QUARANTINE

What was supposed to be our heavenly sanctuary became a living hell, and Covid kept us confined to it.

The studio apartment was once homey, filled with childish dreams of love that was supposed to keep us together until we could afford a house to make a real home. Fresh out of college, we were two broke kids who only needed a bed, a functioning kitchen, and a working TV. In those early days, money didn’t mean anything. It didn’t matter who was making more or how we were spending it. We were happy. We were content. We were in love, but that didn’t pay the bills or get food on the table.

Our fragile daydream slowly cracked as reality set in. We both had to work more, picking up extra shifts and becoming more frugal when it came to where the dollars went. That was how the arguments started in the beginning.

I was hanging a leafy garland on our new bookshelf to give the place a more “natural” aesthetic when he walked in.

“You don’t need that,” he’d say. “We can survive without it.”

“So, we can cancel these subscriptions then,” I’d argue. “Because we can survive without them.”

That was how it went. Back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth, all so we could survive. If this was surviving, I didn’t want to do it anymore. We had sold anything of value, our home was near stripped bare except for some furniture, utensils, and clothes. All our earnings went into savings and poor investment choices, all for the dream of owning a house.

“We aren’t living!” I shouted one day.

He answered, “We’ll live in the future.”

The future sucked. So close, we were so close to reaching our financial goal to get the house of our dreams, but the world just had to shut down when it did. The lines at the grocery store became egregious, our jobs told us to stop coming in, and the government said to stay in your homes—this wasn’t a home. It was four walls and a roof over our heads that turned into a cage and drained our bank account.

The disagreements and arguments before turned into fighting. Vicious words would be exchanged, a type of lashing that only a lover could cause.

We stopped sharing the bed.

Thoughts of leaving were always a taunting notion my mind conjured, knowing damn well I couldn’t leave—nor could he. Where was a national or an orphan supposed to run off to when there was no family to run to for help?

At some point, he wouldn’t do the dishes or do his laundry or do anything that would keep our small space from clutter anymore. He knew, the bastard knew, how much it irked me. The sight, the smells, oh how it smelled of rancid socks and rotting veggies. The fragrant sprays and perfumes that I used only mingled with the odor, compounding and intensifying the new amalgamation. But I couldn’t clean all of this. I didn’t make the mess. I couldn’t be his housemaid anymore.

So, in pettiness, revenge, or whatever else you would like to call it, I cared little for his sensitive ears. I blasted the volume of my phone, playing Netflix shows while he glared over the pages of a book, because I kicked him off our remaining streaming sites some days ago.

For days, for weeks, this went on and on as the pandemic roared outside, officials advising it might be like this for several more months. Months. Months stuck with him till the housing market opened up again, and I could flee and be free of this place. Roaches were a better roommate than him at this point.

Maili Jackson hails from the bayous of Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found painting, drawing, or crafting away on odd little projects as her cat, Autumn, judges her for her life choices. Follow her on Instagram/TikTok @__owlette4eva___.