3/27/11

The Apartment
By PK Murphy



It was March 3rd. I remember because my father had called me very early in the morning to remind me to pay rent. It was March 3rd and rent was late. I walked to the leasing office, turned in my check and damned myself for forgetting once again. I’ve been forgetting things lately; names, dates, people. It’s genetics probably, my mother would forget me if it wasn’t for the fact that I saw her every day, constantly reminding her of my existence.

Anyways, the rent was paid, as late as it was, it was paid.

I had three classes that day. The same old same old; lecture followed by a huge heaping of homework and we were sent off to the library or to the bar to resume our daily goings-about that lectures inconveniently interrupted. For me, it was the usual bus back to the apartment.

Walking in my apartment makes me lose my breath. When I open the door it knocks the air out of me and for a moment I panic and I feel this pressure in my chest like I can’t breathe or think or move or live. Every inch of this apartment is littered with memories of him…and me.

I walked in and took my shoes off in the tiny linoleum covered hallway and I saw the outline of where his boots laid from the winter storm we had a year ago. We were stuck indoors for three days. Three days of bad movies, junk food and a slight turn of cabin fever. When we did manage to go outside we tumbled around in the snow for hours, our fingers frozen, our faces pink from the cold, but we were happy. I turned around to the kitchen and placed the keys on the counter and I see the little space between the stove and fridge where he kissed me for the first time while we were waiting for the chocolate chip cookies we were making to finish baking. We were still only “just friends” then, but my heart skipped a beat every time he walked in the room and I wanted to kiss him since we were 12 years old. The cookies burned as we talked about how we had liked each other since forever and as we made up or the time we had wasted by never admitting it.

The living room; where he planned a mini “dance” for me since I had never gone to dance in grade school. We slow danced to our song and he told me he loved me. Then there was the bedroom where we laid for hours talking about our dreams; for ourselves and for each other. The bedroom where we had our most intense fights…but they were all the same. He would say something stupid, I would get mad, we would yell and then I would hit him with a pillow and he would laugh and then I would laugh and then we were fine, just laughing at our own stupidity.

I was in that bedroom when I got the call. A trembling voice telling me that there was an accident. And my world fell apart.

That week is a blur to me still. I went through the motions; I cried on cue at the funeral, I held his mother, hugged his father, and I listened as people told me they were sorry. I felt numb.

It was March 3rd when I found the note. I was addressed to me in his handwriting:

Babe,


Don’t forget to pay the rent.


Love you

My heart dropped into my stomach and I cried. For hours. I felt all the feelings I should have felt four months and 9 days ago. I was no longer numb, no longer pretending I was okay because I wasn’t okay, I was not okay. I felt sad and anger and bitterness, and I felt it all at once. I held the note in which he told me he loved me for the last time and I cried.


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PK is a sophmore at the University of Oklahoma. She has a phobia of necks and loves to write about love and food.