damned if i do (damned if i don't)

The eviction notice arrives on a Tuesday, which somehow feels ruder than if it had arrived on a Monday. He stares at the email for several long seconds, half-hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something less catastrophic.

They don’t.

The property is being sold. Tenants are required to vacate within six weeks.

Thank you for your tenancy. Kind regards.

For a moment, he simply sits there. The office around him continues as normal. Phones keep ringing, the sound of keyboards clicking echoes around. By the break room, someone is laughing. Like nothing had happened.

The world refuses to acknowledge that his life has just become significantly more complicated.

He reads the email again. Then a third time. Six weeks, forty-two days. Not nearly enough time to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do. Where he and Aeri would go.

Rent had somehow become a luxury item in the last few years. Every listing they looked at was either wildly overpriced, actively infested, or appeared to have been photographed through a fisheye lens by someone attempting to conceal a murder scene.

Fuck.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

He closes the email then immediately reopens it, as if perhaps the landlord had emailed again in the last four seconds to say:

April Fools!

Except it’s May. Which unfortunately means the email remained exactly the same. For several more seconds he stares at the screen. Then he opens a calculator. Immediately closes it again. Whatever numbers he was about to attempt to calculate weren't going to improve the situation. They were broke. 

His phone buzzes. 

Aeri.

how’s work??

i’m totally failing stats btw

and i need you to know that if i fail i’m dropping out and starting an onlyfans. just fyiA laugh escapes him before he can stop it. At least one of them was still capable of functioning.

He types back.

you say this every exam season

because every exam season i’m right

also if i become an onlyfans girl you can totally quit your job

bcs let’s be real, i’m hot

so we’ll be rich

He stares at her messages, a smile threatens despite everything. She wasn’t wrong. And maybe that made it even funnier.

babe, as fun as the idea of being rich is, we both know you’re way too big of a baby to do that

excuse you???

you're acting like i wouldn't absolutely dominate onlyfans

i’d be like the n1 girl

says the girl that cries over pictures of cute dogs

just say ur heartless and go, damn

or maybe i’m just a functional adult

i hate u

Another message arrives almost immediately.

i love u

His smile fades. Not because of the message, but because suddenly all he can think about is the email sitting open on his monitor. The apartment, rent, Aeri’s scholarship. The finals she's been studying for since January. The fact she has absolutely no idea what landed in his inbox five minutes ago.

For a moment, he considers telling her. Then he pictures exactly what will happen. She’ll stop studying to spend every spare second scrolling apartment listings. She'll convince herself she's failing. She'll panic. And right now, panic is the last thing either of them can afford.

So instead he types:

i love you more

By the time he gets home that evening, Aeri is exactly where he expected her to be: at the dining table, surrounded by enough paper to qualify as a fire hazard, her glasses sat wonkily on her face. Textbooks, flashcards, and half-finished notes are strewn everywhere, flanked by three empty coffee cups and an energy drink that's probably bigger than her head. 

She doesn't even look up when he enters.

“Welcome home.”

“You didn't look.”

“It could only be you,’’ she replies, taking a swig from one of the many forms of caffeine in front of her. “Your footsteps are a certain kind of depressed, they’re distinctive.” 

He drops his keys onto the counter.  “You realise that makes absolutely no sense, don’t you?”

“I'm a statistics student.” She finally glances up from her laptop. “Everything I say is backed by evidence.” 

“Didn’t you once tell me Mercury was in retrograde?”

“That was different.”

“It was astronomy.”

“It was vibes, baby, you wouldn’t get it.”