Hot Water

The weight sat on Megan’s chest as heavy as the words on her tongue. What was that saying about if you’re anxious you’re living in the future, but if you’re dealing with trauma you’re stuck in the past?

Maybe it wasn’t a saying, just something that she saw posted on some social media app. Not that she could go back and look. She had signed out and deleted every single one of them. As far as work went she could schedule her posts through whatever software was giving her a free trial and ignore what everyone else was posting.

Her imagination was active enough to keep her entertained — her shortly lived bout of PTSD enough to keep her permanently fixed on her toes.

But, she thought swallowing down the last of her coffee, she was past all that now. She returned her mug to the table and glanced at the clock. The cold film of caffeination coated her teeth. It was almost eight o’clock.

Whatever number refill that had been was from at least four hours ago. And that was being conservative. It almost tasted like someone had used it as an ashtray. Which given the buildings strict NO SMOKING, NO VAPING, NO ANYTHING policies made it impossible.

She shrugged. Letting as much as she could roll off her shoulders. As she stood tightness pulled in her back causing her to hung forward into a ball. She hobbled to the sink in her office, almost able to stand straight as she rinsed her cup.

It hadn’t been easy finding an office space with a dishwasher.

Nothing about this endeavor had been easy. She closed the door, ignoring the flash of buttons begging her to press them. There were at least two more mugs in the cupboard she could use before she would be okay running it. A full load, or no load.

It was economical to run it every night, no matter what the commercials said these days.

“Hogwash,” she muttered.

Megan turned and shuffled back to her desk. In the background the sky had officially become the bright, gemstone blue of a summery night. Too bad she had missed the day — the news had predicted a near perfect day. Mid-seventies, warm and sunny, with a kiss of a breeze. Maybe that was normal for some parts of the country, but not where she was from.

Summer weather typically meant sweat stains, frizzy hair, and a general attitude of annoyance as common as breathing.

She shrugged again, remembering how tight her back had gotten. Megan reached down and systematically closed out each of her open tabs, emails, and, lastly, her YouTube music playlist. She closed the light on her desk, followed by her laptop, and walked to the door. With a heaving sigh — one not strong enough to blow away those words still clinging to her tongue like the weight wrapped around her heart — she flipped the overhead switch.

Leaving the darkness behind her, Megan stepped out into the hall. She pressed her bare feet into the carpet, the industrial texture rough against her skin. Inhaling, Megan took a breath from her toes all the way through to her crown. Five, four, three, two, one. She exhaled, turned and stepped into her apartment.

The sun was gone, with it any hint of daylight. Megan glanced at the clock in her studio apartment.

“Ugh,” she scoffed. Somehow it was already a quarter to ten. “So much for a milkshake and book on tape.”

Bypassing her kitchen counter and solo barstool, Megan made her way into the bathroom. She hung her blazer on the back of the door and sprayed it down to be used again tomorrow. She had spilled on her pleated top, which she threw into her laundry bag that she kept tucked in the corner. Megan hadn’t bothered with pants today.

Her studio had originally been a small attic-like passage way for roof access. The building owner added the bathroom and designated a small space to serve as a kitchen before calling it an apartment. Technically he called it the Coop, and his kids called it the hovel. Either way, Megan had been calling it home — and the office — for a year. She didn’t have an oven, but who needed one when everything she ate came with microwave instructions.

The longest cook time she had come across was a burrito for fifteen minutes. After sleeping for almost 11 hours, Megan woke up to a very burnt tube. The instructions had been a minute fifteen for the microwave, two minutes for the air fryer, a minute and thirty for the toaster and ten minutes for the oven.

Sleep-deprived Megan under valued the importance, or existence, of a period. Tonight there would be no such issues.

Unless she fell asleep in the shower. She could.

She was exhausted.

For the past few days — she had stopped counting 63 action items ago — she had been running on coffee, bananas, chocolates, and leftover pieces of pizza. She squinted as she turned the water on, when had she ordered the pizza? She rolled her eyes and fought back a yawn. She was hoping for a good night’s sleep, one that would leave her rested for another early morning.

Stepping into the space, near-boiling water smattered her skin. Her elbow hit the side wall as her knee bumped the other one. For the first time since her last shower, Megan could breathe.

The steam worked its way into her pores loosening the weight chained around her. The words slid down the back of her throat as she moaned in pleasure. Her shower would stay like free-flowing lava for three minutes and then, like most of her prospects, it would turn to ice. Not just ice water, but if she let it run long enough she could swear the droplets felt more like hail than liquid droplets.

For two minutes and 13 seconds Megan enjoyed it. The deep cleansing as she liked to call it, washing away the doubt and negativity, the grime of ugly thoughts, and the looming threat of failure. She let it boil and evaporate, let it roll off of her in a way she couldn’t find how to replicate in the day time — or out of the shower.

In the silence following the rush of water, the dripping of a pipe from somewhere in the wall, she would relish in a heartbeat of peace. With each step toward an old piece of mural she repurposed to be the frame of her Murphy bed, she would feel the weight padding her feet, slipping over her fingertips as she worked the latches. Until finally it would snuggle up along side her under her well-worn sheets. There they would cuddle, whether she slept or not, until the morning, when somehow the weight would have settled back on her chest.

Those words, threatening to choke her, creeping back up her throat.