All It Takes Read online

  Roth: Please disregard everything she has told you. She’s intoxicated.

  Autumn: Roth’s a lying liar that lies.

  Autumn: I’m finsa;sdfhina;

  I laugh and started typing out a reply to Autumn.

  Star: I’m sorry I missed it, darling.

  Star: You’ll have to save your womb for a more worthy opponent.

  Then I send one to Roth.

  Star: You need to be more aware of your surroundings.

  Star: Please make sure Autumn has lots of water and tell her to call me later.

  I really am sorry I’d missed it. I love going out with Autumn, but Roth was another animal all together. He’d been our RA last year, when I was a freshman at Climbfield College. So while we saw him all the time and eventually we became friends, we weren’t able to actually hang out with him all that much. There were rules he had to follow as an RA. The first and foremost of which was No Touching Your Charges. It’s hard to hang out with someone when you’re expressly forbidden from touching them. So getting to go out with him is new and is actually a lot more fun than I’d expected. He’s like the lovechild of a confused puppy and emotionless robot, so seeing him in any kind of social situation is nothing short of fabulous. It sucks that I slept through it.

  I’ve been going to sleep a lot earlier since I’ve gotten into town. Surprisingly early, really. I’m a college student. I’m used to late nights. But I’d been under a lot of stress lately, what with school and all. And that had been before I’d seen the state of my mother’s house.

  I let out a groan and flop back against the pillows, shifting around on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. Which is an impossible task, apparently. This isn’t the Ritz Carlton. This is a shitty B + B in the middle of nowhere, but it had been my only choice. I hadn’t had the car when I arrived. The car was my mother’s. I’d taken the bus into town.

  It is so strange. When I got into town, all I had was my duffel bag, and except for a few things I left with Autumn for the summer, that is pretty much everything I own, which is a pretty big departure from what my mother had built for herself.

  From what she’d buried herself under, my brain supplies, but I shake the thought off before it can fully take root.

  I don’t know if whatever causes people to start hoarding is genetic or learned or ingrained or what. All I know is that ever since I was nine and I was taken away from my mother, I’ve been doing everything I can to make sure I never ever end up like her.

  I sigh and press the palms of my hands against my face, blocking out the light that’s streaming through the dusty floral curtains.

  God, I don’t want to go back to the house. It is too much. I’ve been working on it for days, and I haven’t even made a dent.

  ***

  It takes me ages to get out of bed. Part of me wants to stop at the diner for a big breakfast, but I don’t want to risk seeing Lacey again. Not so soon. I know she saw me talking to Ash yesterday, and after the things she said about him, I can only imagine what she’d have to say about me talking to him, let alone trying to hire him. So instead of the diner, I just fill the biggest disposable cup I can find with coffee, and grab as many bagels as I can out of the basket that has been set out on the breakfast bar downstairs. I wrap them in napkins, shove them deep into my bag and hightail it out of there before the owner, the creepy Miss Josephine, catches me. I have no doubt that if she caught me in the act that she’d order me to put them back.

  Thoughts of Miss Josephine scolding me dance through my head as I drive across town to the house. She’d set her poodle on me. For sure. I smile as I turn down the tree-lined street and pull into the driveway. But as I do, something catches my eye, and my smile falls away.

  There’s a red car sitting at the curb.

  It’s Ash’s car.

  And he’s standing outside, leaning back against it, smoking a cigarette.

  I’m a little freaked out, but despite what my gut is telling me—to just shift the car into Reverse and pull back out and drive away—I let out a deep breath and turn off the car. I squeeze my eyes shut for a brief moment, shake off the discomfort and grab my bag from the passenger seat. I slide out of the car.

  “I didn’t think you were going to show,” I call out to Ash as I slam the car door behind me. I clutch the keys in my fingers, letting the metal bite into my palm as I make my way across the grass to where he’s standing. “You didn’t call.” He nods and takes a last puff of his cigarette before dropping it and putting it out with his shoe.

  “Yeah,” he says as I get close. “Sorry about that. My phone crapped out on me.” His pale eyes dart up to meet mine before dropping back to the ground. “Is the job still available?”

  I chew on my lip and glance over my shoulder at the house. From the outside, it looks almost normal. It’s run down, that’s for sure. It’s by far the most run down house on the block. But it doesn’t look bad from the outside. Just like it’s fallen into disrepair.

  He has no idea what he’s getting into.

  I turn back to him, and my heart stutters a bit. He’s looking up at me through his lashes. He looks so hopeful. So sad.

  Shit. Something inside me lurches. This is such a bad idea. “Look,” I say. “Here’s the thing. The house . . . it’s a mess. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m going to lay it out for you.”

  I let out a breath, and I want to kick myself. I’m shaking like a leaf. This is so stupid. It’s not my mess. Not really. I didn’t make it. It’s been thrust upon me to deal with. But still, I feel guilty somehow. Ashamed. Responsible. Like I’m going to be judged and that people are going to think badly of me for it.

  Is this what my mother felt, when she thought about her house? Her mess?

