I make both cups of noodles using the bottle of water, and wait fifteen minutes for them to soften up, then eat it cold. I sleep through the rest of the day, but at night it’s too loud. The walls have more holes in them than this raggedy blanket. I can hear things I shouldn’t. There’s a man in the room above me who sounds like he’s in the middle of a psychotic break and a woman next to me who is clearly stuck in a vindictive custody battle with her son’s father. In the middle of the night, I stir awake to the sound of the nightshift guy pushing inside the room. When I jump up, he claims he forgot I paid for three nights, but I see his erection as he apologizes and shuffles out. I get up because there’s no way I can go back to sleep now, and am determined to locate the shit smell. When I open the minuscule closet, I see that a dirty diaper has been left on one of the racks. I get back in bed and spend the rest of the night monitoring the room for roaches.

On Wednesday morning I check my phone and there are still no missed texts or calls from Nate. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to travel back to so many worse times in my life, hungrier, colder, sadder times, but the doom of the present keeps tumbling back to the front of my brain. I don’t know how I ended up so alone again, and I hate myself for ever getting comfortable, for ever thinking that things could be different, that I could somehow outwit the universe that’s clearly got an ax to grind with me. An orphan girl coupled up with the son of a football legend. How fucking silly. I don’t know how I ever got so tangled in the fantasy of it all. My thumb hovers over his name in my recent calls log. Before I can talk myself out of it, I put the call through. If he doesn’t answer, I won’t ever call him again. I get his voice mail after three rings and hang up.