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“And just…like…that!” Vanessa announced, turning on the lamp by the couch, “We are, officially, moved in!” The bulb shed off slightly pink-tinged light, though at the push of a button, the whole room could be changed in tone to any hue on the rainbow.

“That’s great, V,” Nicole said, turning to stretch her back. “Really appreciate you plugging in the lamps while I moved the furniture.”

Vanessa put a hand to her chest, feigning offense. “Excuse me! Good interior design is what makes a house into a home. Sure, maybe you did more heavy lifting, but I provided that je ne sais quoi that we needed.”

Truth be told, Nicole agreed–now that everything was done, with the last easy chair moved in and all of Vanessa’s decorations complete, their shared rental house did feel like a place where they belonged. The move in process had been a drag, starting a couple weeks earlier with mattresses flopped on the floor, working evenings and weekends to drive over what they could in Vanessa’s tiny car and trading beer for use of a friend’s truck on weekends for the big stuff.

But now they were done. They could relax, and take the night off.

Except…

“One more thing,” Nicole said, sipping wine out of her favorite cup–an old novelty mug that read, ‘Don’t Worry, Pea Happy’ with a trio of cartoon peas in a pod printed on it. “The junk box.”

“Right, right.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. While moving in, they’d been left with little bits of random crap–stuff that they didn’t quite want to throw away, but nor did they need it around. Christmas decorations that’d been stored under the bathroom sink, old cables and adapters that probably didn’t go to anything, a box of home movies from the previous tenant that Nicole felt bad getting rid of. They had set aside a cardboard box, slowly filling it with crap until it was full to bursting. “We can stick it in the attic for now.”

Stepping up to her, Nicole poked a finger into Vanessa’s chest. “You can set it in the attic for now. I’m done lifting boxes for the day–heck, I’m just about ready for bed.”

“Fiiine,” Vanessa groaned, more in play than in serious discomfort. Sidestepping the couch, she crouched, hefted the box, and carried it from the living room down the back hall–on the right of the hall was her room, on the left Nicole’s, and at the end, their bathroom. Above, though, dangled a rope for attic access.

Fumbling with the box, propping it up on her knee so she wouldn’t have to set it down, Vanessa half-hopped to grab the string and pulled it down. She stepped back as a wooden staircase flopped towards her, snapping into place so fast it almost bonked her head.

“Jeez,” she said. “Okay, note to self, springs on this are broken.”

Scooting up the creaky stairs one step at a time, she made her way into the crawlspace, an area just high enough for her to stand if she was right in the middle and stooped just a touch. She set down the box, glancing around.

Half a dozen cases were already up here. They hadn’t needed any attic storage yet, so this was all from the last resident–a lot of junk, probably, but still, a trove of things to dig through.

“Huh. More stuff up here than I expected,” she said. “Hey Nicole! Someone left a bunch of garbage up here!”

“Sounds like a problem for tomorrow!” Nicole yelled back. “I’m done moving boxes!”

“Sure, sure,” Vanessa said, setting down the jumbled junk she’d carried up.

Curiosity overtook her, and she opened up the first box she saw, digging through it. It looked like stuff from someone’s kid–at the top, a highschool yearbook, but as she pulled it out, she saw beneath it journals, and then a diary with a heart shaped lock, and then a handmade scrapbook. Digging further, she found an old dry-erase potty training chart.

This box held the history of someone’s life, which could be interesting, but the potty training chart was what spread a smirk across Vanessa’s face.

It had two weeks listed on it, one over the other, with three columns for each calendar day. One row had a bed, another had a clock face, and one with a star symbol next to it. The first two, for tracking nighttime and daytime accidents, were pretty obvious. The third, though, Vanessa couldn’t guess the purpose, beyond maybe just special rewards.

That’s when they caught her eye–the markers stuck to the side of the board by a magnet. Smirking mischievously, Vanessa took the chart with her when she left the attic, hopping down the old fold-out stairs and closing it up behind her.

She glanced down the hall–Nicole was on the couch, not paying attention, so Vanessa uncapped the black marker and wrote in the name box at the top, in big, flowy letters, surrounded by sparkles and hearts.

Nicole

Then, with an artistic, cutesy flourish, she doodled a rain cloud in the top column for Monday, the one for tracking any accidents from the previous night’s sleep. A wet bed indicator if ever there was one.

Finally, using the adhesive strip on the back of the chart, she stuck it to Nicole’s bedroom door.

“Oh, Nicole,” she said in her sing-songiest voice. “I added one more decoration!”

Nicole looked up, curious and prepared for a dumb joke. Getting up, she walked over, glancing at the chart on her door. “What’s that?”

“A potty training chart, so you can stop having accidents!” Vanessa snickered. “I found it upstairs and thought it’d help you!”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I don’t have accidents.”

“Are you sure? The chart says you wet the bed,” Vanessa said, pointing to the rain cloud.

“Yeah, it says that for tonight, which hasn’t even happened yet!” Nicole shook her head.

Snickering, Vanessa quipped, “Well then, maybe take an umbrella to bed, because the forecast is for a wet one!”

“Very funny, Vanessa.” Nicole opened her door, and though her expression was deadpan, Vanessa knew she didn’t mind the joke. “I’m going to bed, I’ve got work in the morning.”

“Don’t let the bed bugs drown,” Vanessa replied.

Nicole shut the door in her face, and before long, Vanessa went to be too.

The next morning, though, Vanessa woke up to a shout from her across-the-hall neighbor. Nicole, screaming, “What the fuck?”