  Why is this so hard?

  “It can’t be that bad . . . ” Ash says, and it’s clear that he’s about to continue, so I cut him off before he can get another word out, because he has to know what he’s up against before he agrees to anything.

  “My mother was a hoarder.” The words spill out of me in a rush. “So picture the worst-case scenario that you can possibly think of waiting for you behind that front door, and then multiply it by a thousand, and you’ll start getting close to reality.” I pull in a deep breath and continue before he can say anything. “So if you don’t want to do this, that’s fine. Just tell me. No hard feelings. But I asked you because I need help, and if what happened at the diner is anything to go by, your job hunt isn’t going so well.”

  He looks at me for a moment, without saying anything, and I can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he processes what I’ve just told him. Then he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, even though it’s already about a million degrees outside, and takes a step forward.

  “I’m in.” He says. I raise my eyebrows at him, surprised.

  “Just like that?” I ask, because nothing in my life has been that easy. But he gives me a nod.

  “Just like that.”

  I regard him for a second, taking in his slumped posture and his ratty clothes. He’s doing about as well as I am, which isn’t good. Maybe together we can get a little bit better. Maybe.

  “Okay,” I say, and hold up the keys for him to see them. “Let me show you the house.”

  I make it all the way to the front door before my bravado fails me. The knowledge of what’s lurking behind that door weighs on my stomach like a ball of lead. I can’t believe I’m showing this to another human being. But what I said to him was as true as anything I’ve ever told anyone in my entire life. I need the help.

  I turn to him. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask.

  “Look,” he says, pulling his hands out of his pockets and scrubbing them over his face. He looks tired. Even more tired than I feel. That’s saying something. “You saw what happened at the diner. That’s just the t
ip of it. I don’t know if you know the story, but everyone around here does, so there’s no point in me trying to keep it a secret. I fucked up. I went to a party one night a couple towns over. I got high as fuck and I drove home. I killed a guy.” He stops there for a moment, like he’s waiting for me to respond, but I’ve already heard it from Lacey, so I stay silent and just nod, and he lets his breath out in a huff and continues. “Like I said, I fucked up. A guy died and I went to prison. I just got out, and no one will touch me with a fucking hundred-foot pole.

  “So yeah,” he says. “I’m sure. Right now five hundred a month and maybe someone to vouch for me at the end? That sounds pretty damn good.”

  “Are you sure?” The words are out of my mouth again before I can stop them, and I want to kick myself, I’m so embarrassed. I can already feel the heat flooding my face, but luckily a tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and he nods.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’m extremely fucking sure. What do you want from me? A fucking pinkie swear or something?” He actually swipes his hand against his jeans and lifts it to me, pinkie held out in my direction.

  I laugh, I can’t help it. It’s the wrong hand, the left one, so it’s a song and dance for me to juggle the keys and my bag, but I hold out my own left pinkie to him in response. We link them together and waggle them back and forth a bit before it gets awkward. Then we laugh and let go, our hands dropping back down to our sides.

  “Well, okay then,” I say, and slide the key into the lock. “I guess we have a deal. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?”

  Ash just smiles, and this time it’s a real one, teeth and everything. It’s a good look on him.

  “Got it.”

  Ash

  Star . . . was not kidding about the mess. This place is fucking ridiculous. Who the hell lives like this?

  I mean, yeah, my room was a pigsty growing up, but compared to this? Holy shit. No wonder this girl wants help. She needs help. Hell, she needs a freaking army to get this done.

  And all she has is me.

  That sucks.

  I think I actually feel worse for her than I do for myself right now, and that’s saying something.

  “So . . . ” I say, looking past her as she holds open the door to the house so I can see what I’m up against. “Where…where do we start?” Please let this girl have some kind of plan, because I’ve got nothing. I don’t even know where to start. There’s barely even enough of a path for me to get into the house. And the path that’s there seems to taper off into piles of stuff after less than a dozen feet. The piles inside are taller than I am.

  Star just kind of sighs and reaches inside the door. I’m half hoping that she’s reaching for a can of gasoline and a lighter, that her plan is just to burn the place to the ground. As much as it would violate my parole, I’m kind of tempted. Not really, but shit. This place is insane. How the hell did this end up on Star’s shoulders? Other than having a shitty car—which I’m starting to think isn’t actually her fault, and that it has something to do with this whole house situation—she seems like a pretty normal girl. She was nice enough to take a chance on me, and I am more than grateful for that, so whatever her plan is, I am in. But instead of pulling out a jerry can, she straightens back up with a couple boxes of garbage bags in her arms. They must have been tucked just inside the front door. They’d have to be, any farther in and they’d be lost forever in the hoard.

  Before she can ask, I reach out and gently take the boxes out of her arms.

  “Thanks,” she says, and reaches up to run her hands through her hair, shoving it back from her face. Then she sighs again. I’m getting the feeling she’s been kind of emotional lately, that she’s been bottling everything up inside and it just keeps escaping bit by bit in sighs and nervous laughter. “Look,” she says. “I don’t even think we’ll get to the house today. I think we need to start in the backyard.”

