Chapter 12 12
Harmony's POV
I was still thinking about Roman and his mother when I opened the door to my apartment that evening. I stepped inside and stopped short, because the entire place was practically empty.
Quinn's coat rack was gone from beside the door. The small decorative mirror she had hung in the entryway was gone too, leaving a pale rectangle on the wall where it used to be. I stood there for a horrifying second, then walked further inside.
"Oh, my God..."
The living room was stripped back to the bare bones. Her Kampala throw pillows, her reading lamp and the little potted succulent she kept on the windowsill, all gone. The bookshelf had a gap in it where her books used to be; I still remembered her taking those out that morning. The couch was still there because it came with the apartment, but without Quinn's things surrounding it, it looked abandoned.
I had not realized how much of this apartment was Quinn, until now.
She had been here before me, and had already made the place feel cozy by the time I moved in. I had merely slotted into a home she had already built and hadn't even noticed. Now, I noticed.
I genuinely liked Quinn. For all her secrecy and the late nights hunched over that laptop, she had been a good roommate. She never made me feel like I was an inconvenience in a shared space. Losing her over something I had brought on myself, made me feel stricken with guilt.
I sighed and went to the kitchen.
It was worse in there. The good pots, the cutting board, the electric kettle, the toaster, the small blender she used for her morning smoothies, all of it had disappeared. What was left was the basic microwave, one sad pot with a wobbly handle and a single mug that I had brought myself, for my coffee.
I opened the fridge. It had some of my things in it, thank God. My tub of yogurt was still there, some leftover Chinese rice, half a carton of juice, but the organized shelf of Quinn's meal prepped containers that had always taken up the middle section was completely cleared out.
I stood in front of the open fridge for a long moment.
When I had packed for UIC, I had packed like someone who expected to figure the rest out later. I only took the important stuff: clothes, books, laptop, and other personal things. The things that make an apartment function as an actual living space, I had assumed would sort themselves out. And they had, because Quinn had already sorted them out before I arrived.
Now I was going to have to replace all of it, and my clinic salary wasn't due for another three weeks. I did the rough math in my head and it was not a pleasant exercise.
I should have just left that laptop alone. I should have walked past the desk, gone to my room and minded my business. Quinn's research was Quinn's business and none of it had anything to do with me.
Except that it did, that was the problem. It had everything to do with me the moment I saw that picture of myself.
I tried to decide between the cereal I had in the cupboard, or ordering something proper when my phone rang. I looked at the screen, and it was my landlord, Mr Garvey.
I picked up. "Mr Garvey, good eve—"
"Miss Sinclair." His voice was not very warm. "I'll get straight to the point. I had a very unpleasant call from your former roommate today."
I closed my eyes briefly. "Mr Garvey, I can explain."
"No, you listen to me. I gave you that apartment on the back of Dr Sherman's recommendation," he reminded me. "I want you to understand that. I don't usually take on single students, the rent structure doesn't work for me, but Dr Sherman vouched for you personally and that was why I made an exception. I'm starting to regret that."
"Look, I understand why you're upset," I said, moving around the kitchen. "But what happened between Quinn and I was a misunderstanding and I take responsibility for my part in it. I want you to know that I am fully committed to the apartment and I have every intention of—"
"I don't need a speech, I need rent!" He interjected impatiently. "Full rent, since you no longer have a roommate to split it with. Or I need you to find a new one, quickly. I'm not running a charity."
"I understand that, and I will find someone, I just need a little time to—"
"How much time?"
"Two weeks," I blurted, pulling the number from thin air. "Give me two weeks."
"One week," he replied.
"Mr Garvey, one week isn't en—" But the line was already dead.
I pulled the phone from my ear and gloweres at it.
"You miserable, shriveled up, penny-pinching little toad," I muttered to the dead screen. I set the phone on the counter, then picked it up again. "One week. One week! As if roommates grow on trees!"
I pulled up my laptop, opened DoorDash and started scrolling through options, because if this evening was going to be this bad then I was at least going to eat something that wasn't cereal. I found a place doing pepperoni pizza and was in the middle of adding it to my cart when my phone buzzed with an incoming call again. This time, it was an unregistered number.
I stared at it for a second, then picked up. "Hello?"
"Harmy!"
My entire body went rigid immediately.
There was only one person in the world who called me that, and hearing his voice after so many months of silence made my heart lurch painfully.
"Benji?"
"Come on, is that how you greet your big brother?" His voice was easy and warm, the particular brand of charm he deployed when he wanted something from me. "You sound terrible, by the way. Rough day?"
"What do you want, Benji?"
"Can't I just call to check in on my little sister? See how she's settling into the new school?" He tutted softly. "You're so suspicious, Harmony. I raised you better than that."
"Benji, it's been seven months. And you didn't raise me at all. So, talk."
He laughed. "Alright, alright. So how's UIC treating you? You're doing the sports therapy thing still, right? And I heard you got some kind of internship at the UIC campus clinic?"
"Where did you hear that?"
"I have my sources." I could hear the grin in his voice. "So it's going well then? They paying you decent money, I guess."
And there it was. I had been waiting for it from the second I heard his voice, and it had taken him less than two minutes to get there. Benji had always been transparent about his begging, moving toward what he wanted like a compass finding north, convinced that his charm was enough to smooth over the path.
"I'm not giving you money, Benji." I told him. "I don't have any to give."
"I'm not asking for much, just twenty..."
"You're not listening to me!" I set the laptop aside in annoyance. "I have no money. Have you forgotten that I am a student intern? Not to mention that I am living alone in an apartment that I can barely afford, and I barely even have food in my fridge. I am telling you right now that whatever you need the money for, the answer is no."
"It's just a small thing, I'm in a bit of a situation right now and I thought..."
"You thought I'd help you, like I always do." I finished the sentence. "Like I have been doing since we were kids, Benji, because somebody had to."
I pushed off the counter and walked into the empty living room. "You were supposed to be my big brother after dad died, but instead I spent the next ten years watching you disappear whenever things got hard and reappear whenever you needed something. I built everything I have by myself. And what did you do when I got expelled? Tell me!"
Silence on the other end.
"So no," I finished. "I don't owe you anything. You owe me everything."
The silence stretched out for a few more seconds, before Benji let out an ugly laugh.
"You know what your problem is, Harmony?" His voice had lost all its warmth now. "You've always thought you were better than everyone around you. Always so righteous and perfect, and look where it got you. Expelled and starting over like a freshman. Maybe if you weren't so busy being the smartest person in every room, you'd actually have someone in your corner right now."
The call cut off, leaving me utterly stupefied. Then I pulled my arm back and flung the phone across the room. It hit the wall with a loud crack and clattered to the floor near the bookshelf.
I sank to my knees right there in the middle of the empty living room, and I screamed into my hands.