I walk into my apartment, just wanting the warm cozy feeling it always gives me to be home.
I want to be surrounded by my own things, in my own space, with my friends, and no thoughts of what lies outside of these brick walls that encase us all here together.
I let the door swing shut behind me and I drop my bag down hard onto the cold floor.
I take in a deep breath, ready to be filled with that happy feeling, but all I smell is leftovers sitting in the sink and my own airport funk.
The cabs, the plane, the airports...it all blurred together. Like I was just a shell of a human, pushing through the fog to get back to the place that would make me feel like me again.
But I don't.
I look around the dark living room and over into the kitchen and I can tell I've missed some sort of party.
Cups still sit across every visible surface and the couch pillows and blankets are all thrown about the floor.
Leftover pizza boxes and Chinese food containers litter the counters and the trash beside the fridge is overflowing, something green and unidentifiable leaking down the side of it.
I can't stand this.
It isn't right.
I needed home to be what it was when I left, but it's all wrong.
I shrug out of my jacket, laying it on top of my bag and then begin walking through the living room and kitchen, flipping on all of the lights as I go.
I'm not even sure where to start at.
I go to the couch first, trying to fix the cushions and pillows back into place but I find a paper plate stuffed behind one of the cushions and then have to go to the kitchen to grab a trash bag out from under the sink.
But once I grand the bag, I look at all of the dishes already piled into the sink and I flip on the hot water, trying to get some of the food soaked off before I can wash those.
But when I reach to move some of the bowls out of the way, I remember the trash bag in my hand and I walk back to the living room to start grabbing the cups and trash from in there to toss into the bag.
But when I do that, I notice the crumbs everywhere.
So then I move back to the hallways closet to dig out the vacuum, searching for an unused plug to use.
"Jesus Christ." A man sighs behind me. "It's just Hayden."
Mark, Ella's man friend, or fiancé or whatever is standing in the hallway in his boxers looking at me like I'm an insane person when he's the one walking around the place in his undies like he lives here or something.
"This place is a wreck." I say, turning back to the task at hand, which is to find a damn plug in this freaking apartment.
"Hayden?" I hear Ella shout back to Mark, then I hear her rushing into the room.
"Hayden!" Gabby's voice shouts from her room before I hear her door swing open, banging against the wall. "Dude, what the fuck?"
"We thought someone had broken in." Mark says, his tone sounding annoyed.
Well, buddy, that makes two of us it seems.
"Yeah, right." I say over my shoulder, finally finding an empty outlet and plugging the vacuum cord in. "Like someone would just break in to clean?" I stand, turning the red switch on the vacuum and feeling it buzz to life in my hands. "If only there were such criminals out there. This place would be the first one they choose. So much for them to do with their dirty gotta clean now madman hands."