  The backyard? Ah fuck, is there more?

  “The backyard?” I ask, hoping I’m wrong. But she just kind of smiles at me, and the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  Crap. There’s more.

  ***

  The backyard is nearly as packed as the house is. It’s not stacked as high, but the entire lot is covered. And as far as I can tell, unlike inside the house, where every here and there I’d been able to pick something out visually that might actually be worth something, the backyard is just garbage. Garbage upon garbage upon garbage, as far as the eye can see. Somewhere, my neat freak of a mother is having a mental breakdown and she has no idea why.

  Suddenly the Dumpster out front makes so much sense. But as I look at the mess in front of me, and think back to the Dumpster, all I can think is it’s not going to fit.

  “Now you see my problem,” Star says, and I turn to look at her. She’s perched on the edge of the porch—which is, itself, covered in enough junk that I’m actually seriously worried that it’s going to give out under the weight and take her down with it. She takes a step down, moving toward me. “I know it’s a lot of work, and I won’t blame you if you hightail it out of here, but I can really use the help. I need to sell this place by the end of the summer, or I’m screwed.”

  She’s standing next to me just as I manage to swallow down my instinctive response of I hear arson can be fun, because as much as I can use the money she’s offering, this is . . . It’s too much. But as I turn to look at her, all I can see is the way her face is already falling, like she can tell what I want to say.

  I’m an asshole.

  I let out a breath and look around, trying to convince myself it’s not as bad as it looks. After a moment, I almost believe it. And I don’t know if it’s the look on her face or the fact that I need the money to live, but I find myself holding out my pinkie—first just like I did earlier.

  “Like I told you earlier, I’m in,” I say, and link my finger with hers.

  Her smile? Is fucking blinding.

  So I do the only thing I can. I shrug off my coat and get to work.

  Star

  I have to hand it to Ash; he is a hard worker. Like, he’s a really hard worker. Actually, that doesn’t even come close to covering it. The guy worked his ass off. And, mercifully, he didn’t complain once.

  I had seen the look on his face when he first saw the inside of the house. He’d been floored. And as we’d gone through the garbage in the backyard, I could tell just how disgusted he was. But he’d kept quiet about it. He just . . . worked. Picked up a box of garbage bags, asked me if there was anything he should keep an eye out for, and when I shook my head, he just pulled out a bag and shook it out. Then he started filling it up.

  After a few minutes, though, we realized that the garbage bag plan wasn’t the best one. The entire yard was littered with so much stuff, that it just wasn’t feasible to bag it all. So instead, after the first half-dozen bags, we switched methods and started hauling the big stuff into the Dumpster. Waterlogged boxes, huge piles of lawn furniture that had been left out so long it was all broken and faded by the weather. Christmas decorations, most of which were star-themed, which killed me a little bit, were dragged away and dumped. But bit by bit, the piles began to shrink. Hours later, when the sun is just starting to dip, I call it a day and we head inside to wash the worst of the grime off. And that’s an adventure in itself, because it’s not like the bathroom was miraculously spared from the hoard.

  Afterward, finally, we step out onto the porch together, and I close the front door behind us and slide the key into the lock.

  “Well,” he says, pulling his jacket back on even though it is still really warm outside. “Is it cool if I come back tomorrow?”

  I boggle at him. Is this guy serious? I was ready to just hand him a twenty and hope for the best.

  “Dude,” I say, so relieved I’m almost ready to cry. “Of course. You worked your butt off. Of course you can come
back.”

  “So I’ve got the job?” he asks, but I can already see the grin he’s trying to smother as it pulls at the side of his mouth. His eyes meet mine, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Oh, shut up,” I tell him. “You know you do.” And he honestly did. Between the two of us, we must have hauled three or four dozen bags of garbage to the curb, all of them stuffed full to the brim, and put even more than that into the Dumpster. There had just been so much stuff. It had been everywhere, all over the backyard. Bins and boxes, covered with tarps that weren’t doing anything to protect them from the elements. Nearly everything that my mother had stored out there had been destroyed by rain and dirt and god knows what else.

  It was heartbreaking. I don’t even know how long things have been like this. Had the stuff she’d been storing back there gotten to that state of disarray and decay while she was still alive? For all I know, it could have been out there for years.

  But, together, we’d managed to haul out a good chunk of it. Not a huge amount, not enough for the backyard to be even close to clear enough for me to use it as a sorting area, like my plan had been, but it was still a whole lot better than it had been before. And it was so much more than I could have done in one day on my own. Hell, to be honest, it was more than I could have done on my own in a week.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and pulls one of his hands out of the pocket and gives me a little wave. “Same time work for you?”

  “Are you kidding?” I ask. I know this guy’s been through some shit, but this is ridiculous. “Get in the car, Ash. I’m taking you for dinner.”

  “You . . . what?” He’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head. Possibly one that belonged to a lizard. “What are you talking about?”