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“They think we’re roommates?” I hissed.

 

Riley looked at the house over his shoulder, miserable, and said, “Come on, Ben, it’s not what you think.”

 

It would’ve been physically impossible for my mouth to make all the words that leapt up and stuck in my throat like a ball of white hot rage; if I’d stood there for a hundred years I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but glare at him like a furious, choking cat– fortunately for that little rat, his mother stepped outside just at that moment with a huge smile and a southern accent and beckoned us in.

 

Obviously I contemplated throwing the metaphorical wrench and outing him to his mother, then turning and telling him off, too, and sitting petulantly in the car till he capitulated and took me home.

 

Instead, I forced my disbelieving features into a grimacing smile and told her she had a lovely home, at which point she beamed and hurried us in.

 

Riley gave me such a pitiful, grateful look that I almost wanted to slap him, but I satisfied myself with a withering glare.

 

I stepped over the threshold and my body revolted; I almost gagged at the stench.

 

The outside of the house and his mother's honey-haired, southern-housewife act had left me completely unprepared.

 

The front lawn was neat and green with tacky little flamingos planted in the black-mulched gardens. The front of the house was painted a light blue with white shutters.

 

But the inside…?

 

I resisted the urge to cover my face and retch, and shot Riley a horrified look: I wanted to grab him by the arm and run. His nostrils flared and his lips curled at the disgusting mess, but he didn’t seem surprised.

 

It was made of crumbling, dry shit: the shit had been molded into chairs and sofas, and piled up in the shape of pizza boxes, grocery bags, and moldy, unfrozen dinners. Black fuzzy tendrils grew in the seams where the walls met, like raised shadows of disease incarnate. There was a long crack in the yellowed ceiling that erupted black-mold like a deadly cancer.

 

Riley was talking to a yellow face that sat upon a heap of rank cloth that blended into the heaping garbage. The face was a cracked thing with yellow-gray teeth, yellow-red eyes, and white, thin hair; his father, I presumed. I couldn't make myself believe that the man was able extricate himself from the soiled armchair because he seemed fused with it.

 

But there was a ditch carved through the rotten cardboard and yellowing plastic bags which created  nearly invisible footpaths where the filth was thinnest. 

 

A rancid chill clenched and unclenched my body in waves when I realized I couldn't see the floor; I was standing in the mess. Black oil was leaking from a pizza box, trampled flat with a dozen yellow-tread footprints in the cardboard. 

 

His mother seemed unreal, separate from the mess, like a single white tooth in a rotten-mouth smile.

 

I started to shake, physically shake, at the sight of it all. I hadn’t even realized my hands were over my mouth until I removed them to wipe my watering eyes and gagged audibly at the redoubled noxious stench.

 

But Riley was not affected, or was better at pretending like he wasn’t affected.

 

The yellow face in the armchair asked about me in murmuring, angry grunts and Riley assured it we were just roommates. His mother laughed unconvincingly and confided in me, loudly, that Riley had never been good with people or made many friends, but she was glad to meet me.

 

She said it just like that, all together in a single breath, like she was trying to verbally hit Riley over the head and just as quickly stroke his hair.

 

I could only nod; if she thought it was strange that I was gagging and holding my nose, she didn’t say anything.

 

I doubt we were there for more than five minutes but it was agony. Riley’s dad started screaming at him and swearing at him, calling him a faggot and everything else.

 

Riley just said a pleasant goodbye and kissed his mom on the cheek. She chattered senselessly about how she wished he’d given her a heads up so she could tidy the house.

 

I forced a mangled goodbye with shallow breath, feeling the fumes of a million rotted things fill my lungs with hot, poisoned air, then bolted; my hand froze, hovering, shaking in horror, because the doorknob was coated with the same, oily brown shit as the rest of the house and I almost whimpered in fright– the house had won. It had eaten me.

 

But Riley calmly opened the door for me, putting his fingers directly on the filth, and I shot him a grateful, frightened look and tried not to run back to the car; he’d left the engine on. 

 

I coughed and shuddered as I buckled my seatbelt. My fingers were trembling. I couldn't tell you why it disturbed me so much, not exactly, but my mind was stuck on a single thought: 

 

You can't live like this, you can't live like this...

 

His mother waved goodbye as we pulled away.

 

I was never going to get the smell out of my nose. I was going to have nightmares about it.

 

We were silent as the car pulled down the street.

 

Riley rolled the windows down.

 

He was trying to smile, but it was painful to look at. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were red. He was breathing raggedly, like he was about to start ugly crying.

 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have pressured you. I’m sorry. I should've dropped it.”

 

I kept apologizing. I don't know if any of it reached him. I don't know if I even felt sorry, or if I was just ashamed, ashamed of myself and ashamed for him.

 

But he simply shrugged, refusing to look at me, smiling at the road and nodding each time I said sorry, and I wrapped myself in a tight ball, rocking back and forth in the passenger seat.