Two days ago, the neon-yellow flyer appeared in the slit of my front door, informing me of the raise in rent January first. Fourteen hundred dollars a month for four hundred square feet of subterranean hellscape in Southeast Portland.

If I lose my apartment, I will have to find housing in a city with a horrible housing crisis. And if I can’t find a new place to live…

The anxiety extrapolates and catastrophizes all the way to its natural conclusion: if I’m late for work again, my trash heap of a life will finally be put in the compactor and crushed into a cube of steaming hot garbage once and for all.

Why does Portland snow always insist on ruining my life?

The image creeps in. The girl with fire in her eyes and snow in her hair. Dancing on a bridge at midnight. The sound of her laugh in my ear and her breath on my throat and her hands—

But no. There’s no point in torturing myself with the memory of last Christmas.

I look down to check the time again just as my phone buzzes with an incoming call. The cracked screen on my iPhone 8 flashes with the name Linds along with a photo of a woman holding a two-gallon alcoholic beverage outside the Bellagio.

I briefly consider ignoring the call, but Catholic guilt, solidified in infancy, wins out. “Hey, Linds—”

“Did you Venmo me that money?” my mother starts as soon as the call connects. It’s abundantly clear that no, I did not Venmo her the money, or else Lindsey Oliver would have no reason to call me.

“Not yet.”

“Elena. Lovey. Baby girl.” Linds adopts her best mom voice—the one she probably learned from watching Nick at Nite reruns while stoned through the better part of the late nineties. Lindsey Oliver insists everyone, including her only child, calls her Linds, while she exclusively calls me Elena despite the fact that I’m Ellie, that I’ve always been an Ellie, that Elena fits me like a too-tight pair of jeans.

“I really need that money, sweetheart. It’s just two hundred dollars.” I can perfectly picture my mother’s pouting face on the other end of the line. Her dark brown hair, which she dyes a stark blond; the natural waves she straightens every morning; the pale skin she’s eradicated through numerous tanning salon punch cards; the high cheekbones she highlights through contouring.

I can picture her face because it’s my face, except I still have the curly brown hair Linds calls “frizzy” and the pale skin that makes me look “washed out.” If my mother isn’t asking me for money, she’s probably criticizing my appearance.

“I promise, this will be the last time I ask,” she insists.