Back in college, I lived on campus in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment. The white paint had dried dripping in places, so the walls looked like they were eternally crying. I had three roommates, one of whom pronounced the word “blatant” horribly wrong, like “debutante,” as if she had a bad French accent.
I shared a room with another girl who loved flavored vodka and had this much older boyfriend she’d been with forever who visited on the weekends and bought groceries for her. He had a bumper sticker on the butt of his Jeep that said, “Honk if you love Jesus,” which put a lot of pressure on a person, such as if you didn’t honk, you loved Satan. He was also an avid writer of rather bad genre fiction, poorly described PI’s in long trench coats walking around and thinking a lot; she was always trying to get me to read it.
My third roommate had long, corn-colored hair, thin and curly like ramen noodles. She was very good at falling asleep. One morning I discovered her sleeping on top of her dresser, curled up like a cat.
I didn’t mind living with people, really. I liked the little noises they made in the morning as they stumbled around, brewing coffee, running the tap.
After a while, though, I discovered my three roommates had inadvertently synced up their periods without me, their uteruses communicating with one another, secretly establishing a creepy, physical bond of which I wasn’t a part.
Once a month I watched as the apartment pulsed with the powerful, crimson fervor of womanhood.
I live alone, now.
Photo Credit: pom.angers Flickr via Compfight cc
