Infestation

There’s an infestation in this quadplex. We are in 2-2, it’s coming from 1-1. I know but no one else seems to realize. When I visit my friend in 2-1 he says that family is wonderful. He’s been there many times and it’s clean. He plays football with the son outside (the son is on the JV team at our local high school), they play video games in the living room, they also loiter outside the bodega down the street. But he’s never seen under the son’s bed. He’s never in there. The people in 1-2 don’t talk to anyone. But every time I get close to 1-1 my skin crawls. My goosebumps raise and I don’t know why. But I can’t seem to resist the urge to check it out. I see the roaches scurry out from under the front door before it’s opened. No one seems to see them. The father is cold, but the mother is warm to me. She engages with me often. The son eats bugs for a living. I know that. No one else knows that. He tells me that when we hang out. We only hang out in his room since I don’t like the rest of their place. But every time I go back to my apartment I see the bugs on my pants. I see them on my sleeves and crawling on my neck. Sometimes I accidentally swallow one when I’m in class. The teacher asks me if I’m okay and I say yes, I’m not choking. The doctor checks me my scars and my parents fumigate the apartment but the bites don’t stop. They can’t figure out what these marks are. They’re cleaning the wrong place. I rebel and stop showering. I’m 6 now I don’t need to shower that’s girly. At 7 we move out of that place. I never see the son again. But the bites don’t stop. I wake up and slap my neck and arm and turn on the lights to find them. My siblings complain as I fumble in bed to find where they’ve scurried off to. I tear the room apart as my siblings cry and my parents come to check on the noise. My father strikes me and turns off the light. My siblings never got bit, my parents never saw them, so I toss and turn in bed every night so they avoid me. I’m in college now, the bites stopped forming. The irritation went away and I began to glow. My mom loves my smile. The girls begin to notice me. The boys begin to include me. But sometimes, just faintly, I can see them scurrying in the locker room. I see them in the hair of the women in my bed. I see them in the cups my professors had at their office. No one is talking about the bugs. And I don’t want to either. But I wonder: am I spreading them or were they always there? Are they attracted to me or am I too dumb to avoid them?