. Friend

There was a time when I thought Andrew is someone worth idolising over, when I believed he was someone I wanted to grow up like, but then he showed me his true colours—or rather, loss transformed him into something ugly.

My reflection in the mirror continues to stare long after the banging on my door has seized. Then, when I am more than sure that he has tired, I quickly wipe the red that stains my lips, and the black shadow below my eyes.

It's a Monday, Drew shouldn't be home at this hour. My organised scheduling has assured me he wouldn't come home tonight. So why is he here? I have a client to meet at La Belle in two hours. Now everything is a mess.

I tiptoe over to my door to peek through the lock (this apartment is so old that the apparatus still exists here). Sure enough, my line of view shows Drew passed out on the la-z-boy couch. His mouth hangs open, and the sound of his snores travel through the door.

I quickly go over to my dresser to change out of my outfit of the night. It's a tight black dress. Short, hardly reaching the middle of my thighs. The back hangs open, tied together with a single thread at the top. It's the dress I wear strictly to meet clients. It does not leave the apartment unless I wear it under a thick coat and a pair of jeans. So that no one in the vicinity of where we live would ever see me in it.

If Drew finds out, there will surely be hell to pay. And my bruises have only just disappeared, I do not need more to have to cover up. Unfortunately, concealer is a luxury I cannot expend.

I touch the yellowing mark on my upper arm from a few weeks back. It was a particularly difficult day. I had just come home from bussing tables at Mickey's Diner all day, it was a Sunday. Drew was passed out on the kitchen floor when I walked into the apartment. That was a regular affair, so I didn't think anything was different. Our fridge and pantry were barren and I had not eaten all day. I had just paid our rent so my pockets were completely empty. Desperation clawed at my insides. I was about to walk into my room, thinking I was just going to sleep it off, when I noticed the envelope on the ground near where Drew had passed out. It must have fallen out of his pocket.

My mind felt frozen in time as my body pulled me closer to it. Must have been the hunger, or maybe my brain had passed out and my body was the only thing still conscious. The closer I got to it, the faster my feet seemed to move. Before I knew it, I had picked up the envelope and looked inside. There was cash. Lots and lots of hundred dollar bills just wadded up inside this insignificant white envelope. I'd thought to myself that I wasn't going to do it, I would put it back to where I had found it and walk away. But something else seemed to be controlling my arms, because, without even thinking, I'd slipped a few bills into my pocket.

When I moved to put the envelope back, Drew was staring at me from where he laid on the ground.

After that, the story becomes too gruesome even for me to tell.

When I touch the yellow mark that has healed from a very dark and—unfortunately—conspicuous purple, I can hardly remember the pain anymore. I'm very good at forgetting the painful parts of life, you see.

Now, my hand moves to cover my unattractively flat stomach, slightly bulging with gallons of tap water. I have long ago learned to satiate my searing hunger with water. It works sometimes. Other times, the hunger just keeps torturing me until I eventually fall asleep.

The first of my many hunger strikes happened when Drew disappeared for three days. On the first night of his disappearance, it was the first time my hunger became a monster in my stomach—I had not eaten since the day before, you see—and it roared inside me until I was able to comfort it with something I found in the garbage downstairs.

The whole of the next day, I was not so lucky, but endured with only water to sustain me until the day after, when the Chinese restaurant next door to our apartment building got their vegetable delivery. I guess the owner of the restaurant saw me searching through his dumpster because, as I was walking to return home, he gave me a paper bag full of old vegetables with a curt, "Was just on my way to dump 'em."

They were certainly nothing fresh or delicious to eat, but this one act of kindness might as well saved my life that day. And he's been nothing but kind to me ever since.

Drew came back that third day, drunk and soiled to his trousers.

After that, I was determined to survive, with or without him. Overnight, I have somehow transformed into another person. No longer the helpless little girl who lost both her parents.

I never thought my life would ever come to this—if my parents see me now, they would certainly cry over the state of their daughter.

A knocking of the front door catches my attention. I move to my bedroom door and lean closer so that my ear is flushed to the wood. I could hear a shuffling and then the creak of the front door as it opens. Then a murmured conversation.

I slowly unlock my bedroom door to peer into the living room. Must have been my imagination, but I swear I see an angel standing outside our apartment. Long luscious blonde hair and full pink lips, slightly tinted orange. She is deep in conversation with Drew, who is wavering in his stance as he stands in front of the beautiful girl. But she doesn't seem to notice his intoxicated state.

Her friendly eyes look directly into Drew's, unaffected and, frankly, still genuinely affable. This girl must be fearless to be able to face my large-bodied brother so candidly. Or maybe she just has a death wish.

"—wondering what the residents here do when the water shuts off like this," I hear parts of their conversation from where I stand. The girl's voice is light and airy, briefly reminding me of the gentle nurse that helped me off of the floor at the hospital where my parents were taken.

Drew smiles wickedly, I hate when he smiles like this—such an ominous smile that does not hide his true cruelty. "Well, I'm not quite sure what the residents do—" he pauses to lean into the girl, "—but I can think of a few things you and I can do."

The girl's smile never wavers. "My husband and I just moved in next door," she says.

"Right." Drew replies curtly, then turns to face my bedroom. The girl then notices me peeking through the doorway. "There you are, little sister. Come out here." Drew waves me over.

I walk through the doorway, hesitantly at first, to approach them. But when I notice that the beautiful girl is smiling at me encouragingly, I become brave enough to hasten my steps.

"Hey, my name's Tamara. I just moved in next door with my husband. It's so nice to meet you," she says, holding out a hand for me to shake.

I took it in my own and return her smile. "I'm Olivia. Nice to meet you too."

"So, tell me, what do you usually do when something like this happens?" Tamara asks.

At first, I have no idea what she is talking about. My mind quickly sprints through all the possibilities, one of them that she might have heard the commotion after Drew came home and is here to ask for my well being. But, no, she would not ask me a question like the one she just did if that is the case. And surely not with Drew standing right next to me.

My face must have displayed my confusion, because a second later, she amends with, "—oh, sorry. I meant, when the water shuts off?"

"Oh. Right—I mean—of course," I aptly stutter. I look at Drew's retreating back as he returns to his la-z-boy. The conversation must already bore him. "Did Mr Taylor say he is fixing the water pipes again?"

Tamara nods her head as her eyebrows scrunch together. "Again? Does this often happen?"

"Well, more often than it should."

"Fairly justified, I guess, considering how small the payment is." She looks thoughtful for a moment. Then, as her eyes return to look at me, she asks, "Tell me then, is there something I should do at times like this?"

So I go over the routine of what I do at times such as these. "Well, uhm—" I say as I widen the door to welcome her inside, "—I think it would be easier if I just show you then."